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Jim Mone/AP
Palace Theater, Luverne, Minn.
Palace Theater, Luverne, Minn.
Small Minnesota Town Tries to Purchase Population
July 25, 2008 10:18 AM
by
Anne Szustek
A farming town in southwestern Minnesota is paying people to move there, hoping to rejuvenate the local economy. But can rural America be resuscitated?
30-Second Summary
Luverne, Minn., a county seat with a population of about 4,000, has clean air, safe parks and new development. In fact, the agricultural town is so confident that people will fall in love with its charms that it is offering $2,000 per member of a family that buys one of 15 city-owned lots and builds a new home there.
On top of that initial payout, a package developed by the Luverne Chamber of Commerce offers new residents free haircuts, champagne and swimming lessons.
Luverne resident Jill Wolf left town after high school. But, as she told CBS affiliate WCCO, “After … experiencing more of the city life, I decided that small towns are really a great place to live.” Wolf is now the city’s economic development director.
Decades ago, the rural United States was upheld as the ideal blend of bootstrap capitalism and clean living. But, unlike Wolf, many young residents who leave their small towns have not returned. For family farms and businesses, this means fewer customers and fewer helpers.
Big-box retailers and corporate-run agriculture haven’t helped matters. A 1997 study conducted by Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone suggested that towns lost nearly half their retail trade within a decade after Wal-Mart entered the market. And Nebraska’s North Platte Bulletin decried the potential entry of factory farms into the area. “It’s not the way small towns in the upper Midwest were built and definitely not the way small towns will survive.”
See WCCO coverage
On top of that initial payout, a package developed by the Luverne Chamber of Commerce offers new residents free haircuts, champagne and swimming lessons.
Luverne resident Jill Wolf left town after high school. But, as she told CBS affiliate WCCO, “After … experiencing more of the city life, I decided that small towns are really a great place to live.” Wolf is now the city’s economic development director.
Decades ago, the rural United States was upheld as the ideal blend of bootstrap capitalism and clean living. But, unlike Wolf, many young residents who leave their small towns have not returned. For family farms and businesses, this means fewer customers and fewer helpers.
Big-box retailers and corporate-run agriculture haven’t helped matters. A 1997 study conducted by Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone suggested that towns lost nearly half their retail trade within a decade after Wal-Mart entered the market. And Nebraska’s North Platte Bulletin decried the potential entry of factory farms into the area. “It’s not the way small towns in the upper Midwest were built and definitely not the way small towns will survive.”
See WCCO coverage
Headline Link: ‘Minn. Town Offers Cash Just To Live There’
“Now that I’m an adult, I kind of like it,” Luverne economic director Jill Wolf says about small-town life. “I know if [my son] ever gets in trouble, somebody will let me know about it.”
Source: Minneapolis-St. Paul CBS affiliate WCCO
Reaction: ‘Local Economy Needs More Market, not Marketing’
The Madville Times, a blog based out of nearby Lake Herman, S.D., mused about Luverne’s efforts to attract residents in May 2006. “As much as we revel in identifying the weak production elements … we have yet to see anything in Luverne’s marketing campaign that makes us want to leap off the couch, pull up stakes, and move to Luverne (or even go have dinner there).”
Source: The Madville Times
Opinion & Analysis: Small town America
A visit to her family’s hometown of Newark, N.Y., led Atlantic Monthly’s Megan McArdle to reflect on how the aging of the baby boomers will affect America. Largely devoid of children running in the streets—the local middle school was converted into an assisted-living facility—the town is emblematic of the country’s aging population as a whole. Projections show that by 2030 some 20 percent of Americans will be 60 years of age or older.
Source: Atlantic Monthly
Writer and small-town resident James Howard Kunstler said in BusinessWeek, “Our gigantic metroplex cities will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated.”
Source: BusinessWeek
The North Platte Bulletin, a paper based in the Nebraska town of the same name, laments the effects of corporate farming on smaller communities, particularly the failure in the state legislature to pass a ban on large-scale farms. “It’s not the way small towns in the upper Midwest were built and definitely not the way small towns will survive. … Ownership of assets matters, and we’re going to lose control of the most precious asset rural America has—land.”
Source: North Platte Bulletin
Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone showed in a 1997 paper published for the Farm Foundation that some small towns lost nearly half of their retail trade volume within 10 years of Wal-Mart moving into the market. He points out that smaller businesses can adapt and flourish despite the presence of big-box retailers, however.
Source: Iowa State University [PDF document]
Related Topic: Bachelormania in Herman, Minn.
In 1994, Herman, Minn., some 185 miles to the north of Luverne, gained international media attention when the town’s economic developer Dan Ellison noticed that the ratio of unmarried men in the 400-person farming community far outweighed the number of single women. The story was picked up by Fargo, N.D., and Twin Cities-area media, and in turn by the international press. Soon some 1,500 women from all over America and from seven other countries swarmed the town in search of bachelors. About six of the men got married to women who visited during “Bachelormania.”
Source: The Web site of Herman, Minn.
Herman’s Bachelormania inspired an indie documentary, “Herman, MN.” The movie is available from Herman, Minn.-based retailer Farm Stuff, Inc.
Source: Farm Stuff, Inc.
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
