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Comment by syedkarim | Hacker News Reader

Will rural America see a population implosion, as boomers die? A relatively small number of young people stay in rural America after graduating high school and virtually none return after college.

This is just from my observation of central Illinois; I’m assuming it’s the same all over.

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Yes, and then the ones who are left will complain about it. Some guy right here on HN was moaning about the state mandate that his unincorporated area build a few new houses. The town has a population of about 1000 people and the median age is 67. Sixty-seven years! Likely half those people will be dead in 10 years. If you have a community where you don't build housing, so all your young people are forced to move away, then that community will suddenly die.

Median age very dramatically even between rural counties. Many counties in the rural southwest have a median age less than 37, probably due to a large number of immigrants [1]. For example, much of California - rural or urban - is very young (Even if the wealth is concentrated in the hands of older people). It's the same for Western Texas.

So their fate with respect to population decline is probably different than rural parts of Central Illinois or rural parts of the East and Midwest.

1. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/20...

I get the sense that there kept alive one government benefit check at a time.

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