Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America

Two sociologists reveal how small towns in Middle America are exporting their most precious resource—young people—and share what can be done to save these dwindling communities

In 2001, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the rural brain drain and the exodus of young people from America’s countryside. They met and followed working-class “stayers”; ambitious and college-bound “achievers”; “seekers,” who he...