Brain gain, way back when

Check out today’s story from David Sommerstein, NCPR’s contribution to a series on the upstate “brain drain.”

Listening this morning, I was reminded of my own arrival in the north country from NYC…in 1971. I wasn’t the only “urban transplant” to choose this region in the ’70s. Some of us stayed, some returned to home cities or other locales.

Here are two (unscientific) observations I’ve made over the years: often,  young people leave their birthplace to explore other environments (it works in both directions–I left a city to move to a farm, my son left the farm to live in Tokyo and NYC); and, of those “urban transplants” who did stay here, most have added immeasurably to the economic and cultural life of the region. “Back-to-the-landers” didn’t stay hidden away on remote farms (it turned out to be a hard way to support growing families)–they became teachers, local government leaders, directors of nonprofits, small business owners, full-on farmers, and so forth.

As long as there’s a gain, the drain is manageable. And, as one of the young people remarks in David’s piece–sometimes kids who are raised here travel or relocate for a while, and then return to build a life where they were born.

We are a society in flux. And we move in all directions.