{"id":5867,"date":"2012-04-23T07:33:42","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T11:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=5867"},"modified":"2012-04-26T09:07:38","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:07:38","slug":"talking-straight-about-the-exodus-of-young-people-from-the-north-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/04\/23\/talking-straight-about-the-exodus-of-young-people-from-the-north-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking straight about the exodus of young people from the North Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Kids like Becca Johnson, from Rossie, New York, are leaving their small town worlds behind and choosing a much more urban life (Photo: Mark Scarlett)<\/p><\/div>\n

Today NCPR launches an on-going series where we’ll be digging into all the complex questions that surround the issue of “brain drain” and the flight of young people and families from the North Country.<\/p>\n

This has emerged as one of the most serious and contentious issues in our region.\u00a0 The issue drew national headlines<\/a> earlier this month when Cornell University pointed to the loss of young people from Hamilton County in the Adirondacks.<\/p>\n

The projections by Cornell’s Program on Applied Demographics also show the number of 30- to 39-year-old residents in the Adirondacks’ Hamilton County decreasing by mid-century to 160, down from 426 in 2010.<\/p>\n

The number of 20- to 29-year-old residents will slip to 128 by 2040, down from 354 counted during the last census, according to the researchers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The cause of this exodus has become a political football.\u00a0 Some local leaders in the Adirondack Park have pointed to environmental regulations and state land ownership as the culprit.<\/p>\n

Some green advocates, meanwhile, have maintained that there’s no significant issue at all, suggesting that the greying of communities might not trigger serious impacts.<\/p>\n

In this series, we’ll try to sort through the claims and get at the facts, to the degree possible.<\/p>\n

Let me start this discussion by asking not for your opinion about the loss of young families from our region, but for your actual experience.<\/p>\n

If you’re a parent, have you seen your kids move away?\u00a0 Does your neighborhood look greyer than it did twenty years ago?\u00a0 How about your church?\u00a0 Is your volunteer fire squad having a tough time finding young recruits?<\/p>\n

How about school teachers?\u00a0 Are your class sizes dwindling?\u00a0 What are the trends for your school district in terms of enrollment?<\/p>\n

I’d love to hear from folks chiming in inside the Adirondack blue line, and from In Boxers outside the Park.\u00a0 And I urge you all to check out this morning’s profile of Becca Johnson, a St. Lawrence County native who works now in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Her personal journey — and the experience of her family — I hope puts a human face on what is often seen as a political or statistical issue.<\/p>\n

Comments welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today NCPR launches an on-going series where we’ll be digging into all the complex questions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6752,10,6754,6753],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}