Rural Texas is generally not a place where we look for advice, but perhaps it should be.
A recent commentary in The Amarillo Globe-News caught our eye because the problems it describes sound so similar to the ones we find in rural Virginia. The writer bemoans the population exodus from rural counties as the economy finds more and more reasons to create jobs in metro areas and fewer reasons to create them in rural communities.
âThat rural exodus has come at a cost,â the writer says. âAs people have moved away to the urban areas, the lifeblood of many smaller Texas communities has been eroded. Fewer residents mean a shrinking tax base to pay for roads, schools, law enforcement, first responders, and sometimes even the local hospital or community college.