2005 Rural Partners Forum
Remarks by Billy Ray Hall, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation
Let me just tell you first of all, on behalf of the Rural Center, we are so glad you are here. How many people are here from a town under ten thousand in North Carolina? [show of hands] Over the last few years, the Rural Center has been focusing on providing assistance to small towns. We've been in your town, we've seen some of you celebrating great events, opening manufacturing facilities, opening incubators. We've also seen you close some manufacturing facilities and close some incubators so we've been there in the good times and the bad times. We've been there whenever people were talking about what they were going to do to help you and we have also been there whenever you told us it didn't materialize. Over the last 20 years, we have been putting together programs in infrastructure, workforce development, leadership training, working with business development and small businesses and we've been there providing support to you. And so, we have learned a great deal about you by direct experience. Second, we've been watching national and state events that moved across North Carolina in different ways. We certainly watched as the economy picked up speed and changed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, and we watched with Jeff and others as we wrung our hands as those manufacturing businesses we worked so hard to get here, left. We were also here when 16 natural disasters struck North Carolina over the last few years, putting13 billion dollars worth of damage on our state that really impacted our small towns across the state. So it's within this context that we've decided it is time to pause - while we're reading in the newspaper about the possible end of small towns, that small towns are just drying up - to focus on the other side: the great places that small towns are, the resources they have, and the great place they are to raise our families.
From that basis, we decided that the way we would look at small towns is the way the Rural Center approaches all its projects. First, we try to get a little smarter about small towns because, after all, if you are going to stand in front of Representative Tolson and other legislators, you want to be able to make a strong case on behalf of small town North Carolina. Our research office put together the data for the fact book that you all have been give, or will be given following this session. Just remember everything I'm about to tell you is in this book so you don't have to take any notes, which is a good thing. Besides getting the numbers and looking at the Census and other things, we went across the state and sat down with many of you in focus groups, 21 focus groups, and we listened to what you said about North Carolina. We also put it in this book. It's with that background, that we pushed forward with the Small Towns Initiative, the small town effort that we are about to unfold.
We are going to go through some wonderfully exciting numbers and you are going to be wondering when I am going to stop for at least a pause. First of all, everybody wants a definition. We define small towns as having a population of 10,000 and under. When you look across North Carolina, where are they? What do we know about those small towns that are 10,000 and under? First, we know where they are because they are incorporated by the General Assembly. You look at this map, there are a lot of dots up there - 547. Now for those of you that are geography buffs or study the river basins of North Carolina, what you can almost imagine is the rivers and the creeks running through the state, and you know how those towns are built along those rivers and creeks. [One of my favorite sayings is why it's important for a small town to treat its waste - because the next small town is going to drink it.] North Carolina is a state of small towns. As I said, it has 547 municipalities: 478 are under 10,000, 437 are under 5,000, 237 under 1,000. Over 900,000 people live inside the incorporated limits of those small towns under 10,000. This is an important point to note. They are spread all over the state, they reflect the history of our state. Go back in time and think about how we came about as a state and how we grew those across counties. Think about how many towns are in your county -you can see the dark blue is where we have between 11 and 19 municipalities in a county. The map shows you there are three counties where there are no incorporated municipalities, although they do have county seats. They are Hyde, Perquimans and Currituck counties. The smaller towns are spread across the state. Over time, we've watched those small towns grow up, and we've watched them grow up in different ways. About 80 percent of all municipalities are in the 85 rural counties, and we are paying attention to what's happening to them as they play their role in the rural economy. Ninety-two percent of our rural communities have less than 10,000 people - half of our communities have less than 1,000 people. If you look over time, you can see the blips in what was happening. The first town incorporated was Bath in 1705. Then we incorporated a few more towns. Then we hit the 1800s post Civil War period, and we started incorporating as industrialization took place, and we built on it. And agriculture reached a certain movement in terms of building commercial centers across the state. We were rapidly increasing our municipalities, then we slowed down in the early 1900s, and you can watch what happened through to last third of the 20th century. Towards the end of the century, we started seeing incorporations because communities wanted to avoid being sucked into larger communities nearby. We've got a part of the book that describes that history and some of the changes that occurred across the state.
When you think about small towns and what people are saying about them, it's important to think about the important resources that we find spread across those small towns. You say to state leaders and others, it's important to invest in small town North Carolina. Why? Because they have important resources, $83 billion worth of assessed value that's out there to build on and develop, so that small communities hold great wealth. In the report, we talk about the resources and the per capita income of many of our communities, and the wealth that is held within those communities. What do we know about the people who are living in those small towns? Many towns are experiencing population loss. We know this and many of you that are small town mayors or managers are addressing that issue right now. Municipalities losing population - over 40 percent of those under 1,000, over 20 percent between 1,000 and 5,000, over 10 percent of the towns between 5,000 and 10,000 are losing population. None of the communities over 10,000 experienced net loss of population between 1970 and 2000. In fact, 132 small towns lost population. Our smallest towns, especially those under 5,000, were the ones that suffered the most. Now the good news on the other side is that two-thirds of our municipalities gained population. Between 1990 and 2000, most towns added both population and land area.
Small town residents are likely to be native born. It's an important thing for people moving in, and remember one million people moved in between 1990 and 2000. Only about 400,000 people were added during that decade from natural increase; the remainder came from somewhere else. It's interesting to look at the spread of native born North Carolinians. If you are a community under 5,000, nearly 70 percent of your residents were born in this state. They sound like me a little bit when they talk. The other folks sound a little different. {Referring to the map} In towns with 5,000 to 10,000 people: over 60 percent are native born; in towns with 10,000 to 50,000 people: 60 percent are native born; and in towns with over 50,000 people: just over 50 are native born. Says a lot about doing things in small towns, because the people born there have one perspective, oftentimes the people moving in have different perspectives.
Small town residents tend to be older and have limited education. One of the things I learned in the 1970s when I went to work with the state was the term "brain drain." That's when our young people we have worked so hard to get educated, leave. This is the focus that we have as we look across North Carolina at the population. We notice the number of people who are older in the small towns, meaning our young people, potentially, have left. The point is that among towns under 10,000 - over 17percent of them are over age 65. That brings certain problems, certain issues and certain opportunities in terms of health care, housing and other issues.
Educational attainment. We're midstream in the development of the knowledge economy. So as we go out to compete and bring in jobs to North Carolina, it's on the top of our education system our education that we want to build those jobs. Notice among communities that have 10,000 or more people, how many college graduates they have. Notice the dark area for the towns under 10,000, where we tend to have less educated and less trained folks. I didn't say less "quality" folks. I said less education and credentialed folks.
Our small towns' racial and ethnic composition is interesting to note. How many small towns would you guess have a majority minority population in this state? Seventy-six towns. Sixty-eight of them are under 10,000. Some areas, like Durham, have a majority minority population. Sixteen of our towns have no racial majority, which means all of them make up less than half of the population. Many of these towns with majority minority populations are under 5,000.
Let's think about our mayors and managers. They are the ones that have to address the local resource base and the demands of their community. Look at the areas that have 25 percent or more poverty in their communities. Seventy-three towns and cities have poverty rates over 25 percent; 63 of those high poverty towns have populations less than 5,000. Many of them are located in eastern North Carolina.
Most small town residents travel to other places to work. Only about 25 percent of small town residents who went to work this morning stayed inside that town. The rest of them drove out of town into the surrounding county, or to another county, or to another state.
Next point. In small towns with fewer than 500 people, only 15 percent have a manager or administrator; in towns with 500-1,000 people, just over 30 percent have a manager/administrator. You have to get to 5,000 and above before every community has enough resources to hire a professional manager. When they put their program and their budget together in these small towns, how much do they automatically have to spend on just running the government and providing public safety for the community? If you have less than 1,000 people, 40 percent of the communities are spending over half of their budget on general government and public safety. The number moves down as you move up to 5,000, up to 10,000 and higher.
What do our small town leaders have to say about small town needs? I mentioned to you that we had 21 focus groups. When we talked to those small town leaders in focus groups (and some of you sat in those groups) they talked about their assets [We began by looking at assets rather than opening the conversation with the problems that exist.] "People who live here want to stay here." Among the other assets they identified - the good, hard-working, friendly, talented people; the beautiful natural resources; commitment to place; the quality of life that a small town has to offer; the richness of history and culture.
Now we shift gears to the problems they face. First, leaders said they struggle to find a balance between the small town character that they want to preserve and economic development. Oftentimes they see economic development as a threat to character. They also talked about the need to make investments in both physical and social infrastructure to be able to pursue that economic development. When people come in to advise they say you must have this and this in place. Changes take time and resources. This is a point they have made over and over. It involves risk - you want to promote the redevelopment of downtown areas and some people like it just the way it is. It involves challenging some of the assumptions that are made about economic development by some local people. It requires overcoming resistance. Oftentimes people said at the meeting, " I'm the mayor, the town administrator, budget officer, finance officer, I do everything" which is another way of saying, "If I don't do it, it doesn't get done." This is true for lots of our small towns - 200 of them less than 5,000, don't have management ability available to them. Being an effective mayor is a full-time job.
What are some other challenges that are pushing us on small towns? Local officials said that that they enjoy public service, but federal and state mandates keep showing up in the mail without a lot of checks to go along with them. They want to plan for the future and attract new resources, but must meet the immediate needs. It's hard to talk about building a new wastewater treatment system when the one you have is backing up into homes. They also have to go through the minefield of local politics, powerful families, clashes between traditional views and new views. Rural folks told us in these meetings it was all right to quote them - in Raleigh there is a tendency to sugarcoat it - but they acknowledged that there is still racism and nepotism in our communities. It's not politically correct to speak about, it but we have it. Our economy could be a lot better if it was open to more people being involved. One individual went on to say that "money is green - it does not matter what color the hand is that holds it" - a strong statement. That told us that old money is still a reckoning force; if an idea is not from the old school, then it is tough to deal with.
Challenges of working together: Small town leaders recognize the tension between their government and a lot of the community organizations that were born to argue with them about their government. Small town leaders cited the good old boy network, newcomers versus native divisions, enduring issues of race, gender, locality and turf. Leaders look to replace competition with collaboration. We call everything economic development. In fact one person called "economic development the worst cliche since outside the box." Creating jobs is important to rural areas. Leaders agree that whatever economic development is, very little is occurring in their community - whatever you define it as, we don't have much of it. Many rely on external organizations for economic development. Generally they focus on industrial recruitment.
Many small towns lack a vision for the future but they know they need one. We need money, liveable wages, jobs, small and large businesses, strategic planning and transportation. We need a vision because without a vision we can not utilize all the benefits of our county. I hope this is beginning to ring true to you because this is what we are building our small town initiative on top of.
Critical needs: infrastructure - a $7 billion water and sewer issue in the next five years - somebody's going to have to deal with it. We are going to have to address transportation, information technology and other infrastructure needs. Housing is a major issue. We are going to have to find creative ways to provide affordable housing across small towns. As importantly, we have to find a way to keep people employed. Those who are losing those manufacturing jobs do not have the education for the new jobs that are coming. We also have to think about planning and growth management - a lot of our small towns who are fortunate are growing rapidly.
Leadership and collaboration: a wish list, technical assistance not bosses, people who will come in and help you address how to build your local economy. Increase authority and flexibility, expansion of infrastructure programs, new approaches to commercial and industrial recruitment and seeding local efforts and initiatives. This is the message they want us to take the General Assembly and to other groups.
[Closing quotation from Wendell Berry] "Without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice."
