Pennsylvania Leads the Way in Promoting Agriculture.

[Ken]

We regularly hold weddings at our church there (and presumably all the other plain people do, too).

What I objected to was creating playgrounds for rich people to host expensive weddings, which would (obviously) be serving out-of-towners. That kind of thing hollows out and destroys a community.

So it wasn't the closing of the New Holland plant that hollowed out and destroyed Belleville. It was this place? https://brookmerewine.com/

RNOC has a wedding venue on the edge of town. The church that meets there is the second largest in our network. There are three others within 10 miles that, combined, nearly equal that size. If Belleville is "hollowed out and destroyed" why do 900+ people go to church there? That's actually up 15% from the 2007 data that I have at hand. Not counting the Amish, Beachy, and other Anabaptist population.

Yet the county is still aging and in population decline. Especially in the past 12 years or so: https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people ... 1980-01-01

[ohio jones]

Ken provided a list of businesses that he said provided manufacturing jobs.

I suppose it's possible to read it that way, but the context does not support it.

[RZehr]

How are the small towns east of you in eastern Oregon doing? Most are aging and in decline. Reversing that is going to take a lot of creativity and effort. Towns are not only going to have to make themselves more attractive to their own young people. They will need to attract new blood from outside. And immigrants are some of the best people to do that. Visit any thriving rural community in the US and I expect you will find immigrants. Even the most remote outposts like Dutch Harbor Alaska in the far Aleutians is packed with immigrants seeking opportunity. When I worked up there a decade or two ago I probably heard 10 different languages spoken. They are what made our country great before. And if we want to "Make America Great Again" we will need their help doing that too.

I think the towns in eastern Oregon that are around me are suffering from acute housing shortages, and are growing rapidly, not declining.

Here are the numbers for the three most populous counties in Oregon, the three of which are basically Portland.
Multnomah County, which is Oregons most populous county, declined -3.2% last year.
Washington County -0.3%
Clackamas County 0.4%

Compared to three Central Oregon Counties of Jefferson, Crook, and Deschutes which have been Oregons fastest growing counties.
Jefferson +3.9%
Crook +8.9%
Deschutes +5.2%

*numbers are from Wikipedia

[Ken]

How are the small towns east of you in eastern Oregon doing? Most are aging and in decline. Reversing that is going to take a lot of creativity and effort. Towns are not only going to have to make themselves more attractive to their own young people. They will need to attract new blood from outside. And immigrants are some of the best people to do that. Visit any thriving rural community in the US and I expect you will find immigrants. Even the most remote outposts like Dutch Harbor Alaska in the far Aleutians is packed with immigrants seeking opportunity. When I worked up there a decade or two ago I probably heard 10 different languages spoken. They are what made our country great before. And if we want to "Make America Great Again" we will need their help doing that too.

I think the towns in eastern Oregon that are around me are suffering from acute housing shortages, and are growing rapidly, not declining.

Here are the numbers for the three most populous counties in Oregon, the three of which are basically Portland.
Multnomah County, which is Oregons most populous county, declined -3.2% last year.
Washington County -0.3%
Clackamas County 0.4%

Compared to three Central Oregon Counties of Jefferson, Crook, and Deschutes which have been Oregons fastest growing counties.
Jefferson +3.9%
Crook +8.9%
Deschutes +5.2%

*numbers are from Wikipedia

I'm talking about rural eastern Oregon. Like say John Day or Burns.

Not Central Oregon which is getting all the retirees and becoming unaffordable because it refuses to build enough housing (or allow it to be built). The stretch from Redmond down to Bend isn't rural anymore. It is fast becoming suburbia.

I think the Portland folks are moving up here to Clark County. Because this place is growing like crazy. Construction everywhere.

Oregon has its own issues which could be the subject of a whole different thread. One of the reasons why we don't live there anymore.

[ken_sylvania]

Ken provided a list of businesses that he said provided manufacturing jobs. Not one of which did.

I said nothing of the kind.
I didn't say any of them were manufacturing jobs, although I implied that some of them are, as well as implying that most of them are not nursing home jobs.
Peight's Welding probably does some manufacturing, so a job there would seem to count as a manufacturing job.

Peight's Store is this Menno run general store. There is usually a couple of young Menno girls working the cash register and deli counter but that's all the jobs they provide: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AGEnccrcXM6UtV9L6

I have never in my life seen a store where the only jobs were to run the cash register and deli counter.

Paul B Hardware is this local hardware and farm supply: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TiW5jarBozU9tzd17

A job at Paul B Hardware isn't a nursing home job. And Paul B has a reputation of providing good jobs, not just minimum wage stuff.

[Josh]

As I pointed out earlier, the guy who is from Haiti who moved to Belleville opened a tyre shop. Ken, are you going to keep banging on your drum about the only way forward is to flood towns with immigrants who somehow mysteriously can open businesses and create jobs?

[Ken]

As I pointed out earlier, the guy who is from Haiti who moved to Belleville opened a tyre shop. Ken, are you going to keep banging on your drum about the only way forward is to flood towns with immigrants who somehow mysteriously can open businesses and create jobs?

I have said no such thing. What I have said is that if small towns (and Belleville is just one of thousands) want to thrive and provide opportunities for their young. Then they need to be more creative and open to innovation. The factory jobs, mining jobs, logging jobs, fishing jobs, and traditional farming jobs of generations past aren't coming back.

But it all goes hand-in-hand. The factors that will make a community attractive to its own young people are also what will attract new people to the area who might be young people from places like Philadelphia (what the article was about) or immigrants from places like Somalia and Guatemala. And conversely, a place that is unfriendly to outsiders is going to drive away its own youth as well and eventually wither up and die. People have choices.

We used to understand that when this country was young. Communities sought out newcomers. It is what made this country great. Too many of us have forgotten it. Not just in rural towns but everywhere. Nothing I saw will change anything in the slightest. But it is what I observe.

[Josh]

I have said no such thing. What I have said is that if small towns (and Belleville is just one of thousands) want to thrive and provide opportunities for their young.

First of all, you make an assumption that a place like Belleville is somehow not "thriving". From my perspective, it is indeed thriving. I have not noticed an excess of young people in our churches there moving away - in fact, because enough don't move away, there is now a second church in McVeytown.

Then they need to be more creative and open to innovation. The factory jobs, mining jobs, logging jobs, fishing jobs, and traditional farming jobs of generations past aren't coming back.

Belleville is a notoriously plain and Amish-populated area. They don't need to be "creative" or "open to innovation" and yet seem to have no trouble thriving. They do just fine with both traditional farming and other types of businesses.

But it all goes hand-in-hand. The factors that will make a community attractive to its own young people are also what will attract new people to the area who might be young people from places like Philadelphia (what the article was about) or immigrants from places like Somalia and Guatemala.

Is there some reason Belleville needs to "attract" people from Somalia or Guatemala? Those people seem to prefer to go to giant cities.

We used to understand that when this country was young. Communities sought out newcomers. It is what made this country great. Too many of us have forgotten it. Not just in rural towns but everywhere. Nothing I saw will change anything in the slightest. But it is what I observe.

No, that's not how this country was settled. Communities generally were settled by a single ethnic group that ended up predominating. In your universe, every town in America should apparently be populated by Somalians and Guatemalans, which is a strange vision to be sure.

[Ken]

I have said no such thing. What I have said is that if small towns (and Belleville is just one of thousands) want to thrive and provide opportunities for their young.

First of all, you make an assumption that a place like Belleville is somehow not "thriving". From my perspective, it is indeed thriving. I have not noticed an excess of young people in our churches there moving away - in fact, because enough don't move away, there is now a second church in McVeytown

It's not really doing that great.

The poverty rate in Mifflin County is 15.1% which puts in in the worst 20% of counties in Pennsylvania in terms of poverty rate, well above both the statewide and national averages of about 12%.

The per capita income in Mifflin County is $28,979 which is 42% lower than the statewide average of $41,234 and national average of $41,261.

And the population of the area is, indeed shrinking as young people move away to find work elsewhere.

Which makes it pretty similar to a lot of rural towns frankly. Belleville is by no means unique. If you think there are booming opportunities in Belleville, here's a big home and storefront business you can buy right on Main Street for $170,000. Looks like a steal for a thriving town: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3827 ... 6495_zpid/

[Ernie]

All of my family who aren't actively dairy farming have left the area as have their children. Because there is nothing to do. Unless you want to live there and commute long distances to jobs elsewhere.

Everything I hear coming from Belleville is that there are lots of jobs and barely enough people to do them. The Plain people stay, and the not-so-plain people are the ones who concluded there is "nothing to do".
"Nothing to do" is determined by the values of the surrounding society.
Society in general views manual labor and menial tasks as something to escape rather than something to pursue.

What are these "lots of jobs?" Nursing home work and home health care at near minimum wage? Plain people don't stay either. They are constantly seeking out colonies or opportunities elsewhere to send their younger generations because if you have 8 kids, only one can really inherit the family farm.

Others have tried to give you examples if you are willing to consider them and the many others that are not listed.

There are many sawmills, woodworking companies, etc, that provide people with good wages. There is a lot of construction happening in the valley. An acquaintance just started a profitable and popular restaurant. People drive to Belleville for many products and many products are shipped out.

The Plain people who are leaving the valley want more space. They like rural living and there isn't enough land in Big Valley for everyone.
Most non-Plain people wanting professional jobs will probably need to look elsewhere. But that is not because they couldn't make a good living in the valley. They just want to live a different lifestyle with different values.