Are our smaller towns declining, too?

 

The fertility rate in any developed nation needs to be 2.1 (meaning that every woman has to produce at least two children - more in a less developed nation with poorer medical and support infrastructure), in order to keep population size stable.  For the past few decades, fertility rates have been tumbling in all developed countries, without exception.  For some, such as South Korea, they're so low (currently 0.9) as to ensure effective depopulation within a century, unless something is done to reverse the situation.  (The US is currently at 1.7.)  Migration is supposed to help bolster the fertility rate by bringing in more people, but it seldom works that way.

Greece is currently seeing the effects of its low fertility rate in the collapse of many of its rural areas.

Greece is home to one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe: At 1.3, it is half that recorded in 1950 and well below the 2.1 required for population replacement.

Last year, the country recorded just over 71,400 births, the lowest number since records began almost a century ago, and down around 6% on 2022. Greece now has around one birth for every two deaths, and the share of the population aged over 65 is nearly twice that aged 0 to 14.

That prompted Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to warn of an “existential” threat to Greek society, with the country more disposed than most to wider demographic shifts afflicting developed nations.

“The truth is that today our people are among the most elderly in Europe,” Mitsotakis said last year, speaking at a Greek demographic conference.

It’s an issue affecting some pockets of the Greek mainland and its vast archipelago more than others.

“This population decline is not manifested equally throughout the country,” Mitsotakis continued. “It has peaks in specific areas and this means that national strategies are not sufficient and local provisions are also needed, with the overall demographic collapse literally becoming an existential bet for our future.”

That decline is most visible through the emergence of scores of ghost towns and villages — locations with none or virtually nil inhabitants, deserted as local populations leave or die out. It can be difficult to quantify the exact number of such locations, given their often remote nature, but recent estimates put the figure of entirely abandoned towns and villages close to 200.

. . .

Greece’s recent demographic decline can be largely traced back to the country’s sovereign debt crisis of 2009. Resultant bailout programs sparked years of austerity and financial woe for the country, with the economy contracting by as much as a quarter over the ensuing decade.

Young people were among the hardest hit by the downturn, with youth unemployment peaking at 59.5% in the first quarter of 2013 — more than twice the national high of around 27%.

As a result, many were unable to forge new lives outside of their family homes. Of those who did, many did so overseas, with an estimated more than 400,000 people — or 9% of the workforce — emigrating over the period. Much of the remainder relocated to Greece’s big cities, in search of better work and education.

Today, more than half (53.5%) of the Greek population lives in the capital, Athens, and the surrounding Attiki region, as well as the country’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki. Meanwhile, all other regions, including Greece’s prized islands, have recorded population decline over the past several years.

There's more at the link.

We're seeing something similar in parts of the USA, too.  Many towns have shuttered their schools, or drastically reduced them in size, because not enough children are being born to make full use of them.  Older children who leave to study at college or university aren't coming back to small towns, but are staying in larger cities where there are more jobs and amenities to be found.  In the area of North Texas where I live, that's alleviated because smaller towns often serve as dormitory communities for larger metropolitan areas, but even so, there are probably two towns in decline for every one that's holding its own, population-wise.

I'm interested to find out whether this phenomenon is affecting the USA as a whole.  Dear readers, would you please let us know in Comments whether the small towns near you are thriving, holding position, or declining?  That can apply to economics, population, or other issues.  By putting your inputs together, we can get a better picture.

Thanks!

Peter