Tuesday, Mar 8 2011 10:17PM
Rural communities in Colorado continue to lose residents to urban areas.
A once-thriving Colorado town is slowly vanishing, as more residents than ever are leaving the rural community for urban areas, reported The Republic.
The town of Hugo, located in eastern Colorado's high plains, has lost 17 percent of its population in the past decade, shrinking to 730 residents. A similar trend can be seen in rural communities across the state, according to the newspaper, which said 17 of the state's 64 counties have lost a considerable number of residents since 2000.
"The reality is that it's not a lack of 10-megabite Internet service that leads people to leave the country. It's jobs, opportunity, coffee shops and bookstores — everything about living and working in a city," state Senator Greg Brophy, who grew up on the Eastern plains, told the paper.
Hugo residents told the paper that a lack of employment opportunities, quality affordable housing and recreational activities have driven younger generations away. However, as people leave, the town becomes even more economically unstable, making it tougher to initiate rural community development projects that could make the area more appealing.
Many heartland states are facing the same problem. Census data shows that while Kansas' population increased by about 6 percent between 2000 and 2010, the growth was limited to urban and suburban areas.