Rural County at a Fork in the Road

I spent Friday in Carroll County, Indiana, a rural county that is midway between West Lafayette, Kokomo and Logansport. The county of 20,000 lies about 65 miles north of Indianapolis and 130 miles south of Chicago, just off of I 65 which links those two major Midwest cities. It is well located with lots of potential.

But it has suffered from a loss of manufacturing jobs in the past several years. And, it’s major industrial company is Indiana Packers, a pork processing plant with ¼ of the jobs in the county. Half of the people in the county commute out to jobs in the surrounding area. The county runs the risk of settling for being a “bedroom community”, which as I’ve shown in my book and in past posts is a loser’s game. Counties like Carroll County run the risk of becoming a community that is “aging in place” and not having the opportunities for their young people to return home. I’ve seen it in too many towns.

But Carroll County is taking steps to make sure that they don’t end up on that road to ruin. They conducted an intensive visioning process last summer, identifying 7 areas of concern with task forces assigned in each area. Janet Ayres, a professor in the Ag Econ Department at Purdue, lives in the county and conducts these visioning exercises all over the state. She’s seen how other towns have done and is helping to implement at home.

Some observations from my visit are:

• Recruit entrepreneurial students and start-ups at Purdue, 20 minutes away.

• Promote more widely their wireless broadband county-wide telephone service.

• Recruit in common vendors to Indiana Packers and Tyson Foods, with a similar pork processing plant in Logansport.

Carroll County is typical of lots of rural communities. They are at a fork in the road and have to make some key decisions for their betterment and future.