Rural Texas is dying.
I keep hearing some version of that statement as Texas debates data centers, economic development and the future of our rural communities.
And frankly, I am tired of it.
Rural Texas has challenges. Some communities are losing population. Schools are fighting for enrollment. Healthcare can be difficult to access. Housing is a problem in many towns. Small businesses struggle to find employees. I’ve written about all of this.
But rural Texas is not dying.
And we are certainly not some problem waiting for Austin to come fix.
Recently, Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian has been on the stump saying “Rural Texas IS dying,” pointing to population losses across rural counties. His answer includes welcoming data centers that he says can bring billions in investment, jobs and economic prosperity to communities that “desperately need it” and creating a “commission” to study our “decay.”
This narrative about rural Texas bothers me.
Sure, most rural communities are dealing with population decline, but that can’t be the only metric by which to judge us. Calling rural Texas “dying” reduces hundreds of very different communities to a statistic — and then uses that statistic to justify somebody else’s idea of what we need.
Life in rural Texas has changed dramatically over the last several generations. Agriculture has become more efficient. One farmer can work land that once required several families and hired hands. Technology is better. Families are smaller. Retail has consolidated. Young Texans leave for college and careers.
But a town doesn’t have to double in size to be healthy. Maybe success means having enough children to sustain the school, enough customers to support local businesses, enough workers to provide essential services and enough opportunity that young people who want to stay can build a life there.
That isn’t decay. That’s viability.
And there is something else that gets lost in all this talk about rural decline: a lot of us actually like living this way.
We like knowing our neighbors. We like small schools where people know our kids. We like open spaces, locally owned businesses and communities where people still show up when somebody needs help. We don’t necessarily want to become the next booming suburb, and growth for the sake of growth isn’t automatically success.
We want our communities to be strong enough that the people who choose this way of life can continue to live it.
And people all over rural Texas are working on that every day.
Since I’ve been back in the Panhandle, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work these folks -- chambers of commerce, economic development corporations, and county and city officials – all are doing amazing work to make their communities places where their neighbors can live, work and play.
They are building housing, figuring out childcare, helping businesses expand, keeping Main Street stores open and recruiting industries that fit their communities and create good jobs.
They aren’t sitting around waiting for Austin to rescue them.
That’s why I am bothered by the idea that the answer to rural Texas is simply finding somebody willing to announce another billion-dollar investment.
There is a difference between investment in rural Texas and investment that benefits rural Texans.
A project can carry an enormous price tag because the equipment inside it costs billions. That doesn’t necessarily mean billions of dollars will circulate through the local economy.
Before we declare data centers the answer to rural decline, let’s ask some basic questions. How many permanent jobs will they create? How many families will those jobs support? How much business will they generate locally? And what resources will the project require in return?
Those aren’t anti-growth questions. They are economic-development questions.
Good rural economic development isn’t about chasing the biggest capital-investment number. It is about building an economy capable of sustaining a community.
That might mean a manufacturer employing 40 people, expanding an agricultural business, supporting new ag technology, training plumbers and mechanics or building houses so families can actually move to town.
And yes, in the right place and under the right circumstances, it might even be a data center.
But the starting question should be what does this community need? Not what can we put there?
If state leaders really want to understand what rural Texas needs, there is an easy way to find out.
Ask us.
Before creating another commission to study rural decline or prescribing another economic-development solution from Austin, put rural economic-development professionals, county judges, school leaders, business owners, farmers and young families around a table.
Ask what’s working. Ask what’s getting in their way. Ask why families leave and why others choose to stay.
The answers will probably be boring and they won’t make headlines. They will involve housing, workforce, healthcare, childcare, infrastructure, education, access to capital and giving communities the tools to shape their own futures.
There are rural Texas communities facing serious challenges. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help them.
But neither does declaring rural Texas a dying place that needs to be saved.
Rural Texas is not monolithic. It is a collection of communities with different economies, resources, challenges and ideas about their futures.
Rural Texas does not need Austin to rescue it. It needs Austin to listen to it.
And if our state leaders really want to have that conversation, I’ll gladly help put some people around the table.
They’ve been doing the work for years.
Suzanne Bellsnyder is editor and publisher of the Hansford County Reporter-Statesman and Sherman County Gazette. A former Capitol staffer with decades of experience in Texas politics and policy, she now focuses on how state decisions shape rural life through her newspapers, including the Texas Rural Reporter. Subscribe at www.TexasRuralReporter.Substack.com