Urban flight

Before I moved to McCook in 1994, I was a resident of Capitol Hill in Denver. It was 24-hour, round-the-clock excitement. I was within walking distance of the State Capitol, a short hop from the University and I only had to cross the street and walk through a park to get to the 16th Street Mall. The food, the arts, and the nightlife were great. I was still in my twenties, had no family and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to be a young bachelor.

If that all sounds a bit too perfect, it was. Like most American cities, Denver had suffered from an epidemic of “crack” cocaine in the latter 1980s. Crack was the cheaper, smokeable, and adulterated version of the more expensive powdered cocaine that propelled Wall Street and Hollywood during the 1970s. It was also a favorite focus for gang activity. In the early 1990s, Denver was experiencing a resurgence of the crack trade, but with a more violent twist.

It didn’t happen all at once, but over time, Capitol Hill began to feel less safe. Our not yet gentrified area found itself on the margins of what many in the city called “World War Crack,” and at night, the periodic gunshots could be heard creeping nearer.

It began when cars in the parking lot I used were being robbed of handbags, music CDs, and any other pilferable, pawnable goods. We soon learned that it was better to leave a car empty and unlocked than to wake up to broken glass in the morning. Then a neighbor of mine had a vehicle stolen from that same parking lot, and soon after that, I learned that a woman in my building had been sexually assaulted. Residents on Pennsylvania Avenue, one block east of me, were putting a neighborhood watch together, and the more tranquil Governor’s Park and Washington Park neighborhoods were reportedly doing the same.

I think what made it all unravel for me was an article in the Westword Newspaper that told the story of a young couple who owned a very hip, downtown retail store. One evening, they closed their shop and began the short walk home when they realized that they were being followed. Assailants forced their way into the couple’s home, killed the husband, and raped the wife–all for the day’s receipts and a bit of jewelry.

It was then that I felt my first taste of fear. I didn’t feel safe anymore and had no reason to believe that things in that area were going to get better. I had a strong, well-earned dislike for suburbs, so I started to look for a way to move out of the city entirely.

The foothills looked good. I had spent time in Evergreen and Morrison and was actively looking for a place to rent when business took me on a trip to rural Nebraska. I was immediately enamored with the historic downtowns, brick streets, low cost of living and most important to me at the time, a low crime rate.

From there, my story moves pretty fast. I moved a business to McCook, married a girl from Oberlin and here we are, but it’s important to note that in addition to being drawn to all of the wonderful things our area has to offer, I was driven by fear. I came to McCook as a matter of genuine urban flight.

From my limited perspective, I viewed McCook as a green-field opportunity. Given my experiences, I surmised that it was only a matter of time before thousands discovered McCook and rural America as I had and they would be beating a path to our doorways.

Well, I needn’t tell you the rest. McCook’s population in 1994 was 7,798. In 2000 it jumped slightly to 8,037. In 2010 we had fallen to 7,715, and in 2020, we were down to 7,387. My predictions were less than accurate and it wasn’t long before I fully understood the issue. McCook is a great place to live, but earning a living isn’t always easy.

Even against that challenging backdrop, Southwest Nebraska persevered. I had the honor of working with some truly amazing people in the 2000s who saw future growth in our area as a part of a “Silicon Prairie.” They were instrumental in bringing fiber connectivity and broadband capacity to the area with hopes that families could take advantage of our safety and lower cost of living by telecommuting.

They practiced what they preached. The organization employed remote workers throughout the country and was using video conferencing on a daily basis decades before the term “Zoom call” became a part of our language. Although that company made a valiant effort and invested heavily in Mccook, the population numbers remained flat. It’s impossible to calculate what may have happened if they did not make those investments, but retention is a part of the game that shouldn’t be underestimated and competitive connectivity is a part of that equation.

So why the personal stories? I am reminded of both of those experiences this week by a couple of ongoing situations. First, as I view the newest batch of migrants massing at the border, I try to remember that some portion of those individuals are seeking genuine political asylum. Those people are not my enemies. They are taking big risks to escape hopeless situations, and we have always tried to make room for people in distress.

On the other hand, I am not so enamored of the non-refugees and solely economic migrants who breach our borders illegally; nor do I have the slightest inkling of what runs through the minds of our elected officials (on both sides of the aisle) who refuse to either protect the border or streamline our immigration process. Some migrants from the most recent wave will find Southwest Nebraska, and I hope that we will welcome those who came here to escape failed governments and situations exponentially worse than any concerns I had in Denver. As for the rest, we need to figure out an answer soon.

I’m also seeing signs of urban flight in the news. Propelled in part by progressive attitudes toward law enforcement, I am noticing that the issue of civic safety has crept into political campaigns in a way that I haven’t seen since I was a kid in Washington DC. Between crime figures and post-covid attitudes toward telecommuting, we are actually seeing glimpses of an exodus from many major cities.

A recent article in “The Hill” claims that two million people have fled our largest cities in recent years. Los Angeles alone lost 300,000 people between 2020 and 2022. That’s about 3% of the population. Chicago lost 3% as well, but Kings County, New York (aka Brooklyn) lost 5% and New York County (Manhattan) lost 6%.

Those are all serious trends, but sadly, McCook has yet to feel the incoming surge. My predictions from so long ago remain undeniably incorrect, but there is a larger trend to be watched. As the world population continues to grow, I am confident that McCook will grow with it. I don’t know that it will happen within my lifetime, but the good people at the McCook EDC are working to build community capacity so that when the time comes, we will be ready.

For now, I appreciate what we have. We live in a safe and mostly affordable city that somehow manages to remain relatively clean and functional without being overregulated. That’s no small task and one that we should all be proud of. People will want to move here, as they should. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if we could add a few Asian restaurants.