We had plenty of advance warning. We knew this setback was coming. But we were unable to avoid it because the forces behind it were beyond our control or we weren’t willing do what it takes to deter it.
I’m not talking about COVID-19 and its delta variant either.
What I’m talking about is the official Census Bureau headcount for 2020, confirming that Leflore County has lost more than 12% of its population during the past decade.
The drop is not a surprise. Every estimate the Census Bureau has done since the bleak census in 2010 indicated the bleeding had not stopped.
One modest bright spot, though, in the figures released this past week was that Greenwood’s loss came in at 4.7%. That was about half of what the estimates had projected.
Most of us love this county and this city. We either have roots here that go back to our childhood, or we have become deeply invested in it as transplants. We tell ourselves and our family and friends who live elsewhere that Greenwood is the jewel of the Delta. We’re proud of it, and we want it to prosper.
But something is wrong when more people pack up and leave every year than move here.
Leflore County, of course, is not alone in this struggle. Depending on how you define the Delta, this county is falling into the same pattern as the rest of the region.
Of the 10 “core” Delta counties, all but tiny Issaquena County lost at least 9% of their population since the 2010 census. The average drop for the group was 13.2%.
Even though the population loss is widespread, that doesn’t make it any less of a concern, and arguably the biggest one this community faces.
Population declines are bad for everyone. Commerce suffers, investments dry up, wages are depressed, critical services such as health care become hard to maintain. The tax burden rises as the standard of living falls, prompting more folks to look elsewhere. It becomes a vicious cycle, as evidenced by the population losses that have been going on since at least the 1940s.
Most of the factors causing the depopulation of the Delta are beyond anyone’s control.
The majority of young adults, especially those who earn college degrees, are gravitating to larger cities because they want the urban lifestyle. Birmingham and Nashville have become favorite destinations of Delta expatriates.
The Delta economy has also gone through a major transformation. Although farming remains a bedrock part of it, the money it produces goes through a lot fewer hands, as the forces of mechanization and more recent technology improvements have reduced how many people it takes to plant and harvest a crop.
Manufacturing softened the blow from the agricultural job losses for a while, but globalization greatly reduced the number of factories here, especially those that required limited job skills.
Some have touted tourism as a possible savior. That’s doubtful. Tourism is a lagniappe, providing some economic benefit and fun to a community, but it pays modest wages and few fringe benefits for those employed in the industry. It’s not a magnet for job seekers willing to relocate. Coahoma County has gone all-in on tourism, and it’s showing one of the highest population drops in the region at more than 18% since 2010.
People will relocate for higher-skilled manufacturing and higher-paid service jobs, such as in health care, but a community has to provide the amenities they want for themselves and their families.
Good schools are the most fundamental amenity desired, preferably with a public option as part of the mix. It’s no coincidence that the Delta’s population losses have coincided with white flight from the public schools and their overall decline in quality.
Since 2000 alone, the white population in Leflore County has fallen by a stunning 42%.
The Black leadership in this community might not be alarmed about that. It is, after all, insulting to Blacks to hear whites say they are not comfortable sending their children to predominately black schools when Blacks well remember what they went through, or what their parents went through, when they desegregated all-white schools.
It is in their own interest, though, for Black leaders to get beyond that, since the exodus of whites is being accompanied by a significant exodus of Blacks, too. The Black population in Leflore County has fallen by 9% each of the past two decades.
Maybe school resegregation has gone on too long and too far for it to be reversed. But if we can’t figure out a way to accomplish that, a decade from now we will be lamenting another double-digit decline in population.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 to tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
