For the last several years, officials here have tried desperately to attract new residents to Greene County, a sea of corn and bean fields about 60 miles from Des Moines. They brought in a Hy-Vee supermarket, a career academy, a high-tech workspace, and a second bank. A glitzy casino anchors one side of the highway, a brand-new high school is on the other.
Nothing worked. The population kept dropping.
Greene County — like much of rural America — is sinking into a demographic hole, down from more than 15,500 residents after World War II to an estimated 8,717 last year, with the population now falling by about 100 every year. Factories have dozens of job openings, schools have closed, and villages are crumbling. Deaths have outpaced births for so long that the hospital stopped delivering babies.
In a series of public meetings that started last month, the community has been weighing how to stop the decline, and this mostly White, mostly Republican stronghold has concluded that the only way to grow is to recruit Latino residents.
“It’s the only game in town,” consultant Carlos Argüello said at one presentation. “I’m sorry to tell it to you that way. But it’s true.”
Latinos are the largest minority group in Iowa, and one of the fastest growing, projected to more than double to 407,000 residents over the next 30 years. The White population, in contrast, has declined in almost every rural county, according to an analysis of census estimates by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the situation is dire. But the question is whether a county that voted for President Donald Trump and former congressman Steve King, both Republicans who denigrated Latin American immigrants, can welcome Latinos and their families, and whether those families will be willing to come to Greene County.
“In rural Iowa, people are moving to the city. If you do nothing, you’re going to die,” said soon-to-retire schools Superintendent Tim Christensen, who has had to close several schools during his 15-year tenure. “There’s no guarantee that this is going to work. But the writing’s on the wall if you don’t try.”
The story of Greene County is the story of much of rural America, where falling birthrates, an aging population and an exodus of young people to the cities have depleted the population, said demographer Ken Johnson, a professor at the University of New Hampshire.
“It’s peaceful,” said county Sheriff Jack Williams. “It’s a good place to raise your kids.”
It became clear two years ago, however, that the county’s future was in jeopardy when New Way Trucks, a garbage-truck manufacturer and one of a half-dozen major employers, located 150 new jobs to Booneville, Miss., because they could not find workers in Greene County.
Stunned, Ken Paxton, executive director of the Greene County Development Corporation, a nonprofit that promotes growth, huddled with board president Sid Jones, a longtime banker, and board member Douglas Burns, co-owner of the local newspaper, the Jefferson Herald. Burns connected them to Argüello, an immigrant from Nicaragua whose mother, Lorena Lopez, is founder and editor of the area’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, La Prensa de Iowa.
Together, they assembled the “diversity project,” named “Nueva Vida en Greene County,” or New Life in Greene County.
The corporation hired Argüello, 37, who moved from California to rural Iowa in middle school, and it decided to apply for a $500,000 federal grant that would be used to recruit new Latino workers and residents.
Organizers said they plan to advertise Greene County to Latinos on social media, radio, television and billboards, and employers will arrange for vans to bring in workers as soon as this summer. Civic leaders are planning educational activities to integrate the community, with classes about soccer, language, and arts and culture, and they also are exploring ways to fix the area’s acute housing shortage.
Employers, the city of Jefferson and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) have endorsed the plan. The county Board of Supervisors voted 3-to-2 in favor; one member expressed concern about the project’s cost, another said private businesses should create more housing to attract workers.
“We’ve got to do something different,” said Gary Vance, chief operations officer at Bauer Built Manufacturing, which makes agricultural machinery. He said at the town hall meeting in the village of Paton that he has as many as 60 job openings paying $19 to $24 an hour, “like now.”
While the town-hall meetings aimed to sell the idea to Greene County residents, they also served as a way to gauge their reactions. In 2020 voters here overwhelmingly supported Trump , who had called Mexicans “rapists” and criminals, and backed King in the primaries, which he ended up losing after his own Republican Party shunned him for racist remarks. People of Mexican descent are the largest Latino group in Iowa.
At the meetings, Argüello said he could not have imagined this happening in west-central Iowa years ago when he was one of few Latinos here, but he believed that things had changed. He emphasized that White and Latino Iowans both prioritize family, faith, work and education.
Nothing worked. The population kept dropping.
Greene County — like much of rural America — is sinking into a demographic hole, down from more than 15,500 residents after World War II to an estimated 8,717 last year, with the population now falling by about 100 every year. Factories have dozens of job openings, schools have closed, and villages are crumbling. Deaths have outpaced births for so long that the hospital stopped delivering babies.
In a series of public meetings that started last month, the community has been weighing how to stop the decline, and this mostly White, mostly Republican stronghold has concluded that the only way to grow is to recruit Latino residents.
“It’s the only game in town,” consultant Carlos Argüello said at one presentation. “I’m sorry to tell it to you that way. But it’s true.”
Latinos are the largest minority group in Iowa, and one of the fastest growing, projected to more than double to 407,000 residents over the next 30 years. The White population, in contrast, has declined in almost every rural county, according to an analysis of census estimates by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the situation is dire. But the question is whether a county that voted for President Donald Trump and former congressman Steve King, both Republicans who denigrated Latin American immigrants, can welcome Latinos and their families, and whether those families will be willing to come to Greene County.
“In rural Iowa, people are moving to the city. If you do nothing, you’re going to die,” said soon-to-retire schools Superintendent Tim Christensen, who has had to close several schools during his 15-year tenure. “There’s no guarantee that this is going to work. But the writing’s on the wall if you don’t try.”
The story of Greene County is the story of much of rural America, where falling birthrates, an aging population and an exodus of young people to the cities have depleted the population, said demographer Ken Johnson, a professor at the University of New Hampshire.
But demographers caution that the decline is not universal or inevitable, and that many rural areas also have found new ways to grow. Greene County is a quiet, safe, and tightknit collection of seven cities and towns along the vast, wind-whipped prairie. Grain elevators dot the skyline, drivers wave at one another on the road, and the vibrant county seat of Jefferson has a pair of theaters, a bowling alley, and real root-beer floats at the A&W. Greene County hasn’t had a homicide in nearly 20 years.“There’s no guarantee that this is going to work. But the writing’s on the wall if you don’t try.”
— Schools Superintendent Tim Christensen
“It’s peaceful,” said county Sheriff Jack Williams. “It’s a good place to raise your kids.”
It became clear two years ago, however, that the county’s future was in jeopardy when New Way Trucks, a garbage-truck manufacturer and one of a half-dozen major employers, located 150 new jobs to Booneville, Miss., because they could not find workers in Greene County.
Stunned, Ken Paxton, executive director of the Greene County Development Corporation, a nonprofit that promotes growth, huddled with board president Sid Jones, a longtime banker, and board member Douglas Burns, co-owner of the local newspaper, the Jefferson Herald. Burns connected them to Argüello, an immigrant from Nicaragua whose mother, Lorena Lopez, is founder and editor of the area’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, La Prensa de Iowa.
Together, they assembled the “diversity project,” named “Nueva Vida en Greene County,” or New Life in Greene County.
The corporation hired Argüello, 37, who moved from California to rural Iowa in middle school, and it decided to apply for a $500,000 federal grant that would be used to recruit new Latino workers and residents.
Organizers said they plan to advertise Greene County to Latinos on social media, radio, television and billboards, and employers will arrange for vans to bring in workers as soon as this summer. Civic leaders are planning educational activities to integrate the community, with classes about soccer, language, and arts and culture, and they also are exploring ways to fix the area’s acute housing shortage.
Employers, the city of Jefferson and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) have endorsed the plan. The county Board of Supervisors voted 3-to-2 in favor; one member expressed concern about the project’s cost, another said private businesses should create more housing to attract workers.
“We’ve got to do something different,” said Gary Vance, chief operations officer at Bauer Built Manufacturing, which makes agricultural machinery. He said at the town hall meeting in the village of Paton that he has as many as 60 job openings paying $19 to $24 an hour, “like now.”
While the town-hall meetings aimed to sell the idea to Greene County residents, they also served as a way to gauge their reactions. In 2020 voters here overwhelmingly supported Trump , who had called Mexicans “rapists” and criminals, and backed King in the primaries, which he ended up losing after his own Republican Party shunned him for racist remarks. People of Mexican descent are the largest Latino group in Iowa.
At the meetings, Argüello said he could not have imagined this happening in west-central Iowa years ago when he was one of few Latinos here, but he believed that things had changed. He emphasized that White and Latino Iowans both prioritize family, faith, work and education.