Our immersion in virtual work may bridge NC’s urban-rural divide
Before COVID-19, the greatest challenge facing North Carolina was the rural-urban divide. That’s because jobs, opportunities, and young people were concentrating in America’s biggest cities and leaving much of the country behind. But when this crisis is over, things will be different
The other day I was driving around the streets of Raleigh. Where the only people standing outside were construction workers building more apartment buildings. And I thought, “Wow, what timing?” Imagine paying $1,500 a month for a studio apartment right now. When the quarantine is over people will want to spread out.
After months of living inside people will crave the freedom and the independence of small-town life. They’ll miss the privacy. And a farmhouse on the countryside is going to sound pretty good. And that’s going to going to do something we couldn’t have predicted, that’s going to finally bridge that rural-urban divide.
The reason why it took this long is because these forces are beyond our control: how people work and where people live. And for decades America’s cities benefited from an economy centered around higher education, finance, and technology, and from a rising generation chasing after those jobs. But now our way of life is changing again, and this moment will accelerate those changes.
When this crisis is over, we will go back to normal. But it’ll be a new normal.
It’ll be months before schools and office buildings reopen at full-capacity and by then more of the economy and society will take place online. And once we realize we can do most of our jobs through email and Zoom, why go into the office every day? Why live so close to the office? Why sit in traffic? Why not move to the country? Some people will. And that’s going to spread social and economic capital across all 100 counties.
That’s why we need to start investing in rural North Carolina the way we haven’t the last few decades. Because people will start coming back. Just as millennials flocked to the cities, Generation Z is just as likely to do the opposite. And to take advantage of that shift we need to help our small towns get ready. That means building better highways and a modern system of water infrastructure, funding state parks and outdoor recreation sites that will attract tourism, and investing in the anchor institutions that will support new industries.
The outbreak of a global pandemic is a reminder that America needs to be self-sufficient. That we need to start making things again: medical supplies, personal protective equipment, and other goods too. To prepare for the next disaster America will be on-shoring more of our supply chain. And that will benefit communities in North Carolina that were built on manufacturing: places like Goldsboro, Rocky Mount, Mt. Airy, Lumberton, Thomasville, North Wilkesboro, Gastonia, Lexington, Canton, and Lenoir.
The future of these communities will not look like the past. But it can be better. Most of the empty factories and abandoned buildings on Main Street won’t be coming back. And this is precisely the time to remove them. To tear them down and start over. Or to renovate them and turn them into breweries.
Michael Cooper is a journalist and attorney from North Wilkesboro. He currently serves as a co-director of New Leaders Council North Carolina.
