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Sometimes it seems like rural communities are caught in a vicious cycle -- jobs and amenities are not available that would keep young people there, and as the population declines, the remaining jobs and amenities shrivel, which makes a revival even harder to pull off.
A recent story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offered a case in point. It reported how a six-county region in the northern part of Pennsylvania will no longer have a hospital that offers maternity care because Elk Hospital in St. Mary's plans on shuttering its obstetrics unit in the next two months.
It's an issue that may hit closer to home than you think: The eastern edge of that six-county region, which comprises more than 4,100 square miles and more than 157,000 people, is Clinton County.
This move comes after UPMC North Central shuttered its in-patient beds at Lock Haven Hospital not too long ago, leaving just an emergency department, imaging services and an extended care center at Lock Haven, along with doctors' offices.
For health-care systems, it's a matter of dollars and cents -- there simply aren't enough patients -- let alone births -- happening to make it feasible economically.
The lack of care for mothers and babies could have an adverse impact on infant mortality and, as you would expect, cause younger people to think twice about living there.
One 31-year-old said, "Now, it's a million times less attractive for a young family to live here."
Steve Fontaine, the CEO of Penn Highlands Health System, recently told lawmakers that "rural hospitals are on the brink of disaster without increased support from our state and federal governments."
Decent health care options, of course, are an integral component of making a community appealing both to potential employers and to potential employees.
We hope our state legislators listened closely and we hope they work with counties and municipalities to reverse these trends so our rural economies and workforces can flourish.