How Emporia, Kansas, Fights Rural Brain Drain: ‘Broadband Is The New Railroad’

The “brain drain” from rural areas has been a problem across the country for decades. Since 2000, Emporia's population has declined more than 7 percent. It's now home to 24,724 people. 

“We understood that nobody was going to invest in us if we didn’t,” says Casey Woods, executive director of Emporia Main Street, a non-profit that advocates for local businesses and heritage. Woods and other city leaders think they have a solution. They plan to make Emporia (Kansas) a rural tech hub built with local investment in a fiber network, assistance from the Rural Innovation Initiative, and a long-held entrepreneurial spirit. Emporia was, after all, “named after the marketplace, the emporium,” says City Commissioner Rob Gilligan said. “Business and enterprise was always that founding idea.” That idea dates back to the end of the Civil War, when Emporia become a big railroad hub. “Broadband is the new railroad,” Woods says. “Broadband is that new iteration. It represents commerce, just in a digital format.”