MUNCIE — The most recent Census population data tell a pretty important story about Indiana’s future. Some of it is great, but not for most of the state.

Michael Hicks, Bureau of Business Research

Overall, population growth was tepid. We added 44,144 residents — slower than Kentucky, but a tad bit faster than Michigan, Illinois or Ohio. The composition of this growth is most telling. A whopping 69.9% of growth was from international migration — immigrants. Less than 10% of the change was due to net in-migration from other states, and just under 21% was from natural population change (births minus deaths).

The geography of these changes is startling.

A total of 62 of our 92 counties experienced natural population decline last year. The worst of these are familiar: Delaware, Wayne, LaPorte, Howard, Harrison and Fayette. These communities are literally dying off. Of those, 31 counties didn’t have enough domestic in-migration to have population growth. There are 11 counties that suffered natural population decline, but were saved by immigrants moving in.

One encouraging aspect of the data is the wider geography of migration that has been taking place since COVID-19. Between 2010 and 2019, 56 Hoosier counties experienced net out-migration of residents. Last year, only 28 counties did.

A full quarter of college graduates are now working remotely for most of the week. These work-from-home opportunities breathed new life into communities that have built the amenities people want. This trend is slowing a bit, but I expect it to remain strong for some time.

I know many Hoosiers don’t care about this. Many folks like where they live and wish for those places to remain unchanged. I certainly understand that desire, but keeping things the same really isn’t an option. You either grow or shrink.

Growing places face problems, but these are happy problems. These places need to expand schools, roads and water service with tight budgets. They need to plan for new residential construction that will appeal to mobile residents, yet still be affordable to public servants — like teachers and police officers. It’s unfortunate we have to plan affordable housing for public employees, but that is the road we’ve taken and is best saved for a later column.

Growing places appeal to new residents and typically attract private amenities, such as restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses people like to live nearby. Growing places already have good schools and low crime rates. That is one of the reasons people move there. So, the challenge for these places is how to keep the schools good, the roads paved and the neighborhoods safe.

Shrinking places also face problems, but they are unhappy problems. In the nearly one-third of Indiana counties where more Americans left than moved in, there are already deep local concerns. The most typical problem causing out-migration is underperforming schools. Good schools are a magnet for domestic migration. Poor schools repel new residents and offer a red flag to most employers.

Shrinking places lose the most mobile residents first. These people tend to have higher potential incomes and better educational attainment. The long history of migration in the U.S., Europe and Asia reports that movers possess, on average, the highest levels of human capital in any place. That’s why out-migration is called brain drain.

The loss of such residents means declining demand for restaurants and grocery stores. Loss of high human capital residents also injures public institutions. There are fewer well-educated residents to run for city council or school board.

Shrinking places tend to have a shortage of volunteers for private institutions, too, such as not-for-profit boards and community foundations. Churches lose membership and have fewer people to help run youth ministries, deliver meals to the elderly or bag groceries for food banks.

Declining places suffer from higher overhead costs of operating everything from schools to local churches. I find it puzzling that many people who bemoan the decline of churches, or worry about losing their local school, don’t connect the dots to population growth.

Growth and decline are largely a matter of choice and have been for a half-century.

In 1970, places like Seymour, Connersville, New Castle and Logansport were relatively bustling, prosperous places. Carmel and Fishers were hardly more than crossroads, together boasting fewer than 10,000 residents. The two Hamilton County communities focused on schools as a source of growth. They’ve grown more than 20-fold in the half-century since.

I don’t mention this to encourage anyone to become like Carmel or Fishers. I simply wish to illustrate the power of a good school system to grow residential population. Again, the choice is to grow or decline.

I don’t wish to make that choice for any community. We live in a wonderfully heterogeneous nation, and the opportunity to choose from among a wide variety of places to live is among the greater gifts our prosperity offers. It is a majestic luxury, the result of more than two centuries of representative democracy.

The ability to make a choice to grow on your own terms, or decline, should be carefully guarded and nurtured by elected officials — particularly at the state level.

Still, any column about growth and decline needs to be honest about the future. Six of the 10 fastest-growing counties are in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. Nine of the 10 fastest-growing counties are urban, and nine of the 10 fastest-shrinking counties are rural.

There is room to grow in all the fast-growing places. There is little room to shrink in communities that are in decline.

I know many residents in small Hoosier towns want lower property taxes and are wary of immigration. Just be clear-eyed about the consequences of those choices, and make sure you are planning for smaller, less prosperous towns, school consolidation, longer response times by fire and police and continued brain drain. Those are all policy choices.