The "Prairie Generation": There’s a new generation of rural entrepreneur returning to the Great Plains

while it's an interesting trend, my bet with respect to their theorizing here in the first half of the article:

There’s a new generation of rural entrepreneur returning to the Great Plains. Unlike those who take over a conventional farm and help make it bigger and more efficient, these enterprising young people are starting small and unconventional operations. And unlike previous generations, they aren’t going off to big cities to acquire skills and then returning after a decade or two. Instead, these young people who straddle the end of the millennial generation and the beginning of Generation Z are often coming home right away.

It’s not clear how big the movement is and whether it can reverse the population decline that’s gone on for a century in the rural Plains. But if energy combined with business and social media savvy can overcome demographic decline, then perhaps these youthful entrepreneurs – the first generation born after the farm crisis of the 1980s – have an opportunity to do it.

is probably not, and that it's going to be localized at best. rural decline begets rural decline, and we're decades into the intensification of the trend at this point. aside from the damage already done which leaves little reason to stick around, the flight from rural areas is still being driven by a whole host of factors; the lack of opportunity is one, the domination of conservatism and the republican party in the midwest specifically is most likely another both because younger people trend liberal and that conservatism doesn't necessarily translate to helping out rural areas per se; most rural living lacks a lot of the conveniences of modern life; etc. investment by entrepreneurs and young people will help and in some cases maybe slow the decline of certain places, but for the most part i come down on the side of thinking that the damage has been done and there's very little that can realistically reverse it in most places these days.