Local Voices

Her name was Liza. She was 8 years old and a second grader at Burton Elementary on the south side of Grand Rapids. We met on Thursdays at 1 in an unused classroom that smelled, as schools often do, of rubber erasers and citrus floor polish. I was in college, her reading tutor, and coaching her through vowel teams and diphthongs.

Last December, the New York Times wrote rural America’s obituary. Citing three decades of population growth in tech hubs like Boston and Silicon Valley, the message was clear: As middle America dies, the coasts’ high-skilled, high-wage workers will feed off their own success while the rest of us dwindle into nothingness.