Two Iowa Counties Move in Opposite Directions

As Farm Life Fades, Power Shifts in Heartland.  (The New York Times, 10/20/2014)

A tale of two counties.

Pocahontas is running out of students. Public school enrollment in this corn-blanketed county in northern Iowa has plummeted 32 percent over the past decade as the population steadily shrinks. Schools have merged, classes have combined, and sports teams have consolidated, wiping out generations of tradition and rivalry.

Two hours south, Dallas County faces a very different problem: It is running out of schools. With the population swelling, in what used to be farmland ringing Des Moines, enrollment in its largest district has doubled over the same 10 years. As soon as a gleaming new high school is completed, construction on another begins.

Des Moines is the county seat of Polk County.