Area's Small Towns Attracting Residents

Good jobs, schools among the reasons 

Not all of the area's communities are seeing slow population growth, or, worse, decline.

Streams of people are moving into several small towns in the counties surrounding St. Joseph County.

Plymouth, in Marshall County, has benefited from the biggest estimated jump since the 1990 census, with more than 2,000 new residents giving it a 25.6 percent increase over its 1990 figure.

"I'm 74 years old, and everyone I've ever talked to has liked this city," said Jim Yeazel, mayor of Plymouth. "If you're down on your luck, people here will help you, whether it be the churches or other groups.

There is a definite appeal to small-town living, agreed Greg Fore, town council president in Middlebury, whose 19.9 percent growth trails only Plymouth and Wakarusa (20.1 percent) locally. Middlebury and Wakarusa are in Elkhart County.

"There is no question that in our community, people know each other better and you know more people," Fore said. "I can walk into the hardware store, the bank or the drugstore and the people there - we recognize each other."

Fore admitted Middlebury has fewer retail outlets from South Bend or Elkhart, but he defends the quality of shopping there."

"We have more than people think," he said. "And it's friendly commerce. It's not like going to the mall where you tend not to know anybody."

Plymouth also has a surprising abundance of good shopping, claims Yeazel. "We're really working to get people to do more shopping downtown," he said.

None of the small-town growth would be possible without improved roads and transportation, Fore said.

It's more convenient for people to live farther from their workplace," he said.

Plymouth benefits not only from easy commuting but also good-paying jobs of its own, Yeazel said.

"A lot of people come here for our industrial jobs," he said. "We can use them. We can use a lot of people in our work force."

Both men pointed to quality school districts attracting young families to their communities.

"Middlebury Community Schools attracts people for a number of reasons," Fore said. "I see NorthWood (High School, in Wakarusa) in a similar situation.

"They are big enough to offer a lot in the curriculum, but not so big as to become impersonal."

NorthWood is fed by both Nappanee, growing at a 9 percent clip, and Wakarusa.

North Liberty (18.6 percent), Roseland (18.2 percent) and New Carlisle (17.6 percent) also showed considerable growth, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

To a lesser degree, so did Plymouth's Marshall County neighbors, Argos (11.3 percent) and Bremen (7.5 percent), as well as Rochester to the south, at 12.2 percent.

The appeal could be summed up simply, at least for his hometown, Fore said. "We're just a bunch of nice people," he said.

Though it is unincorporated and was not included in the report, Granger showed extensive growth as well, according to estimates in Demographics USA, ZIP edition. The book estimated Granger to have grown 19.7 percent since the 1990 census, with a remarkable 6 percent increase in the last year alone.

Article published in the South Bend Tribune, written by Cory Havens