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by Don Keelan
From a physical landscape perspective, Vermont offers interesting views: mountains, lakes, rivers, and miles of working farmland. In contrast, semi-congested urban areas begin on VT RT 7, entering Shelburne and extending northward to Burlington and its surrounds.
The above is obvious with the latter ever-increasing in size. What is unapparent is the decline in services and the aging population in Vermont’s rural towns and villages. An ever-so-subtle phenomenon.
Two news reports were published in early November: Copley Hospital closed its birthing center, and, second, and closer to home, the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory School Board voted (11-2) to close in June 2026 two elementary schools located in Danby and Sunderland, Vermont.
It was expected that the BRSU’s decision would be made in light of the changes that may result from ACT 73. The closing of rural schools is not the only casualty in rural Vermont.
My hometown of Arlington has also witnessed change ever so subtly, over the past 30 years.
Arlington, a few years ago, had its own representative to the Vermont Statehouse. The town became a casualty of redistricting.
Then the town had four gas/service stations, now it has two. The town once prided itself on having four houses of worship; there are only three today. Some 15 years ago, the Burlington Diocese of the Catholic Church decided to close the town’s church, rectory, and church hall—a lack of priests and a sustained weekly decline in church attendance were the justification.
Two decades ago, the long-time town pharmacy closed its well-frequented store, and so did the town’s only law firm. These were followed by five of the town’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner establishments closing their doors and not replaced.
Several important corporate employers have also ceased operating within the town: the closing of the century-old Hale Furniture Company. Then last year, and more impactful, the Orvis Company closed its 30-year-old, 58,000 square foot headquarters building (physically in Sunderland), the former workplace for 300 employees.
However, the most substantial change in Arlington has been in the enrollment of our elementary, middle, and high schools.
In the mid 1990s, this columnist was co-chair of our district’s high school building committee charged with developing construction plans for major building renovations. In that role, it was required to provide a 10-year forecast on enrollment. The school board was in disbelief when the results showed the district’s enrollment forecast declined from 600+ students to 350 in seven years—it happened in five years.
The district, at last March’s town meeting, had a population of 398 students ,including 43 Pre-K, which was not part of the enrollment statistics 30 years ago.
What has taken place in Arlington may be taking place in other rural Vermont areas. What has occurred at Copley Hospital and in the BRSU area is closely tied to a decline in young families in the areas served.
When the Arlington school building committee presented its findings to the school board in 1994, the board was in complete denial that there would be such an enrollment decrease. And therein lies the problem, then and 30 years later— rural towns and villages in denial.
At the risk of sounding redundant and incurring the wrath of readers from many rural communities, I will continue to call out the crisis rural Vermont is facing today.
Rural areas need infrastructure that will provide much-needed housing, which in turn will attract employers who will then bring us young families. It should not be all that complex—with one exception, the challenge of changing the status quo.
There is good news in Arlington that has been provided by four nonprofit organizations in recent years; the opening of a first-class animal shelter, an annual farmers market, a FQHC clinic and recently, the re-purposing of the former Catholic Church property into a performance hall(church), meeting/art center (rectory), and a fitness/health/sports complex (church hall).
What is needed is the recognition that rural communities are in stormy waters and work to get out of harm’s way.
The author is a U.S. Marine (retired), CPA, and columnist living in Arlington, VT.
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Categories: Commentary
Not mentioned in the article:
Government sponsored poverty which is now generational
A massive drug problem
Failing public schools
Local economic development professional asleep at the wheel
Rich, out of state 2nd homeowners who don’t want any change for the better
The author is right and the sad thing is, it is only going to get worse
My town, no families in the village anymore, just airbnbs. No benefit to the locals that don’t have a business.
The majority of our elected representatives operate under the fallacy that bigger more powerful central government can fix all the problens of everyone. For every problem they intend to solve they create ten more and in the process rob rural Vermonters of their l8mited tax dollars. The voters are paving their own road to poverty by continuing to elect economic illiterates and social morons.
Want families is an easy problem to fix and it doesn’t need infrastructure.
Low crime little drug dealing.
Affordable homes.
Affordable healthcare.
Jobs.
Good schools
Vermont has gone the wrong direction on every topic and exponentially worse on some specific topics.
Until then, let them steal, deal and import more big city problems to Vermont, what could go wrong?
We need to realize, this is the plan, that’s why it’s not changing.
In a recent article about Cina he wants to raise taxes, but not on individuals but on corporations for the benefit of Vermonters. Corporations don’t pay taxes, it passed on. Cina doesn’t make the connection. As stated, this a true illiterate and a moron. One of Montpelier’s finest. Migrated from NJ, schooled at Dartmouth, his liberal social foot path. The article:
Letters; Rep. Cina claims ‘Read my lips, new taxes’ statement taken out of context
https://vermontdailychronicle.com/letters-rep-cina-claims-read-my-lips-new-taxes-statement-taken-out-of-context/
Yet further driving of the socialist agenda for “affordable” housing in VT & elsewhere who want taxpayers, already overly burdened by paying for social programs, to subsidize not merely their health insurance costs, their childcare needs, their food (i.e.: Mamdami), but now their homes too.
For the millionth time – in a FREE society, the FREE market dictates the housing market, not the government. Vermont’s population is decreasing – save for the influx of massive amounts of homeless from out-of-state, the “refugee” program created to force ethnic “diversity”, illegal immigrants, and the hordes of drug dealers & gang bangers attending to their “pipelines” aided by VT’s defunding of police & by the subversive tactics of the democrat-socialist party here. Despite the residents exiting the Green Mountains, so many supposed “conservatives” are falling for the justification that it’s because of the lack of “affordable” housing and we need MORE housing.
Try perhaps remembering that the year is no longer 1973 and take a gander at realtor.com where you’ll surely find a plethora of low to midland-priced homes in many, if not most towns & cities across Vermont. Time marches on. Everywhere. Including in Vermont. Go figure, huh?
As far as second homeowners go, yet again – EVERY single state not only has them but generally appreciate the massive degree of revenue they generate through the recreational sites they frequent, the dining establishments they support, and the taxes they handsomely pay on their homes. The tourism industry supports infrastructure and numerous programs that residents utilize throughout the year – one of the last vestiges of harmony in this troubled state wherein Bernie’s disciples have ushered in druggies, crime, and every manner of social/political failings. Skiers and hikers and diners and BMW’s full of family leaf-peepers staying at an Airbnb are not. your. enemy. Look to your elected officials, judges, and the vans crossing the state border after 2am to attempt to discern who is.
Again, conservatives falling for the democrat call to resent their fellow Americans who have chased after and caught the American Dream just as most can. Instead, maybe you can spend your time trying to achieve it too as opposed to chronically wailing & griping about those who already have.
No more freebies….why? Because it remains true that nothing in life ever is. STOP this Communist agenda.
Signed,
Not subsidizing your mortgage; I have my own.
I’ve always been on the lower side of this issue. I did not come here in the early 2000’s seeking peace and tranquility. I got here when Eisenhower was president. Always poor in a large family. I don’t like to be told 2hat to like. I do see both sides of this issue and have my honest opinions about both.
BTW, Eisenhower was the 34th President.
The smart Vermonter owns their home with no mortgage, no car or truck payment, lives in a tar paper shack with low or no property taxes and hunts for their food every night , when they do not get caught, with a sound control device on the end of their rifle. You will find a big garden in their yard. Life could not be any better in Vermont so stop whining and enjoy the Trump economy. Excuse me I have to put another stick of wood into my wood stove. They also have a big woodpile in their yard. Any questions?????
Yes, to all the above. It’s called being grateful with the blessings you have.
It still hurts that the America I grew up in is non existent.
We’re aborting our future.
We’re reaping the rotten fruit of the sexual revolution and a contraceptive culture which divorces sex from marriage. And I wish I didn’t have to qualify this, but so as not to be misconstrued, God’s definition of marriage: a man and a woman.
The casualties? Children and families: less and less of them.
Have any doubts? Read the article in today’s VDC about Balint who reflects a culture which refuses to recognize common sense and the reality God has created of male and female. Start messing around with those basics, and His mandate to be fruitful and multiply goes out the window.
I hadn’t even gotten to Aaron Warner’s commentary when I replied to Don Keelan’s. Just saw it. Thank you Mr. Warner. But add the insanity Mr. Warner cites—along with Balint’s ludicrous fight— as more evidence of why we have less families and less people. He is 100% correct to call this a cult, especially when teachers are advocating for the demonic lies which harm children.
That said, kudos to Chloe Cole and those like her who are speaking up and standing up with courage to warn others not to get duped like she did before she mercifully saw the truth and rejected the lies.
While I sympathize and agree with Mr. Keenan’s assesment of the problem, his solution seems incredibly short sighted. Yes, we are facing a demographic decline, and for that reason adding a glut of houses, right before the inevitable baby-boomer dieoff will only add to a massive drop in real estate values.
We all know that the baby boomer hates to share, and can’t imagine a world that doesn’t revolve around them, but as the days go by, the world without them becomes easier and easier to imagine. One thing is for sure; that gigantic 1998 mcmansion up on the hill will NOT be worth $2 million in 10 years.
Excuse me…? …”hates to share,”…? …”world revolves around them,”…? 🤔
Green eyed monster strikes again………everybody has it better than me and it’s always someone else’s fault. Wah, wah, wah……
Enjoy your generation’s “safe” injection sites, Communism, and abject lack of law & order. With a social order like that this entire nation won’t be worth $2 million in ten years. Enjoy the mess you youngin’s create. And don’t forget to remember(!)……With age, comes wisdom.