RALEIGH – It’s well documented that rural towns across the nation – including North Carolina — have suffered an exodus of population in recent years.

However, Patrick Woodie, president of NC Rural Center, offered a glimmer of hope on Thursday.

Appearing as a keynote speaker at WRAL TechWire Live, he cited data from the American Community Survey that suggests millennials are increasingly moving into some rural parts of North Carolina.

“About 43-44 of our baby rural counties are showing slight increases in population of 30-40 year olds,” he told the 80-strong crowd gathered at the NC Rural Center.

“It’s a trend that we’re watching to see how it develops, if it picks up and increases.”

The clincher, he argued, is high-speed broadband. It’s the driver for everything – education, entrepreneurship, telemedicine.

“If there’s not broadband there that’s robust and available, that’s not going to be one of those communities,” he said.

Michael Smith, CEO of Sanford Area Growth Alliance; Patrick Woodie, President of NC Rural Center; Sloan Freeman, CEO & Co-Founder of Geodynamics; and Kellianne Davis, Downtown Business Specialist for the City of Wilson.

This was just one of several take-home messages from the quarterly event sponsored by Wells Fargo with the support from several TechWire partners.

The meetup coalesces industry experts around a central topic facing the region: This time, it was tackling the urban-rural divide, and how to close gaps in such areas as broadband, accessibility, infrastructure, workforce development and education.

Millennial migration?

Jason Gray, a senior fellow at the center, did not speak at the event. However, he clarified the center began to observe the trend in the 2000s.

“We ran the numbers for North Carolina between 2000 and 2010, and we saw approximately half of our rural counties gaining in that ‘family formation cohort’.”

However, there’s one problem, he said: “The data is outdated.”

“The most reliable comes from the Decennial Census – 2000, 2010, 1990.”

And much has changed since then.

“Between 2000-2010, we had seven rural counties lose population. Between 2010-2018, it’s more like 43 counties that lost population,” said Gray.

“I’m not certain that [trend] has continued with the broader population loss we have had since then. We’ll know in a year or so. The 2020 Census is next April, and we’ll get a better picture on this.”

What do millennials want?

One thing is certain, said Geodynamics CEO Sloan Freeman: You shouldn’t make generalizations about millennials.

“When I hear all millennials want this urban lifestyle, it’s just not true.”

As founder of her own underwater survey company based on North Carolina’s coast in Newport, she said almost all of her workforce is millennials. Even though she lives in a rural area, she said she manages to attract talent.

“As long as you’re honest about what the rural community has to offer, you can bring people into it,” she said. “They’re appreciative there is no traffic, and the work-life balance is easier.”