By Mike Templeton

It was back in 2024 that Urban Appalachian Community Coalition founder Michael Maloney reviewed the book Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class by Max Fraser that details the fascinating history of the Appalachian migration from the mountains to the cities that gave rise to what we now know as urban Appalachians. This historical period is the very foundation of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, of course, and migration patterns among Appalachians is still a compelling site for our research. Although much has changed over the decades, the movement of Appalachian people out of, into, and around the Appalachian region is still extremely relevant as migration still happens in one way or another. Some interesting new patterns are emerging within the Appalachian region that could bear heavily on our perspectives here in greater Cincinnati.

A recent article in Kentucky Lantern details a fascinating demographic trend in which rural Appalachians in Eastern Kentucky have begun choosing to remain in Kentucky rather than head north to cities like Cincinnati. This is a curious turn because it does not constitute a reversal in migration patterns for Appalachians so much as a re-arrangement of Appalachian people within the Appalachian region and counties adjacent to the region. In his article, “From Hillbilly Highway To Homefront: How Appalachian Migration Has Turned Inward,” James Branscome shows us how rural people in Eastern Kentucky who once would have taken the so-called hillbilly highway north are now moving to neighboring counties and settling in places like London and Somerset.

Branscome attributes this migration trend to several factors which converge to make the idea of staying in Appalachia more attractive. First, many people leaving parts of rural Kentucky are finding well-paying jobs in places near Interstate-75 where there is a boom in things like the healthcare industries. Large hospitals, and the complex of healthcare systems that surround them, provide good jobs for people in the Appalachian counties who are now better educated than their grandparents. This trend converges with the collapse of the industrial economies in northern cities like Cincinnati and Detroit. It is not as if these kinds of healthcare related jobs do not exist in greater Cincinnati. It is a case in which there is simply no good reason to travel so far north to find what is literally right next door.

As a result of this migration trend, many counties in Eastern Kentucky have seen a growth in population for the first time in decades. An article in Medium adds some complexity to the thesis that the Appalachian region, particularly Eastern Kentucky, is undergoing a completely new form of population shift. Lyman Stone, the author of “Migration in Inner Appalachia,” shows us that a narrow view of population changes can be extremely deceiving. While one can find evidence that there are movements out of what Stone calls Inner Appalachia that includes Eastern Kentucky, there is an equal and opposite movement into the region from other parts of the Appalachian region as a whole. To this end, Stone writes that the population and demographic shifts within inner Appalachia seem to defy “the usual narrative told about Appalachia (both by locals and outsiders) that the region is losing tons of people to migration. In fact, it isn’t, and it’s actually gaining people from many less rural areas. While educational migration to the Bluegrass looks like brain drain, in reality the region gets enough other migrants to almost completely compensate for that loss. What we’re actually seeing is just churn.”

The “churn” of migration seems consistent with Branscome’s thesis that the movement in the region constitutes a rearrangement and internal moving around rather than migration as we saw in prior decades.

An aspect of these movements raised some time ago is a trend in which second and third generation urban Appalachians are moving back to the Appalachian region. This demographic trend, albeit still small, came into focus with Dale Farmer’s film The Mountain Minor which we brought to you at the time of its release. The trend of moving from cities to the Appalachian region is driven by many factors. Plain old nostalgia, of course, but also the new ways people are working remotely offer people the freedom to live where they want while maintaining employment that supports the life they choose. Heading back to the hills is certainly a wonderful prospect, but it is not without its complications. Unrealistic expectations can be a problem for people who are not familiar with the unique challenges of living in remote rural areas where access get tricky at various times of the year. What is more, outsiders to the region can bring problems with them that the small communities are not able to bear. A 2020 article in Expatalachians talked about the ways some were fleeing the Covid-19 pandemic by moving to the Appalachian region. This brought the illness to small communities that simply did not have the healthcare resources to deal with the problem. The author of “Appalachia Isn’t Ready to Be a Rural Refuge,” Alena Klimas, was clear in that people are certainly welcome to the region and all the magnificence it offers, but they should be aware of what they are doing before they complicate small communities with big city difficulties.

In any event, the new patterns of movement and demographic trends within the Appalachian region have everything to do with how we will envision future work for the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition. All of this needs further study on our end to determine just how these things might impact the urban Appalachian population in greater Cincinnati and other areas. Are we to see an increase along what remains of the “Hillbilly Highway,” or are folks packing up for a final trek in the opposite direction. In either case, these developments provide a world of ideas for our researchers.

Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications, The Ohiomachine, forthcoming from Dead Letter Office/Punctum Books, and Nod: On Digital Exile forthcoming with Erratum Press, the Academic Division. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.