Summer 2008
From the Editor
It is so fundamental to everything we do that we often ignore it—our population. Few know how many people actually reside in their state, county, or town, but the mere fact of “how many” people live in a community or area is critical to everything that makes a community tick—water, sewerage, roads, health care, public safety, and the consumable goods and services we all rely upon. Even fewer ponder how population actually grows or declines. A recent NY Times article was both sad and heartening when discussing that very issue (of course, it focused on the fact that Pittsburgh now has more people dying within its boundaries than being born—a demographic fact called natural decrease). Indiana is not even close to natural decrease—we have approximately double the births than deaths, but that doesn’t mean communities within our state are immune to that sad effect, as you will learn in this issue.
–Carol O. Rogers, Executive Editor
