Jason Kniep heard the siren call of the city. He responded.

Kniep, who operates an online bookstore, moved himself and his business last August from a farm near the tiny north Kansas town of Belleville to Lawrence.

“There are definitely more job opportunities,” he said of Lawrence. “And socially, there’s more people here in their 20s than there are in other places. There aren’t a lot of young people living in small cities anymore, in my experience.”

He’s not the only one who thinks so.

Estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the urban areas of Kansas are gaining population while the rural areas continue to shrink.

Twenty-eight counties — many surrounding Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita — gained population.

Douglas County helped lead the urban charge. Census officials estimate the county added 1,154 people between July 1, 2001, and July 1, 2002, a 1.1 percent gain to 102,316 people.

Seventy-seven counties lost ground.

That’s a trend that has the state’s politicians searching for remedies.

U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback has been backing a “new homestead” act in Washington, D.C., to promote the reflowering of the state’s rural areas. Closer to home, state legislators are edging their way toward a discussion of school consolidation to deal with declining enrollments in rural districts.

They may not stop with schools.

“I think we have to look at other types of consolidations,” said Rep. William Mason, an El Dorado Republican on the Kansas House Education Committee. “Those numbers would tend to put more pressure in that area.”

Losing ground

The challenges are reversed in Lawrence and other growing communities. Growing populations force cities to spend more on infrastructure and other government services.

“Growth,” Mayor David Dunfield said, “will continue to be one of the major issues that shape our policies.

“We probably can’t draw too much conclusion from a one-year statistic,” Dunfield said. But “overall, the factors that have caused Lawrence and Douglas County to grow will continue to be there.”

¢More census data on Douglas County and Kansas

The 28 growing counties added 23,199 people to their population during the year. The remaining 77 counties lost 9,440 residents. Overall, census officials estimate the state gained 13,759 people.

The bulk of the growth came in Johnson County, which added 12,602 residents, and Sedgwick County, which added 4,969 people. Douglas County was third in numerical gain and seventh in percent population change.

At the other end of the spectrum was Geary County, home to Junction City. Census officials estimate the county lost 768 residents during the year — the steepest drop in the state.

Larry Cope, director of economic development for Junction City and Geary County, said those numbers could be affected by troop rotations at nearby Fort Riley. He wasn’t concerned by the loss.

“In fact, business has actually been pretty good,” Cope said. “We’ve had a lot of smaller businesses open during these tougher times.”

In Smith County, which lost 1.8 percent of its population, farmer John Hojda said economics was the leading factor in the declining population.

“It’s hard to make a living out here,” Hojda said. “We’re dealing with monopolies. We don’t have a free market on our products. We don’t set the price.”

Hojda, 64, said he began farming when there was more money to be made in it. “Now it takes a tremendous amount of capital to start in this business.”

Solutions?

Cope acknowledged Geary County had faced an overall downward trend. The population slipped from 30,453 in 1990 to 27,947 during the 2000 census.

So county officials are trying to make the economy less dependent on Fort Riley. But they still watch their best and brightest slip away to bigger, if not better, things.

“A lot of our Junction City students go to KU or K-State,” Cope said. “And then they move on to Kansas City.”

Last month, the U.S. Senate passed a Brownback-co-sponsored bill — the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act — that would offer funding to new and expanding rural businesses. It would also repay up to 50 percent of college loans for recent college graduates who live and work in shrinking rural counties for at least five years.

Eric Hotmire, Brownback’s spokesman, said senators from other rural states signed on to the bill. Now it awaits a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“For the health of the economy of the state of Kansas, it’s vital to have people working and living in those communities,” Hotmire said.

It might be hard to convince Kniep and others like him.

“It’s a creative element,” he said of favoring urban over rural life. “There aren’t jobs out there for somebody who wants more than a rural life or farm jobs.”