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Editorial
'Center' of state is 208 miles -- on foot
Friday, March 25, 2011
People involved in statewide organizations like to joke that their Omaha and Lincoln friends think Grand Island is in Western Nebraska.
There's no comfort in the latest figures from the Census Bureau, which has moved the center of the state's population about five miles farther southeast, to a point in a cornfield near Rising City.
That means, if you stood in that cornfield, you would be as close to all other Nebraskans as you could get. A scary thought, no?
If we're to have a "fair" meeting spot for our hypothetical state organization, that means a member living in McCook has to travel about 208 miles. Of course, according to Google Maps, the closest route is by foot, which would take you two days and 19 hours to traverse. It's 225 miles, 18 hours and 33 minutes by bicycle, or 212 miles, three hours and 52 minutes by car.
Things are a little better if it's a national organization, which would have to meet a little closer this census than the last, the center of population shifting southeast to Plato, Missouri, 619 miles, 10 hours and 48 minutes from McCook by car.
Of course, complaining about the distances required to reach population centers reminds us of a former county commissioner's response to complaints about rural roads by people with jobs in town.
If you didn't want to drive on county roads, he said, why do you live out there?
The same answer can apply for most of us living in "Greater" Nebraska -- we live out here because we like it that way.