He even offered a glimpse of what an academic curriculum in “homecoming” might look like, the questions it might address, if we took the idea seriously: “What has happened here?" he asks. “What should have happened here? What is here now? What is left of the original natural endowment of this place?” Mr. Berry offered a vision of “a vital, wakeful society of local communities elegantly adapted to local ecosystem,” if more of us were committed to these questions of place.

Over the last eight years, I have found that my homecoming story is not unique. In Minnesota, demographers noticed several years ago a modest but persistent trend of people in their 30s and 40s taking up residence in small communities , a counterweight to the high school graduates moving away. The Pew Research Center found that, nationwide, while rural areas are home to a much smaller part of the American population than they once were, about half of rural counties, especially the ones that are not economically dependent on farming, are gaining people.

And that growth reflects patterns we should examine more closely: an influx of international immigrants, and people moving in from cities. Simply panicking about the “death” of rural America gives those of us who care about and live in these places very little to learn or build on. Is there another way to think about it?

In 2000, I left my hometown of 450 people in rural Minnesota to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. I spent a decade in that city, changing neighborhoods and nonprofit arts jobs every few years. Portland shaped a lot of who I am now, but my life there somehow lacked meaning. My work felt trivial and temporary. These feelings were magnified every time my rent increased and I found myself deeper in debt, or whenever there was a crisis or celebration at home, and I spent hundreds of dollars for a flight back to Minnesota.

In graduate school, I thought seriously about what sustainability means, and I realized that it starts with individuals and their relationship to place. I was lucky to have a place with strong roots that I could protect and be protected by, in a time where the world felt more and more uncertain.

And so, one drizzly early summer morning, after 11 years away from Minnesota, I loaded up a van with my belongings and my cat, said goodbye to my friends and colleagues, and drove 1,500 miles from Portland to Fergus Falls, my grandmother’s hometown.