CRUNCHY CRUNCH CRUNCH. Via Betsy's Page, news that "Go West, Young Man," is still sound advice in Vermont.

Vermont, with a population of about 620,000, now has the lowest birth rate among states. Three-quarters of its public schools have lost children since 2000.

Vermont also has the highest rate of students attending college out of their home state — 57 percent, up from 36 percent 20 years ago. Many do not move back. The total number of 20- to 34-year-olds in Vermont has shrunk by 19 percent since 1990.

Research project: how do those numbers compare with Pittsburgh, or Milwaukee, or Cleveland, to think of cities with comparable populations and possibly one Congressional district.

The back-to-the-land influx of the 1960's, 70's and 80's, which once had Vermont growing faster than the country as a whole, has dissipated, [University of Vermont] Professor [and Cold Spring Shops reader Art] Woolf [who inter alia directs the economic education efforts for Vermont] said. Vermont may have lost some cachet for the people often referred to as "flatlanders."

Wait a minute here. "Flatlander" is the kinder way of saying F.I.B.

"If you live in New York or Boston and you want to get away from it all, these days it's just as cheap to fly out to Boise, Idaho, or Montana," Professor Woolf said.

Fewer babies are being born in part because Vermont has few immigrants, who tend to have larger families. Vermont has also lost many good-paying jobs, driving away many well-educated young people and further discouraging businesses.

Airline deregulation on one hand, the exhaustion of Sixties nostalgia on the other? Read on. There's reason for me to keep working on my current research.

The worker shortage recently forced Mr. Douglas to say he would not drive out illegal immigrants working on Vermont's dairy farms.

"I respect the laws of the United States, of course," [Governor Jim] Douglas said. "But the cows have to be milked."

There is also a serious housing shortage, with mountains and environmental restrictions barring building in many places.

The Last New Ager will be able to watch the sun go down behind Lake Champlain content that there will be no light pollution from a Wal-Mart and its attendant parking lot.

The article also suggests that the competition between elite private colleges and flagship state universities for prime students is getting hotter.

Vermont has the most colleges per capita in the nation and is full of out-of-state students who leave after graduating. But Vermonters often find tuition lower elsewhere because Vermont's colleges and universities get less state financing.

And there are consequences to declaring your neighborhood a nuclear-free zone.

Jennifer Black of Walden, Vt., now in Stoneham, Mass., said she contemplated returning, with two children for Vermont's schools. But jobs for her husband, a defense industry engineer, are "hard to come by" in Vermont, as are some conveniences.

"When I'm up there visiting, I think I would love to live up there," said Ms. Black, 36. "The air's so fresh." But, she added, "you have to drive half an hour to a grocery store. I can walk to a grocery store from here. There's a place where my kids can take swimming lessons readily available here."

Yet another research project: what happens when the economies of agglomeration work in reverse?