Rural states and regions use Web sites to attract professionals back to their native areas

"A growing number [of Americans are] bringing their professions back to small-town America thanks to Web-based recruitment campaigns by rural regions beckoning with quality of life," Sue Lindsey writes for The Associated Press. Return to Roots, a southwest Virginia program funded partly with tobacco-settlement money, posts job opportunities that include positions in information technology, engineering, education and heath care. Other states, including Vermont, South Dakota, Kansas and West Virginia have similar Web-based efforts.

Lindsey writes, "West Virginia inserted tear-off postcards in newspaper ads earlier this month and asked residents to send them to friends and family as part of its campaign. Kansas has a program aimed at professionals in bioscience that it plans to expand to a statewide initiative for all types of jobs, said state Commerce Department spokesman Caleb Asher. More than 500 job-seekers have moved to South Dakota for a variety of jobs since it launched Dakota Roots in October 2006." Virginia's program mailed 30,000 postcards to area high school and college graduates.

"Rural areas have gained appeal among companies looking for a less expensive way to do business without sending jobs overseas," Lindsey reports. Return to Roots users cite their desire to help their native areas and love for the outdoors, and say rural employment offers simpler lives and less stress. "Once we understood the vision, we chose to come," says Keith Brown, a software engineer in southwest Virginia. His wife Julia is somewhat worried about the lack of ethnic diversity because their daughter is Chinese, but says the family has felt at home. "I think it's much better for (our daughter) to live in a more wholesome place where we're not caught up in this rat race all the time," Julia says.