Brain Drain
By: Midstory
Language: en
Categories: Society, Culture, Science, Social, Business, Non-profit
Brain Drain is a Midstory podcast that looks at an average American city through the eyes of the people who’ve left it behind. The decision to move away from home is often difficult and charged with deep and complicated emotions, and people have a wide range of motivations for leaving. But they all stem from the same, central question: When is home no longer enough?
Episodes
Tomorrow Never Came
Jan 09, 2026In 1868, Jesup W. Scott claimed that by the year 2000, “Toledo would be the largest city in the world.”
Unfortunately, Scott’s vision of Toledo never came true. At least, not fully.
In 2000, Toledo, Ohio, was not the largest city in the world.
Today, Toledo is not the largest city in the world. It’s only the 81st-largest city in the United States, and its population has shrunk by more than 100,000 people over the last 50 years.
The problem is not just that people are leaving Toledo. Population decline is actually quite common — last year...
Duration: 00:27:52Welcome to Brain Drain
Jan 01, 2026Welcome to Brain Drain, a brand new Midstory podcast that looks at an average American city through the eyes of the people who’ve left it behind. The decision to move away from home is often difficult and charged with deep and complicated emotions, and people have a wide range of motivations for leaving. But they all stem from the same, central question:
When is home no longer enough?
The answer to this question has led over a hundred thousand people away from Toledo in the last five decades, and still looms over this post-industrial ci...
Duration: 00:03:07