In 1973, John Denver sang a song about Toledo to an estimated 30 million viewers of the Johnny Carson show. It was not flattering.

🎶 "Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio, is like being nowhere at all ..."

What follows describes a place where there is nothing to do except “sit in the park and watch the grass die,” where the sidewalks are rolled in by 10p.m. and where “great entertainment” is watching “the buns rise” in the bakery.

At the time, John Denver’s song “Rocky Mountain High” occupied the number 3 spot on the pop charts, and news of his bruising new ballad made its way to Northwest Ohio, where some Toledoans were offended.

Toledo’s mayor told the press that the song was “offensive as hell.” Blade reporter Tony Gearhart called Denver “a no-account slanderer” and “a furrow-browed, demon-eyed, nothing-is-sacred pop singer.”

Welcome to episode two of Brain Drain, a Midstory podcast that explores the city of Toledo through the eyes of the people who’ve left it behind. In this episode, we explore Toledo’s efforts to create an exciting and social urban scene.

Visit www.midstory.org/braindrain/ to explore interactive data visuals and listen to bonus content.

In 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, researchers predicted that half of all U.S. cities will face depopulation by the end of this century.

Welcome to episode one of Brain Drain, a Midstory podcast that explores the city of Toledo through the eyes of the people who’ve left it behind. In this episode, we untangle Toledo in its past and present — and perhaps most importantly, in all its dissonance.

Visit www.midstory.org/braindrain to explore interactive data visuals and listen to bonus content.

Welcome 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 city that is searching for itself.But even after decades of departures, this community is still full of people who refuse to count Toledo out.This story begins in Toledo, but it doesn’t end here.

Communities across the Rust Belt and across the country are grappling with these same issues. So we’re after a bigger narrative, one that explores what a place represents to the people who live in it and the people who leave it behind, and one that — we hope — will transform the way we think about the future of all American cities.

Tune in to Brain Drain episodes below or wherever you get your podcasts.