
Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy - petethomas
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html
======
nimbius
speaking as someone who works in a small town in the midwest as an auto
mechanic, the people that shot themselves in the foot with this idea were the
very ones who proposed it.

I got 5 months of free online Python classes from the local government. This
was part of some larger state plan to 'revitalize' us as a 'web 2.0' something
or other for the 'silicon valley' of the midwest. The whole thing read like
snake oil but I learned some pretty good skills in python and a lot more about
Linux than I knew before.

Our state has these lofty goals but couldnt attract more than a mega-truck-
stop diner in the past 8 years. The reason for this is that unless you have a
winning complexion (are white and male) you arent going to have a lot of fun
here.

Want birth control? well thats a 2 week waiting period and a mandatory
consultation. Did you run out? well you have to renew that script every month.
Want it covered by your insurance? tough, legally, our state outlawed that.
Need an abortion? book a flight, we require a trans-vaginal ultrasound and a
waiting period.

Are you LGBTQ? enjoy our bathroom law. adoption providers can also legally
discriminate against you for even asking to adopt. theres also no protections
in the workplace, so enjoy being fired for "gay."

Are you a blue-collar minority? Unless you know exactly when and where to go
to get a license, then voting is practically impossible. our bowling alleys
and food courts/theaters also enforce a dress code thats loosely translated to
"no blacks."

~~~
weberc2
What state is this? How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites?
Apologies if these questions are naive, I'm not particularly familiar with
midwest politics.

~~~
snowwrestler
> How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites?

By only asking minorities to prove they are carrying ID. "The law" is what
gets enforced, not what it says on the books.

Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they
should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police
department too.

~~~
cinquemb
> _" The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books._

> _Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they
> should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City
> police department too._

"Organized Democracy" by Melanin 9: `youtube-dl -f mp4 'QPls-Gi_4Ig'` speaks
to this very much.

------
edaemon
For what it's worth the submission title here ("Turning small towns into tech
hubs isn't working") doesn't appear in the article.

The basic reasoning of the article:

 _...the high-tech industries powering the economy today don’t have much need
for the cheap labor that rural communities contributed to America’s industrial
past. They mostly need highly educated workers. They find those most easily in
big cities, not in small towns.

In a report published in November, Mark Muro, William Galston and Clara
Hendrickson of the Brookings Institution laid out a portfolio of ideas to
rescue the substantial swathe of the country that they identify as “left
behind.” They identify critical shortages bedeviling declining communities:
workers with digital skills, broadband connections, capital. And they have
plans to address them: I.T. training and education initiatives, regulatory
changes to boost lending to small businesses, incentives to invest in
broadband.

...the authors concede that they may not be up to the task. “I don’t know if
these ideas are going to work,” Mr. Galston acknowledged when I pressed him on
the issue. “But it is worth making the effort.”_

The article is essentially laying out the idea of encouraging the tech sector
to develop in rural communities and says it might work, but notes that even
proponents aren't certain. The pressure of agglomeration is high in the tech
industry, and that concentrates jobs in big cities.

~~~
badloginagain
In theory all you need to make it work is good internet connection. Especially
if its remote.

If there was a serious offer from some company where for the same amount of
rent in SF, I could have a mortgage on literal acres of land, thats
attractive.

Less attractive is the crumbling infrastructure, opioid wildfires, actual
wildfires, and aggressively conservative culture.

Gotta try something though, right?

~~~
sidlls
People drastically understate the infrastructure and other issues you note in
places outside of major urban centers of technology. My children do not have a
net benefit from a huge home on a huge plot of land if the schools are
garbage, there are few or no parks, the politics are very conservative, and
diversity is lacking.

~~~
badpun
As someone coming from Poland, a country that’s pretty much 100% white and
Polish, I don’t feel that the lack of “diversity” has negatively impacted my
development. It seems to me that people in the US have been brainwashed (in
schools, by media etc.) into believing that diversity is always good and lack
of diversity is always bad, while in reality it’s not that simple.

~~~
soundwave106
It's more the "reaction to diversity" that's the issue, in my opinion. Some
areas unfortunately are not terribly friendly to non-white or non-Christian
people. This sometimes is reflected in certain laws and may reflect in other
cultural ways. This probably is not something any international-oriented
company would look positively on, since international companies will have
employees from a wide variety of cultures.

I remember when one of the consequences of Alabama's 2011 immigration laws was
them ticketing or arresting two automobile executives.
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/02/alabama-car-
bo...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/02/alabama-car-boss-
immigration-law)) I thought at the time that was a (sarcasm) _great_ promotion
to international corporations of the benefits of putting an office in Alabama.

As an atheist I certainly wouldn't move into any very religious area, which
unfortunately is a fair bit of rural places. (For examples why, see:
[http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/24/atheists-in-the-
bib...](http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/24/atheists-in-the-bible-belt-a-
survival-guide/))

~~~
badpun
That cnn article sure is interesting. Poland is supposedly one of more
Christian countries in the world, but nothing even close to the stories from
that article (losing job or customers after coming out as an atheist) ever
happens here. I wonder how common such incidents are in the US.

~~~
chrisco255
I grew up in a rural part of Florida, and while I do remember atheism having a
stigma about it in high school, it was more of a mild distaste people would
share about it (mostly based on predispositions about it). That being said,
religion is a Federally protected classification, so no one can fire someone
over atheism and not risk a lawsuit in the U.S. Some of these articles are
written by people who are as far removed from rural American life as they are
from Poland...and I would take such articles with a grain of salt.

------
mr_tristan
I suspect this is a much bigger deal in the US, since we have rural power bias
built into our political system. Thus, the rural voter has a much bigger "say"
in how things run.

(Subsequently, if their life continues to get worse, well, I suspect more
tendencies towards authoritarianism.)

This is where I sense the tension. At least in the US, the political system
seems to want to maintain people in rural areas, but the economic system
doesn't. And I'm not sure a politician running on a platform of "we're gonna
get you out of dodge" is going to be very popular.

Advocating for moving people out of rural areas seems like political suicide.
I can't find anyone pushing for this idea.

~~~
mrdodge
What was different about America that small towns thrived?

The economic system is short sighted, and doesn't always have to drive
politics - this may be a recent phenomena.

~~~
mr_tristan
When the US was founded, about 95% of the population was rural, and notably,
Thomas Jefferson was famously pro-rural, and viewed cities as corrupt.

You can just search "thomas jefferson agrarian quotes" and get tons of pro-ag,
anti-city statements from him, such as:

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most
vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their
country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. As
long, therefore, as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert
them into mariners, artisans, or anything else.” –Thomas Jefferson to John
Jay, 1785.

~~~
mrdodge
We've become a nation of employees.

~~~
pesmhey
Microserfs

------
thinkingkong
Small towns cannot be tech hubs, because that's not even what a 'hub' is. It
would be the end node, or an outlier constantly. I'm from a small town but we
have one huge industry which employs around 80% of the local community. The
rest of the folks are in construction, service industries, schools, etc. No
amount of effort would turn that region into a tech or innovation hub without
it also turning it into a city.

Instead of trying to shore up the weaknesses of rural communities how can they
play to their strengths? A small community and lifestyle has lots of benefits
over living in the city but you have to value both working in tech (remotely)
_and_ what a small community has to offer.

~~~
hopefulengineer
The biggest problem for small and medium communities is brain drain. It's a
vicious death spiral because the smart and ambitious kids basically have to
move away to large cities to get quality jobs.

The only solution I can think of is incentivizing remote work so people don't
have to be concentrated in cities. You might not even have to incentivize it
because it's a tremendous advantage as a tech company to be able to recruit
from any where in the country where lots of talented people don't want to move
for family reasons or don't want to live in a city

~~~
lotsofpulp
The only incentivizing needed is to provide fiber to the home so everyone has
ample connectivity to compete on a level playing field, and then businesses
will figure out which mix of remote and in office employees works for them and
allows them to best position themselves in the market.

~~~
ghaff
Fiber to the home may be desirable but it's overrated. I've had tech co-
workers who managed with satellite because that was their only option to live
on a rural property they wanted.

------
lubujackson
I grew up in a small town in the Berkshires and recently went back there to
see family. It is interesting to see the shift from where it was 100 years ago
to where it was when I was a kid, to where it is today (and where it's
heading).

100 years ago there was a ton of industry: paper mills, textile mills, marble
and limestone quarries. These were supported by a train that ran through town
to transports goods to and from Boston, and the town sprouted up organically
around these industries.

One by one, they all faded away but when I was little the town still had much
of the residual glory: a downtown full of shops, a mahogany-lined library and
school, plus a big new mall 15 minutes away. Then as I grew up all the things
started to go away. The two drive-in theaters, the entire downtown shopping
area, the malls. All of it bottomed out when the Walmart came to town
(familiar story...)

But now there is a bit of a revival around art, nature and tourism, which they
have been pushing my entire life. The old train tracks are now a
walking/bicycle path. The old textile mill is a modern art museum. The shell
of its former existence gives the town a very unique character now. But there
is a big disconnect between people who grew up there and the tourist mindset,
and it's interesting to be able to see and understand both sides of it. The
people that are moving there or want to visit there have a COMPLETELY
different mindset than the people who do live there, even most the people
trying to drum up the tourism.

Most small towns aren't going to revive via tourism, of course, but I think
the bigger problem is every small town is trying to find some big "thing" to
come save them. A new plant, a new business hub of some sort. Instead they
should be focusing on their strengths, such as they exist: cheap housing, open
spaces, access to nature, no commuting traffic. Cut out red tape and let
people redefine these town husks like hermit crabs changing shells. I think
the best approach is to focus on local community elements that are attractive
to people who can work remotely. It's got to be success by a thousand cuts,
because most of these communities have no chance at a real influx of business.

~~~
illegalsmile
My small city of approximately 60k is doing just what you describe to bring in
people from all over not only for tourism but to live. Relatively cheap
housing, easy and relatively quick access to millions of acres of nature, cute
downtown, low commute times, etc... There are tech incubators and work spaces
here with younger more progressive groups working together in ways this city
has never seen. We have growth rate percentages on par with major cities and
the area will become more appealing as the larger cities continue to make
housing unaffordable and traffic gridlocked. I appreciate what they're doing
and know that this change was inevitable. While I hate what it is now I know
there are people moving here who love it and I want them to love it as much as
I used to.

I have found a new place where the topography essentially places a hard limit
on growth and provides me with immediate access to all the things I love to do
outdoors. While this makes me part of the problem I know what I want my
town/city to be.

So my point is I agree that there is no one solution but rather a holistic
approach of building up your best features to appeal to many is the only way
for these towns to prosper in the future.

~~~
war1025
What different people regard as big and small is always amusing to me.

The town I grew up in was ~3k people, and was the biggest in the county. The
biggest city in the area was 30k. You had to drive at least an hour and a half
to find anything bigger.

The place I live now has a population ~60k, and seems quite big to me. But to
a lot of people that is still just a little spot in the middle of nowhere.

------
msluyter
I'd love the idea of living in a quiet, small community, were it not for a
number of practicalities:

Schools -- We're trying to provide the highest possible quality education for
our daughter, which means living in the best public school district we can
find or within range of the best private school we can afford. And while I'm
sure there are exceptions, this means living in a city.

Jobs -- Even though in theory I could work remotely, my wife (a lawyer)
couldn't. Wherever we live has to be able to provide employment opportunities
for two disparate professions.

Arts/Culture/Etc... -- I take my daughter to the Thinkery (a neat kid's museum
here in Austin) monthly. She takes ballet and swim lessons, perhaps music
lessons soon. It's important for our family to be in proximity to a vibrant
art/music scene.

None of this is meant to denigrate small towns or rural areas, and perhaps
there are some areas that provide the above (I'd be curious to hear about them
if there were, actually...) I merely mention this to indicate how difficult
the project is.

~~~
pastor_elm
>None of this is meant to denigrate small towns or rural areas, and perhaps
there are some areas that provide the above (I'd be curious to hear about them
if there were, actually...)

Many rural areas in Vermont (particularly in the Northeast Kingdom) will give
you a school voucher to use at any school you want (public or private) because
there isn't a local public. As a consequence, there are some really good
private schools up there. The public schools are good too. It has actually
created somewhat of a culture of upper class people moving there.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
> It has actually created somewhat of a culture of upper class people moving
> there.

Depends on the Vermonters you ask. I take it you weren't canvassing a trailer
park.

A lot of people will give you some wise ass answer that people from MA and NY
made their money in NYC or Boston and once they had a family to raise or when
they were ready to retire they realized had to move to a state that hadn't
been turned to crap by the people in NYC or Boston.

Considering the political difference between NY/MA and (a good chunk of)
people in rural areas of VT (or any other state in northern New England) you
can see why they might say something like this.

------
ryanmarsh
I recently applied to be part of Tulsa, Oklahoma's program offering $10k for
tech people to move there. I'm a high income tech person and I love to teach
and mentor others (it's literally my business). I never received a response.
Not even a, "hey we can't offer you $10k, but here are some other reasons you
may still want to move here...".

I can live anywhere in the country. I'm not tied to Houston, TX where I live I
just haven't been motivated to move since I travel to fun places so much
anyway.

I flat out do not understand the strategies of these cities who are trying to
become tech hubs. I also don't understand the "economic development"
consultants that advise them. You want remote workers? That's a strategy, but
you have to work at it. You want tech companies to move there? You have to
work hard at it. The best kept secret about business in Texas is how our
previous Governor got on a plane with pitch deck in hand and worked hard to
lure businesses to Texas. This even included ad campaigns in other states.

The mentality of most city councils, economic development committees, and
governors seems to treat "building a tech sector" as some kind of magic
requiring a secret incantation.

It's sales, beat the bricks.

~~~
Kalium
> I flat out do not understand the strategies of these cities who are trying
> to become tech hubs.

The known-good approach, of spending decades building educational, financial,
cultural, and business conditions that enable tech hubs is difficult and slow
and expensive. Cities are looking for ways to shortcut this that are palatable
to voters who often don't really see a need to change things.

I think you've hit on it: a lot of people and places see tech businesses as
something not significantly different from a car plant.

------
johan_larson
Maybe we shouldn't be trying to keep these small town alive. Maybe we should
focus on shutting them down in an orderly fashion and help the residents move
to more dynamic areas, probably in large part by helping them acquire skills
that are actually in demand there.

~~~
jriot
I am a data scientist and work remotely, living in a small town on 3.6 acres.
Moving to a city would be terrible, living within a 40 minute drive is plenty
close enough.

Why do you feel the need to shut down entire communities?

~~~
cmorgan31
I don't think it's fair to say this person is shutting down entire
communities. Isn't the market doing that? The reality of the article is not
every town has a flourishing future in the economy. Although the way it is
phrased suggests, they are going to pick you up and walk you out of town even
if you disagree.

Do we subsidize their lives as some have suggested with UBI? Do we try to
revitalize industries that failed? As someone who lives in a small town, what
do you think would help those towns and their residents?

~~~
jriot
In all honesty, the biggest issue particularly in the south (Hawaii as well)
is that most people are content with their lives. They aren't trying to move
up the corporate ladder, learn the latest tech etc... They are happy with
their jobs, culture, families, and traditions. This mindset clashes with the
rest of America, particularly the West coast, were having a family, culture,
and traditions are seen as negative to society.

We are trying to solve regional issues from a national perspective. Local
government and issues needs to become more important. Locals need to solve
local issue. People in Portland, OR aren't going to to solve issues in
Mandeville, LA.

~~~
cmorgan31
Yes, that's likely the best way to solve it by tackling it locally. I grew up
in a rural town in Georgia, and I am all too familiar with the "southern
gentleman's pride" which is just a polite way to say my family is stubborn to
a fault. I know we will need tradesmen for the foreseeable future so I always
try to take that approach instead of the almost cliche "go into tech!" advice.
Let's say we could change the narrative, so folks don't depend on the federal
level to solve their woes. Would rural America want to change or accept the
assistance?

------
helen___keller
I think if (and that's a big if) our tech sector begins to wholly embrace
remote work, even that would probably not be enough. Most likely, most highly
educated tech workers who don't like the city would still prefer typical
postwar American suburbs where they can occasionally drive into the city for
pleasure and still have access to a first rate health care system, education
system, and so on.

------
camhenlin
Personally I feel that one way to help small towns is more companies embracing
remote work and the benefits that remote work provides. Additionally companies
or municipalities must continue to build out high speed infrastructure to
support those workers and empower the residents of those areas to have the
opportunity to be highly connected.

For many companies, embracing remote work when possible is to their benefit.
No longer do they have the small hiring pool of a handful of office locations,
but they now have the entire country at their fingertips at very little
effort.

My personal experience is that I work remotely outside of a small rural town,
and I know two others in my area who do the same, so it seems like this trend
may already be happening. The nice thing about this is that there is no hub
required! If the job doesn’t need an office, why have one?

------
randomdata
It seems to be working for the small town I grew up in. However, it gained its
tech industry rather organically with a tech business in town hitting the tech
lottery. It comes as no surprise that you cannot force an industry to flourish
in small towns, or even big cities for that matter.

~~~
jackbravo
So your small town has now several small tech companies? Or one that grew and
employs now a considerable percentage of the workforce?

~~~
randomdata
Both.

------
amyjess
Ultimately, if you're going to do it, do it the way TI did.

Texas Instruments set up their headquarters next to Richardson, TX. When they
realized there weren't enough engineers in the area, the TI founders started
their own university so they could farm engineers to grow TI.

Ultimately, once the university got big enough, they turned it over to the
state, and now the University of Texas at Dallas is the largest engineering-
centric university in the southwest, and its existence is probably responsible
for the Silicon Prairie and the Telecom Corridor being a thing.

------
felipeccastro
This looks somewhat familiar with the centralization vs decentralization
debate in tech. It seems the network effects benefits don't apply only for
tech products, but for cities as well.

While there are many efforts in overcoming those effects through
decentralization in various aspects (from remote work to blockchain projects),
it seems none of these really achieved as much success as we were expecting,
probably because the benefits of decentralization don't outweigh (yet) the
advantages of strong networks.

Perhaps once we solve this equation in tech, and make decentralized options
more appealing than their centralized counterparts, we may be able to transfer
that knowledge to city planning somehow.

------
fromthestart
Are these same small towns also insulated from market crashes and recessions?

Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence?

Edit: apparently people are interpreting my comment negatively. I was
seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer
during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting
negative effects. I'm not questioning whether they should exist or anything
nonsensical like that.

~~~
ryanmarsh
_Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence?_

Are you asking if there's a good reason why these small towns should exist?

~~~
madengr
Maybe rural america (energy, food) do Master Blaster style embargo on big
cities.

~~~
eropple
"Rural Americans" own neither the energy nor the food production located near
them.

By and large, rural America is subsidized by the rest of America, be they
urbanites or large companies. And to be frank, that's fine; I support
generally allowing people to find the best way for them to live, within
reason. (Where people like me start getting snippy--and we do, we aren't
saints--is when that's not acknowledged. "Real Americans" and the like.)

~~~
Rapzid
The Rest of America

------
rb808
I can't read the article - did it mention globalization? I don't know why
you'd want to hire someone remotely in small country town USA when you could
get 10 people for the same price in other countries.

Now there are pretty resort towns where skilled people want to live, that is
different. But old Mid-Western agricultural towns don't have that draw.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Here's two reasons to hire small town USA:

1\. Culture fit. (This is a huge reason for customer service centers
onshoring.)

2\. Same/similar working hours.

------
mohankumar246
Whenever people question the concentration of tech jobs in cities like SF it
always makes me think: 1) Why do most jobs related to show business(movies)
are concentrated in LA? 2) Why are most jobs in banking concentrated in NYC?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Face to face, non audit-able interactions are important in finance. Maybe the
same for show business, plus LA has really nice weather and scenery.

------
vinceguidry
I think the only realistic solution here is to offer relocation assistance to
folks to migrate to urban areas.

America's backyard is _enormous_. Attempts to make it more prosperous are
basically urban development. There's just too much of it to make any kind of
dent in with any kind of money. We can't make cities everywhere like China and
wait for people to move in, we just don't have that kind of population.

We need to move the people to the cities. That's the only real solution.

------
jbhatab
I feel a sense of inevitability with rural America fading in importance and
massive hubs being the dominant players. The only solution I can think of is
pushing for more remote labor in these rural areas as an acceptable lifestyle
choice. Maybe restructuring the towns with more of an appeal for 30-45 year
old software engineers to work out of. The biggest problem I see though is top
tier education systems in these places being the biggest deterrent.

------
threatofrain
I think some small towns become retirement targets because outside of
California the spots that fit multiple dimensions of quality like (1) good
schools, (2) good incomes, (3) good weather, (4) affordable living, (5) decent
commercial activity, etc., you end up with a narrowing space of options.

Some of those towns grow enough to attract a tech company, and will continue
to attract growth because it's just harder and harder to get the nice balance
of factors.

------
danzig13
I work in information systems in a manufacturing company in a small town. The
power of agglomeration is quite apparent in its absence.

Most everyone in this company has only ever worked there and accepts the
status quo of how things are done. Typically, “the worst way that works.”

It would be nice to be in an area where we could have some turnover and
occasionally get people from more mature/professional companies.

------
michaelbuckbee
In the mix with this are the tax incentives that are being offered up for tech
companies to move into rural areas. While there has been a lot of attention on
HN focused recently on Amazon's and Apple's move, the really interesting one
to me is Foxconn.

Foxconn really seems to have suckered a small Wisconsin community (and the
state) into giving them an incredibly lopsided tax incentive deal - as
detailed in this amazing episode of ReplyAll [1]

I think a far smarter idea is to pay tech workers an incentive to relocate to
the state, as Vermont is doing [2]. The payback is quicker and the results far
easier to scale.

1 - [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-
ple...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-
pleasant#episode-player)

2 - [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/us/vermont-moving-
money.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/us/vermont-moving-money.html)

------
sunshinelackof
The only solution that will save small towns is dismantling some of the
industrialisation that freed people up to work in the factory or mill that no
longer exists. It's a trivial example, but ban preservatives in bread and now
they need a bakery that can deliver bread everyday. Bread that lasts two weeks
on a shelf is an optimisation for communities that support advanced
professions. Heavy industrialisation is a model that no longer fits these
communities and while some might be able to attract select tech workers--in
effect patchwork, others should realise that they're optimised for a workforce
that no longer exists.

All of that may not even be possible. First try and sell your community their
way of life is unsustainable, then try and shake the Walmart, McDonalds
dependency.

~~~
lubujackson
There is a bit of this idea emergent in some small towns. I know a chef in
Vermont who focuses on foraged ingredients, smaller farm-sourced produce and
getting everything fresh and local. Which is also much a fad in places like
SF! It is one area where small towns can actually show uniqueness via their
geographic differences. And if it continues to develop naturally as a choice
(rather than a ban on preservatives...) it could contribute to giving small
towns a reason to persist.

------
andmarios
If a small town in the US could become a tech hub, then every capital in the
world would already be one. Significant amounts of money are spent around the
globe, yet it seems tech hubs are the one thing you cannot disrupt. :)

------
motohagiography
I think there is a reckoning coming in terms of what "educated worker" means,
as increasingly, it does not mean "competent."

Competence and specialization is what drives rural economies. Machine repair,
fabrication, feed mills, legal services, construction, teaching, child care,
animal and livestock services, all require physical competence. These are
considered blue collar jobs, because they require someone to actually _do_
something to create value.

I would argue that the soft skills that corporate environments require do not
create value, they at best manage capital, and usually deal in the factors and
derivatives of negotiating wealth transfers and businesses that reduce to
forms of amusement, posterity, and entertainment.

The urban/rural resentment has a lot to do with the relative dependency of
each on the other. Cities need food, and farms need capital. Globalization
means cities can get food for less from around the world, and the margins on
farming are so thin that capital is mostly only accessible at the conglomerate
scale.

Competence can be bought from a global supply chain, so rural economies are
collapsing precisely because of globalization (e.g. international trade
liberalization), and because of distorted fiscal policies that destroy local
wealth in favour of centralizing it from global sources. The results have
been, and remain predictable.

What is very likely is that city housing prices will become so high that
companies will have to use remote workers to produce goods while paying the
cost of living, and this will drive broadband investment.

However the real crisis is that the traditional urban/rural dependency and
cultural divide is polarizing in favour of the urban side, who can be defined
as the sort of people who use phrases like, "left behind," and who lack an
apprehension of what follows ecological imbalance at this scale.

Adding educated workers to small towns will not revitalize them, and nor will
building public works with public administrative jobs. Until there is a way to
generate productive and competitive capital and build real wealth in them,
without suffering predation by both their respective governments and
globalized markets, they will continue to disappear.

------
DoubleCribble
I tend to agree with an idea that's mentioned in the article. Perhaps much of
the land in certain flyover states should just return to the bison? While it
means most of the towns would disappear, some would greatly succeed. I'd be
FAR more likely to regularly visit Podunk-Nowheresville if I could witness the
annual migration of 10 million bison. After having traveled to the other side
of the planet and seen such a migration, developing an American safari
industry seems like an outcome worth pursuing.

~~~
nemo44x
It's all mainly farmland.

~~~
DoubleCribble
But if left to it's own devices (or with a little assistance from the bison),
may return to prairie very quickly. I suspect it wouldn't take long for native
grasses to outcompete any residual farmable crops.

~~~
nemo44x
We need this farmland, right?

~~~
DoubleCribble
Nope.[0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States)

------
ph0rque
A bit off-topic, but I love the "Population density by county" graph. Is there
any way to plot the whole world that way, and then make an animation of how it
changes over time?

------
carapace
Reminds me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful)

> Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a
> collection of essays by German born British economist E. F. Schumacher.

------
honkycat
I grew up in a town of 2,000 in rural Illinois. My parents ran a business,
until it shut down of course. A lot of people have this idyllic vision of
small town life. Everybody knows everybody, you can let your kids walk home
from school, happy cows chewing cud in verdant fields.

I will add a caveat to this: I lived in a small town during the decline. The
place my parents grew up in was a much more lively, happy place. There were
jobs and prosperity, it made sense for them to not leave. My town no longer
has a grocery store, has a single restaurant, and I am hard pressed to think
of a small business doing well. There are other small towns in the US that I
am sure are lovely. I'm just speaking from my own experience.

Unstructured list of thoughts about small town life:

\- People are poorly educated and constantly make bad decisions about
everything.

    
    
      - Years of poor decisions and management have buried my town in bad expensive infrastructure.
      
      - Our mayor was an extremely incompetent, unqualified barber.
      
      - The schools are falling apart and the good teachers quickly move on to more lucrative jobs in other areas. The good ones leave. The bad ones stay.
      
      - Picture the Simpsons monorail episode, but replace the ambitious public transit project with a strip mall they can put a buffalo wild wings and a huge parking lot into
      
      - Picture the Simpsons monorail episode, but instead of the town agreeing to build affordable housing, they reject the free government development because, and I was at this meeting, `They don't want the black people from Chicago moving into town.`
      

\- The people... kinda suck.

    
    
      - Conservatism in small town America exists, it is not some abstract concept. They are racist. They are poorly educated. They think global warming is a hoax.
      
      - There is a special breed of large, swaggering, ignorant, low, angry white men that tend to live in small towns. They exist in cities too, but there are also other people around.
      
      - As the article suggests: The educated leave. The info-wars fans stay.
      

\- Poor diversity. Still know 30 year olds who think it is edgy/cool to slur
constantly. Experiencing other cultures breeds empathy. Full stop.

\- RAMPANT drug abuse. Alcohol. Meth. Opiates. You name it.

\- Mind numbing boredom.

    
    
      - Just because there is less civilization does not mean it is a beautiful forest. 
      
      - Is often a polluted creek people would be happy to replace with a Walmart, or a corn field that stinks of fertilizer for months on end. ( poop )
      

\- There is no culture to interact with.

    
    
      - Want an education?
      
        - Good luck finding a decent college nearby.
        
      - Want to see a band? Too bad. You will have to drive 4 hours to see anyone.
      
      - Want to start a band? 
      
        - Good luck finding a community. 
        
        - Good luck finding an audience. 
        
        - Good luck finding a mentor.
        
        - Good luck finding a place to perform.
        
      - Who you surround yourself with matters. 
      
        - Who are you going to hang out with? 
        
        - Who is going to be hanging out and collaborating with your kids? Would you rather it be the smart, cosmopolitan Muhammad, or Cletus the pig-farmer's feral son?
        

\- Kind of obvious, but: What are you going to do for a living?

    
    
      - There is nobody to network with.
      
      - What are you going to do when you lose your remote gig? 
      
      - Personally I would rather have the opportunity to get a local job if remote work goes out of style.
      

\- Small town gossip is a THING.

    
    
      - People will see your success, covet it, and hate you for it. They will want to knock you down.
    

Small towns destroyed themselves by deciding to build giant roads, shopping
malls, and walmarts instead of maintaining their main street, building parks,
and upgrading their schools. You know, enhancing the life of people living in
your city, instead of enhancing the lives of the people who drive through it
at 60 miles an hour.

Now the malls are empty ( They were always a bad, dumb experiment ). Now all
of their pointless expensive roads are crumbling and eating up a massive
amount of tax revenue. Walmart pays the community a pittance and funnels all
of their wealth to the CEOs.

It stinks people are suffering and losing a way of life, but I feel that much
of this pain is self-inflicted. So to small towns: Bye, Felicia.

Some interesting reading:

\- [https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-
scheme](https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme)

------
jhowell
We've spent so much time and money gentrifying urban areas, now we're going
back to the burbs. This is like going back to the mainframe, or from the cloud
back to physical hardware. We toggle between the two extremes.

My only hesitation is that the burbs haven't historically been so diverse and
welcoming in the past and likely part of the reason "the kids" flee to the
city. Maybe that will change.

------
jammygit
Counterpoint: I hear there are some startups thriving on Vancouver island in a
few small towns.

~~~
troygoode
That’s not a counterpoint. Of course _a_ (or some) startup can thrive there,
or anywhere. That is not what a hub is. We don’t have to change small towns at
all if all we want is a diverse assortment of small businesses, some of which
may be tech.

------
Terr_
> For the last quarter century the story of these places has been one of
> relentless economic decline. [...] The election of Donald Trump, powered in
> no small degree by rural voters

Counterpoint: "Trump Voters Driven by Fear of Losing Status, Not Economic
Anxiety, Study Finds" [0]

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-
economi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-
anxiety.html)

------
rm8x
Halifax anyone?

~~~
winthrowe
I would think that having multiple universities within the city disqualifies
it from being called a 'small town'.

------
InGodsName
As someone who has lived in a small town, I'd suggest Government to offer:

1\. Cheaper and faster internet in the remote locations. Then people can work
remotely, have skype HD chats which don't disconnect in middle. Even free
internet with 400gb limit per month per house would be good enough.

2\. Faster ecom delivery - If we can order the same machines which city
dwellers use, well it would suck less.

Leave the rest on the people.

The people who lived around me in the small town weren't less intelligent,
they had to keep up with more issues like flaky internet, not finding the
supplies, not getting the work.

Internet/ecom can solve many of those issues.

~~~
zachguo
Meanwhile in China [https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/13/why-the-future-of-
chinese-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/13/why-the-future-of-chinese-e-
commerce-is-in-its-rural-areas/)

------
mml
Dirt can’t be turned to gold. Film at 11.

Unfortunately, it can still vote for some reason.

~~~
sctb
Posting like this will get your account banned. If you can't comment civilly,
don't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

