probablymagic t1_itpp21v wrote
It’s as though people in cities get better educations and thus have the skills unavailable to rural communities with poor access to education due to their lack of density.
This is why it’s a fool’s errand to think things like “rural broadband” magically improve rural economies. At best they let the urban middle class move to these places, work remote, and put their high-skill money into these economies.
This is a knowledge economy and we need to stop being shocked that geographies that aren’t designed to participate in it don’t benefit from it.
MyLittlePIMO t1_itq7cly wrote
They also let people in rural economies gain a skill…to get a job and move to an urban area.
SpaceObama t1_itptiiq wrote
In my area, the WFH people are buying up all the rural housing, driving up the prices a significant amount. There are many places near me where the local wages just cannot afford people a means to live locally anymore. These rural people just cannot compete for a variety of reasons, and local businesses are dead set on keeping wages flat.
probablymagic t1_itpvdld wrote
This is definitely happening but the natural limiter will be schools. Rural schools suck, so if you are a highly-educated worker with kids, you’re fairly limited in where you can move. What you are seeing more of as far as I can tell is people moving out into the suburbs for more space & that’s pushing people who could’ve afforded that further out.
The “let’s move to a farm” thing seems to be the kid-less people. I know a few of those who are in Montana somewhere, but only a few.
It turns out the internet is slow and there’s no Asian food out there, so it’s more fun to visit.
SpaceObama t1_itpw08e wrote
That hasn't been the case in my area. Many parents have the money to send their kids to private schools in the area, even if it's a long bus ride for the kids. At least where I am, rural Canada, you can have that rural life while still being on a bus route for a city school. The bus might be 1hr each way, but its how they do it.
probablymagic t1_itpwqhd wrote
Interesting stuff. We moved from a city to a fancy burb. It feels rural with all the animals, huge lies, and driving. So much driving.
Half our neighbors are from other places. Half of them are from here and never left.
The houses are absurdly cheap to us, but are the high end of the market for the region.
But we are not private school people so I didn’t look into how that sound with in a rural place. Nature is great, but if you’re wasting your life on the bus and not even participating in your community, why bother living there when you’re still working all the time?
SpaceObama t1_itpzzy8 wrote
It’s because the prices are absurdly cheap to a lot of people from outside the local area.
Houses are still selling for over asking, sight unseen, no inspection to people from a HCOL area who sold their house and are flush with cash.
At least in my area, people don’t realize what rural means until they get here. It’s a running joke in my area about people asking where the local Asian Fuzion restaurant or Hot Dog Yoga Studio is. You would be shocked at the lack of research people so before moving here. That fact that our schools are dead last in the country here…people don’t usually hear that until after they move here. The only thing people care about is the cost of the house and how much land it comes with. The rest “can’t be that bad, right?” until it is that bad.
probablymagic t1_itq4vz3 wrote
“Wait, nobody comes to get the trees off the .75 mile driveway when they fall and take out the power and phone in the winter? What the hell!”
Good luck figuring out a chainsaw in the snow, mr soft hands!
Significant_Sign t1_itru3ai wrote
I mean, your neighbors come. That's what we did in the rural area I grew up in. Remote work has only increased the occurrence of something that's been happening since I don't know when. We knew if someone from the city had moved to our little town and we knew they probably didn't have what they needed to get through hurricane season. You go over there and help them, when they ask if you like the chainsaw you're using you say yes & offer to teach them how to use one safely if they buy one. Then you chitchat about the pros and cons of various generators. In just a year or so they have their tools and are contributing to the clean up like everyone else. They even bring food or beer when something is going to take all day. Sometimes their wife knows how to make something the locals would never have tried otherwise and then they all discover they love Greek food.
This idea of rural areas as a bunch of assholes who want to be lonely islands and never help each other is false and says lots more about you than someone who may not even have soft hands bc you can do manual labor in the city and know how to use lots of tools. Like my uncle, who worked in the city for the DOT and knew how to use all the tools including plenty of specialized ones us country folk couldn't afford so we had do workarounds with basic tools. It sure was nice when he would drive out to help.
probablymagic t1_itrx6g2 wrote
Sounds like your neighbors are close. Try seeing how waiting for your neighbors to show up works when your house is off a logging road and a tree falls across it taking out your power and phone lines, which only go to your house. Nobody is coming. You gotta cut your way out and drive into town to call the power company.
That’s what I mean by rural. It’s a fine way to live. But not for everybody. I prefer just to visit, and usually not in the winter months because I don’t have the right truck.
Significant_Sign t1_itrykae wrote
We lived ~half a mile off the farthest out road intersection my school bus driver was willing to come to. We had one neighbor family halfway between us and the end of the road. All around the hill we lived on was cow pastures and woods - which sometimes got clear cut, turning our road into a logging road. When we needed more help than the one neighbor, we walked over the pastures and through the woods to get to other houses when we could all them to lend a hand or let us use the phone to call relatives that lived in town. I think you and I mean the same thing by rural, we just have very different experiences of people knowing how to act.
RamoTheRedditor t1_itqgii7 wrote
Same thing in the UK that I am doing because prices in the city are climbing high since people from the south are being driven out by high rent in their own cities they come here which in turn makes us who live here unable to pay the same prices (wfh with london salary tends to be higher than in manchester) so then we have to move and continue the cycle onto another area.
SpaceObama t1_itqwkbk wrote
Weird that it’s the same buzz in multiple countries.
My area is the end of the line though, there isn’t any place cheaper in this country. The price of houses and rent have doubled within the past two years.
Skeptix_907 t1_itq3cq3 wrote
>It’s as though people in cities get better educations and thus have the skills unavailable to rural communities with poor access to education due to their lack of density
What are you talking about? People living in small towns most frequently leave for college. Every state has a large university where you can get a world class education. You're acting as though only people in cities are allowed into places like Ohio State.
nimama3233 t1_itq523n wrote
I think the point is people that move away to get advanced college degrees don’t move back to their crummy small towns. I know it’s anecdotally the case for me
koghrun t1_itqv406 wrote
This is most likely because, for the last several decades, there weren't many jobs that needed a college education in those little towns. People were forced to move to more urban areas to find work in field they had studied. That's not the case anymore, but it will take a long time to shift. 2023 college graduates could get a degree at a big university in their state, apply to a dozen places at job fairs at those universities, find a nice remote job in their field, and then move back in with mom and dad after college. Minimal bills, but getting paid well if the office is in a high cost of living area.
probablymagic t1_itq685w wrote
College degrees and attendance is significantly lower for rural communities than ur burbs now and suburban ones, and those who do go tend to not come back.
This dynamic is getting more extreme in America because Republicans are getting more and more anti-college (too woke) and rural places tend to be very conservative.
So your grades muggy allow you to go to Ohio State, but your parents might not let you for fear they’ll teach you critical race theory and make you trans.
It’s also of course more expensive than it used to be and these places are much less affluent. That probably also matters to who attends college these days.
Skeptix_907 t1_itqnghb wrote
>College degrees and attendance is significantly lower for rural communities than ur burbs now and suburban ones, and those who do go tend to not come back.
That's because most universities are not in rural communities, but this only proves my point.
People living in rural communities have to leave those communities to go to college. That is proof that there is no wall blocking rural folks from going to college.
probablymagic t1_itrbd3c wrote
I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about or what your point is.
Rural people are poorly educated relative to suburban or urban peers. They’re also economically worse off. They also come from places that are culturally more hostile to education. They also live in places with fewer jobs that require skills learned in college.
These are all “walls” leading to lower rates of college attendance for rural kids.
Also worth noting that the vast majority of college students leave their communities to go to college. That is not at all unique to rural communities. In fact, colleges end up being the good employer in many rural communities and act as economic drivers.
The problems is often these schools are too good for the locals, or too expensive, so they don’t attend at high rates at all.
[deleted] t1_itqhrgy wrote
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