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I'm not trying to nitpick. I just don't think high speed rail is going to fix rural depopulation. It doesn't make sense to build expensive bullet trains into areas with very low population density.
Let's look @ the thread title closely--Rural US disappearing? Population share hits low. The effort(s) to increase/fix the rural depopulation is what's making the small towns disappear!
The depopulation is not what's hurting the small towns IMO, it's the isolation to/from the bigger cities. Nimble high speed rail could counteract this problem.
Last edited by DSOs; 08-05-2011 at 10:39 AM..
Reason: added de
I am sure the same could have been said of the interstate highway system. What will attract people to the rural area is their ability to live there and work elsewhere. Reality is that jobs are not abundant in rural areas but people would be if they could commute reasonably fast.
OD
Density is key to HSR. It's not economical to build a train to nowhere.
Let's look @ the thread title closely--Rural US disappearing? Population share hits low. The effort(s) to increase/fix the rural depopulation is what's making the small towns disappear!
The depopulation is not what's hurting the small towns IMO, it's the isolation to/from the bigger cities. Nimble high speed rail could counteract this problem.
What? If depopulation isn't a problem, how is isolation causing issues?
Doctors born in United States want to earn $400K per year, drive a Mercedes, have a trophy wife and vacation in Hawaii. They don't want to stay in some tiny rural town where they'll make $50K per year. Medical school nowadays is not about medicine anymore, it is about management and business. You are lucky if your doctor gives you more than 10 minutes of his precious time. It used to be that the doctor would come to your house because part of taking care of a patient and figuring out what the problem is, is seeing where and how they live. Today's a**hole doctors are too stupid, lazy and disinterested for all that. I hope I never end up in their hands as the vast majority of them are completely incompetent and borderline dangerous.
My $.02
OD
This is why I Love my Doctor,if I hadn't went to her I would be Dead from Cancer.She spends no less than 1 hour with me when I go to see her.She was working through a Big Hospital that wanted her to see a Patient every 15 minutes.She said she couldn't do this and left them.
I once lived in Columbia, MO - small town with University of Missouri being the biggest employer. It was set almost exactly half way between Kansas City and St Louis. It was a two+ hour drive from either. The town itself was nothing special but I always was upset that they didn't have one of them bullet trains connecting it to St Louis and to Kansas City. Then I could have lived in a rural town and commuted to KC or STL for work. It would have been perfect.
OD
Funny when we lived in the area we considerd Columbia,Jefferson City and Boonville Big Cities where we could find work that paid well.
A proportionally smaller rural population will mean that fewer state legislators and congressmen represent rural areas in the next decade -- and likely for many decades to come. The shift will leave rural areas grappling with a future in which the fate of issues they care about are at the mercy of people who rarely catch a glimpse of a cow or chicken.
Let's look @ the thread title closely--Rural US disappearing? Population share hits low. The effort(s) to increase/fix the rural depopulation is what's making the small towns disappear!
The depopulation is not what's hurting the small towns IMO, it's the isolation to/from the bigger cities. Nimble high speed rail could counteract this problem.
High Speed Rail is for big cities like in the Northeast , not small towns.... But Regional Rail can work anywhere , its mean't for connecting smaller towns with larger cities...
Lets say Big Machines, Inc is located in a far flung rural town, Small Town. CEO of Big Machines, Inc got the idea he could better position the company if he relocated a vast majority of the company to Metropolis. Keep in mind, Big Machines, Inc before the move had a dedicated staff of people who wanted to work for them; plus, being in Small Town, an employee had to "fish or cut bait" as there wasn't anything else around. A career change meant a life change. Quality of life in Small Town is excellent; it is the hub of education and healthcare for the region.
So CEO gets his wish. The Big Machines, Inc pulls out all its top brass, engineering, sales and relocates to Metropolis claiming it will put them closer to their vendors. Of course, we know the vendors, if they want your business, will come to you no matter how far flung you are. Within the first year, several key employees who made Big Machines, Inc successful are recruited away by competitors and vendors in Metropolis. Now Big Machines, Inc has to recruit and train new talent on top of the ridiculous rent Big Machines, Inc has to pay to maintain a corporate presence in Metropolis.
In this scenario, everybody loses. Small Town looses the talent who not only gave their time to Big Machines, Inc, but also their investment in community events, schools, churches, and local politics. Big Machines, Inc pays insane rent and loses the talent which made them successful which, in turn, further erodes the bottom line and reputation of this company.
I know you said this is a true story but it's not all that representative of reality. The company I work for has the opposite problem- because we are in a rural area we have a hard time attracting talent. Some people can't afford to sell their home to relocate, others can't replace their spouse's income locally. As the business has grown it's become more of a liability to be in a small town. It's over an hour drive to the airport, half an hour to a decent hotel for visiting vendors and clients. If we were closer to the city this would be a dream job, but as it is it's a temporary stop my career path.
I was looking at some pre 1900 USGS topographic maps of southern New Hampshire. The thing I remember was there was a railroad track to and through just about every small town. Now these towns have, except for the "bedroom" communities within a commute distance of the Boston Region, continuously lost population and the populations remaining are mostly grey. I think this is because of consolidation of industry first in the suburban industrial parks and more recently the exodus to China. IN NH agricultural work, except for some dairy up north and orchards in the south, disappeared within 25 years of opening the Erie Canal.
I believe a major factor is the vastly reduced need for farm labor. The harvests are now collected by roving harvesters with huge combines. Dairies are 5,000 head bad smelling milk factories operated with relatively few people compared to the small 40 head rural dairy farm of yore. There is simply not all that big a demand for people. No wonder rural America is depopulating.
I do think there may be some increase in population from overcrowded city folks with portable jobs of work free income. There are professions that do not require the worker to be any closer than the nearest internet connection. Some people with an independent income prefer to be in a rural area than a crowded city or a homogenized suburb. I know I certainly would like a small town with some amenities like decent health care. I have found one but I ain’t saying where.
Also, not too many rural towns are "the hub of education and healthcare for the region", unless you're talking about a college town or a small city. Most college towns aren't all that rural though.
Clearly you've never been to SUNY Delhi or SUNY Cobleskill. Delhi is much more rural than Cobleskill. Cobleskill is still rural. Cobleskill does have a hospital. A lot of rural areas do. They're not massive with all 900 different departments places like the Mayo Clinic think they need. Many of the small hospitals actually provide excellent care and don't keep you in the ER for 6 hours before seeing a nurse unlike those monster hospitals.
Many rural areas aren't just full of seniors either. I know in New York, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and North Carolina they're not. Yes, they are a lot of older people in some areas, but it's not like there's a whole town where the youngest person is 75 either. And you might learn something from those older folks! Especially if you're interested in living off the land.
A proportionally smaller rural population will mean that fewer state legislators and congressmen represent rural areas in the next decade -- and likely for many decades to come. The shift will leave rural areas grappling with a future in which the fate of issues they care about are at the mercy of people who rarely catch a glimpse of a cow or chicken.
Rural America is getting left behind.
And that is absolutely terrifying! I know plenty of city people who think chicken comes from the grocery story. How it gets there, they have absolutely no clue and don't want to know. I personally would rather eat chicken from Ted the farmer up the hill than Tyson. Nuff said!
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How it gets there, they have absolutely no clue and don't want to know. I personally would rather eat chicken from Ted the farmer up the hill than Tyson. Nuff said!
