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Old 06-07-2017, 10:14 PM
 
Location: Berwick, Penna.
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The relationship between urban and rural America has definitely changed, and probably not for the better, but I don't think it can easily be categorized.

I divide my time between two small communities -- one in urbanized southeastern Pennsylvania, the other on the fringes of a one-time "depressed area -- the former anthracite region. Both of them have an influx of newcomers -- primarily college students and people fleeing the large cities, usually upon retirement. But it's the younger locals, especially those with a limited education, who seem to face the biggest problems, and drugs, opiates in particular, have led to the intensification of the issues.

Forty-five years ago, upon finishing my "education", but finding some of it irrelevant, I took a job in a local food-processing plant, and lived fairly well for a number of years due to plentiful overtime. That plant is still here, but losing business due to obsolescence and non-unionized competition. Another local firm has offshored much of its production, but uses the local plant only as a "surge tank" during production peaks. The older locals are fighting the younger workers for what jobs are left (and of course, they still pay their union dues, while the plant continues its death-spiral).

Nevertheless, everybody seems to get by between juggling multiple seasonal opportunities (some of them out-of-town and involving a weekly commute) and "filling in the blanks" with Unemployment Compensation. Conversion of older homes , and even former small retail stores) to rental housing is a common practice, and SNAP cards are far more common "upstate" than "down".

This is, I suspect, a somewhat early, but continuing manifestation of the downside of a post-industrial economy, Most of us will adapt, simply because we have to. It's not going to ruin those of us who understand the reasons for it, but a new generation who grew up with too much exposure to the sweet lies peddled by Madison Avenue and Hollywood will, like those who came before, have some painful "unlearning" ahead of them.

Last edited by 2nd trick op; 06-07-2017 at 11:12 PM..
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Old 06-08-2017, 10:16 AM
 
Location: The High Desert
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa View Post
Not for nothing, but when talking about "rural America," you will definitely run into people who are not going to consider 35K to be especially rural, or even particularly small town.
I think they self-identify as rural regardless of what anyone else thinks. Many (most?) have rural farm experiences. If I can hear cows mooing from my porch I would think it could be characterized as rural. The place is a commercial market and job center and draws daily commuters from six or seven surrounding rural counties.
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Old 06-08-2017, 10:43 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa View Post
Not for nothing, but when talking about "rural America," you will definitely run into people who are not going to consider 35K to be especially rural, or even particularly small town.
This so depends on where someone came from, among other things. I heard someone repeatedly saying how small-town and bucolic her new city (about 50k population) is, compared with where she had moved from. Yeah, compared to Dallas it is! I was thinking, instead, of how crowded and rushed her new town was, compared with where I live now, where I lived before that, and where I lived before that, too.

And yes, I can hear cattle mooing, horses whinnying, from this house. Love it!
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Old 06-08-2017, 11:19 AM
 
Location: CO/UT/AZ/NM Catch me if you can!
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I question this "small town = inner city" thing. Yeah, my small Colorado town (pop 8,000) has its problems - we have a higher unemployment rate than the big cities on Colorado's Front Range. Health care here seems to have gone downhill, but this is more due to uncertainty over the ACA and what sort of replacement the Republican dominated Congress will enact. We have problems with drugs, but when you research it, EVERYWHERE in America (including the suburbs) has problems with the so-called oxy/heroin epidemic. Violence? Nah. Someone from Nevada claimed that all the violence was on the near-by reservations. Not true here. I live 6 miles from the Ute Reservation and maybe 20 miles or less from the Navajo Reservation. I would not be afraid to walk down the street of Shiprock or Towaoc at midnight, and I'm a woman. I once walked from my home in town down to the post office at 2 am to get a stupid government form postmarked before the deadline. Not a soul around and not a soul bothered me.

Inner city vs life in Colorado's rural Four Corners area? Pffft! My small Four Corners town wins hands down. It's a no brainer. I think the folks in urban areas are just jealous. Plus, they don't understand us. The garbage they post about rural America over in the CD politics forum is almost comical. Some appear to actually hate small town/rural America, but that's their problem.
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Old 06-08-2017, 06:02 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler View Post
I question this "small town = inner city" thing. Yeah, my small Colorado town (pop 8,000) has its problems - we have a higher unemployment rate than the big cities on Colorado's Front Range. Health care here seems to have gone downhill, but this is more due to uncertainty over the ACA and what sort of replacement the Republican dominated Congress will enact. We have problems with drugs, but when you research it, EVERYWHERE in America (including the suburbs) has problems with the so-called oxy/heroin epidemic. Violence? Nah. Someone from Nevada claimed that all the violence was on the near-by reservations. Not true here. I live 6 miles from the Ute Reservation and maybe 20 miles or less from the Navajo Reservation. I would not be afraid to walk down the street of Shiprock or Towaoc at midnight, and I'm a woman. I once walked from my home in town down to the post office at 2 am to get a stupid government form postmarked before the deadline. Not a soul around and not a soul bothered me.

Inner city vs life in Colorado's rural Four Corners area? Pffft! My small Four Corners town wins hands down. It's a no brainer. I think the folks in urban areas are just jealous. Plus, they don't understand us. The garbage they post about rural America over in the CD politics forum is almost comical. Some appear to actually hate small town/rural America, but that's their problem.
What I see in the sheriff and police reports is a surprising amount of domestic violence in a much, much smaller town in the area. Not the county seat or its neighbor to the east, but the one that people go nuts over because of the river running through it. I really hate to perpetuate the renters-are-bad myth (and right now, my husband and I renters, too). But it sure sounds like a fair number of the renters in that town are, um, marginally functional. Could be nothing more than those were the more interesting items to publish in the newspaper, though. I hope it doesn't become a long-term norm for any place.
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Old 06-09-2017, 12:11 PM
 
Location: New York City
1,943 posts, read 1,474,327 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyoprairie View Post
Also agree with pikabike that the fat city seems to inhibit self-sufficiency and common sense.
Usually about 2-3 times a season, my rodeo buddies and I wind up for a couple days in L.A.
We have a blast. Perpetrate all kinds of hayseed hijinks on the "sophisticated" Angelinos. If
they had more common sense, we couldn't get away with half. So I love to visit L.A. but I
think you have to be a certified nut job to actually live there.
Living in a city doesn't inhibit common sense. That is a ridiculous and ignorant notion. Common sense and basic observation would tell me the cities are thriving while small towns are rotting into obscurity.

The skill sets required to live in a city are completely different then that of which are useful in the country. One isn't inherently superior to the other, they are just tailored to the environment of which one lives in. I've found many rural people who come to visit the city lack a lot of things the locals would take for common sense, the same way rural people would find a lot of city people lacking when they came and visited rural areas.

FWIW, I was born and raised in a small, pretty rural area.
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Old 06-10-2017, 12:22 AM
 
5,730 posts, read 10,097,082 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MB1562 View Post
. I've found many rural people who come to visit the city lack a lot of things the locals would take for common sense, the same way rural people would find a lot of city people lacking when they came and visited rural areas. .
Having lived in both, I'm curious.... what?
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Old 06-10-2017, 08:49 AM
 
Location: NW Nevada
18,132 posts, read 15,542,204 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Themanwithnoname View Post
Having lived in both, I'm curious.... what?
Mmmm. I'd like to know as well. I came to the city after growing up rural (very) and found I didn't lack much of anything I needed to survive . I was rather amazed how many of the city folks couldn't change a tire, and God forbid the power go out even for a short time. Honestly, rural raised people have more of a sense of self sufficiency, being used to having to make things work. When the closest hardware store is a 40 mile round trip, and other services even longer, one learns to make things happen.
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Old 06-10-2017, 10:10 AM
 
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Living in an urban area doesn't MAKE people dependent. It just ALLOWS that, plus cities might well attract them in the first place.

But if your HOA or town prohibits certain acts such as working on your car in the driveway, it tends to make people just give up and pay someone else to do it in a shop...which also happens to bring in revenue for the city.
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Old 06-10-2017, 05:34 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,286 posts, read 61,045,095 times
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Rural Maine has seen a depressed economy for decades. Locals here are used to it.

Young adults see no future for themselves, so they tend to leave the state.

Retirees migrate here because home prices and the COL are so low. I have a very small pension, I was able to afford 150 acres of forest land with river frontage and a HUGE house. It can be near paradise for retirees.

The wood pulp [paper] industry is dying, which is not good for a state that is over 92% forest. Mills are shutting down every year.

On the other hand, Zillow emails me notices of houses being listed for $25k every week. If you have a pension income of $1,000/mo, and if you can afford $40k for a house with $400 annual taxes, you can do well for yourself here.
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