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I cite two examples and the towns are little burgs with no stop lights. A dentist friend of mine says he knows a dentist in a town of 30,000, Hobbs NM, that would love to turn over his practice, that grosses about a million a year to a new dental school graduate. But there's no takers. They would rather take a lower paying job in a large city working in a big corporate practice.
I have a niece who is also a recent dental school graduate. She didn't like the "small" town, Janesville Wi, pop 50,000 and instead moved to Madison Wi. More going on, more to do etc? Yes and higher COL, taxes, crime, traffic etc. I don't get it?
It's hard to live out in the boondocks, especially as one ages. Families are smaller, work and commuting take up a huge part of the day, and nobody has time to go sit with Grandma or take Grandpa to the doctor. The homestead starts to deteriorate, but the kids have moved two or more hours away for work and great schools. Ask me how I know.
We have had a long continuous trend for many years of people leaving the country for the big city. Usually its for jobs, which is understandable. But I've also heard of cases where, even if there are jobs in the rural area, that pay very well, people will instead lower paying jobs that allow them to live in the city. Is small town America that unpopular that few people want to live there anymore?
Really? That runs counter to the "exurban" push.....
Really? That runs counter to the "exurban" push.....
For people my age (millennials) almost no one wants to live in a rural area. I guess my definition of rural is different than many others. When I think rural I think of an area with less than 250k people. Most of the actual cities/towns I live near have 30-40k people but they all run into each other, so there are closer to 2-250k people in the entire area. I wasn't thinking very small towns with 8-10k people. There likely isn't a lot of work in many of those towns.
For people my age (millennials) almost no one wants to live in a rural area. I guess my definition of rural is different than many others. When I think rural I think of an area with less than 250k people. Most of the actual cities/towns I live near have 30-40k people but they all run into each other, so there are closer to 2-250k people in the entire area. I wasn't thinking very small towns with 8-10k people. There likely isn't a lot of work in many of those towns.
Nothing new - the urban/rural split has been increasingly urban and decreasingly urban since the first census was taken in 1790. Then, the country was 95% rural. Now, it is less than a quarter rural.
It's no surprise, really. People lived rurally because that's where they worked - it took the majority of the population to feed the country back then. Technological advances are now such that a far smaller ratio of the populace can produce a vastly bigger agricultural product. And absent the need to live in rural areas, most people either prefer the amenities of urban areas or go there in search of the jobs that mostly replaced those lost in agricultural - manufacturing (moreso initially) and service sector (increasingly later on).
That is referencing suburbs of metro areas. I wouldn't consider that rural. I grew up in St. Louis county, a suburb of St. Louis. Does that mean I grew up in a rural area, because I was 10 minutes from downtown and 5 minutes from the city limits?
For people my age (millennials) almost no one wants to live in a rural area. I guess my definition of rural is different than many others. When I think rural I think of an area with less than 250k people. Most of the actual cities/towns I live near have 30-40k people but they all run into each other, so there are closer to 2-250k people in the entire area. I wasn't thinking very small towns with 8-10k people. There likely isn't a lot of work in many of those towns.
I grew up in a town of about 6,000. Yes, there was no work outside of low wage retail. People with good jobs generally commuted several hours to bigger areas. Lots of for sale signs up there, less and less people are willing to put up with such a commute these days.
Yes, its well known that US citizens in general will go where the jobs are, and for quite a few years, the move has been to the cities, because that's where the jobs are. But my question is, is the trend so intrenched, that people love the lifestyle of the city so much, that they will even take a lower standard of living and less income to live in the big city.
I doubt that there are no jobs other than low wage retail. There just typically are not jobs that you can walk into with no training. Obviously there are teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, government employees, police, sewer and water depts., and various other jobs that pay decent wages. There might be a hospital that requires professional people, as do nursing homes. So the jobs are there, it just requires one to scratch the surface. Usually there is agriculture and that supplies jobs besides being a farmer. There is a whole list of different suppliers that are required to keep a modern farm going. Also don't forget automobile mechanics of various kinds. So there are jobs in these kinds of small towns.
I live in a thriving forty-year-old suburban neighborhood outside a major city. It has a lot of age diversity, and I think much of it has to do with its location but also with the diversity of housing stock. I affectionately call it Hotel California, because people move in and forget to leave. As a late forty-something, I'm probably just a few years older than the average age of all residents. The neighborhood offers apartments (just outside the official neighborhood boundaries), starter homes, expansive family homes, and patio homes. Residents seem to play musical houses as they age. There are young couples who grew up here living in starter homes just down the street from their parents, who are selling their homes to move into the patio homes because they no longer want to deal with the yard work, and middle-aged couples with children who stalk NextDoor for a heads up about listings because they've outgrown their current digs and can't imagine leaving. It's an interesting dynamic that's becoming the small town fantasy where everybody knows everybody because everybody's lived here forever. We've even had people relocate to other states only to come back because they missed it so much. Except it's a run-of-the-mill suburban neighborhood with average housing stock (my house would never make Architectural Digest nor would any of my neighbor's) surrounded by a mall, an employment center, and mostly chain restaurants. Whatever is going on here, it certainly flies in the face of the predicted mass extinction of suburbs.
Last edited by randomparent; 07-07-2015 at 10:33 AM..
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