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Originally Posted by charlygal View Post
You don't want good paying jobs? Healthcare? Poverty is the price you're willing to pay to avoid better internet?
You can have good Internet anywhere. It is called satellite Internet. Just as you can get good TV with Satellite TV. In fact you can add phone service with your internet.
You can have good Internet anywhere. It is called satellite Internet. Just as you can get good TV with Satellite TV. In fact you can add phone service with your internet.
I think the original point was that it’s difficult to attract new industries and jobs when the infrastructure is so outdated. The fact is despite those who love these areas, they are poverty traps for generations. It is easy for those who don’t need jobs to say its just perfect the way it is” but if that were the case there would not be the degree of drug abuse, alcoholism and poverty for so many rural families.
And again, yes I know not all rural areas are poor, the article isn’t about those places.
If you, as well as others, improve the quality of life to such a degree that rural America will have more paved roads, hard wired Internet access, along with good paying jobs, etc.,etc. the old saying will hold true;
build it and they will come, and rest assure, soon after they arrive, street lights will be on order.
Yep, the worse part is the street lights. I really don't know why urban people are so afraid of the night?? That and their tendency to set the woods on fire.
The Forest Service, their research arm, has done studies on successful rural communities throughout the years. It is interesting reading the research studies through the years. For awhile there, the success communities tended to have lumber mills and a reliable supply of timber. Then we as a society decided to get our wood from Canada and "preserve" our forests. And those successful communities soon became part of the troubled rural areas.
In the 1990's, the Forest Service research studies showed that "successful" rural communities tended to be located on the Interstate Highway system, had pretty mountains around them complete with hiking trails that were protected as formal Wilderness areas.
As demographics change in the near future, these might be our future troubled rural areas.
The key to successful communities is their ability to change and adapt to a changing world. Here is a "successful" rural community that has faced adversity time and time again, yet they are still there in tough environment and doing fairly well.
In the end it is the people that make a successful rural community. The government can help by providing an infrastructure that supports the community. That includes a quality education system, decent roads, fast internet. That will give people the basic tools they need to be successful in a rural area. The rest can then be up to them.
I think the original point was that it’s difficult to attract new industries and jobs when the infrastructure is so outdated. The fact is despite those who love these areas, they are poverty traps for generations. It is easy for those who don’t need jobs to say its just perfect the way it is” but if that were the case there would not be the degree of drug abuse, alcoholism and poverty for so many rural families.
And again, yes I know not all rural areas are poor, the article isn’t about those places.
Yeah, I don't see why this point is so hard to discuss.
No one is saying convert rural areas in urban cities. If your area is fine, the discussion isn't about your area. If your rural area has enough jobs, the discussion isn't about your area. If you're retired, your needs are different and of course you don't need a job.
So no one here on CD lives in a rural area that has problems? Is this a pride thing? Rural folks can't admit they need help?
Yeah, I don't see why this point is so hard to discuss.
No one is saying convert rural areas in urban cities. If your area is fine, the discussion isn't about your area. If your rural area has enough jobs, the discussion isn't about your area. If you're retired, your needs are different and of course you don't need a job.
So no one here on CD lives in a rural area that has problems? Is this a pride thing? Rural folks can't admit they need help?
I think that to gauge if your area has 'enough jobs' is a hard thing to do. I have a pension, I need a low COL area if I am going to support my family on my pension.
Looking at our neighbors, most of them are older living either on SSDI or SS. The few younger families I see, have jobs in the nearby city. Though I doubt if any of them are earning over $45k/year.
The thing with low COL areas is that while I am fine on ~20k/year, a young growing family will be fine on $40k/year.
If we suddenly had a local employer who could afford to pay 100 workers at $60k/year salaries, I believe that the local COL would increase to the point where even those $60k/year workers would eventually feel that they were barely scraping by.
I am not convinced that we 'need' help. I am certain that we do not need anything that is going to increase our COL.
Am I projecting 'pride'? It is not my intent to be prideful.
Rural areas in many cases have to contend with a severe brain drain, hurting their future ability to remain economically relevant at all. Many rural areas have seen huge consolidation of family farms resulting in only few people with enormous farms. Many rural areas have lost paper mills and other types of forestry jobs due to the digital information society economy that needs far less paper than 20 years ago. The high achieving rural areas are what I like to term “resort, retiree, recreation” areas. These places have better economic indicators, decent job growth, and higher than average housing prices by a typical rural metric. Those places aren’t that livable for families and younger people due to higher cost of living unless they have a trust fund or a successful online business. In summary, most rural areas have severe headwinds that lead to strong negative population growth trends, and I see little that will change that. The vast majority of all new job growth since the Great Recession have been in metropolitan and micropolitan areas.
I think that to gauge if your area has 'enough jobs' is a hard thing to do. I have a pension, I need a low COL area if I am going to support my family on my pension.
Looking at our neighbors, most of them are older living either on SSDI or SS. The few younger families I see, have jobs in the nearby city. Though I doubt if any of them are earning over $45k/year.
The thing with low COL areas is that while I am fine on ~20k/year, a young growing family will be fine on $40k/year.
If we suddenly had a local employer who could afford to pay 100 workers at $60k/year salaries, I believe that the local COL would increase to the point where even those $60k/year workers would eventually feel that they were barely scraping by.
I am not convinced that we 'need' help. I am certain that we do not need anything that is going to increase our COL.
Am I projecting 'pride'? It is not my intent to be prideful.
You're okay with the drugs and access to healthcare? Do you think all your neighbors would agree to stay relatively poor for the entirety of their lives just to live rural?
You're okay with the drugs and access to healthcare? Do you think all your neighbors would agree to stay relatively poor for the entirety of their lives just to live rural?
My drug prescriptions are sent to me from a mail-order pharmacy, so I do not see any problem with access to drugs.
My PCP office is within 20 minutes from my house, the big regional hospital is about 20 minutes in another direction. My Dw and I have both recently gone through some surgeries. I am happy with my access to healthcare.
I think that most of my neighbors are people who migrated here when they were near retirement age, they selected to be here. When they realized that in their retirements they would no longer be able to support themselves in their previous cities.
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