Changing Trends in rural America (cost, building, homes, well)

[TabulaRasa]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ntent=20190818

Published today, regarding emergency medical care in rural communities.

This is in Ft. Scott, KS, whose hospital closed in December, and the man had to be transported here, to Kansas City, MO, 90 miles away.

Something similar happened when my mom had an occipital lobe stroke in April in my rural hometown area. Only my mom lucked out and lived.

[M3 Mitch]

Slightly off topic but on the medical issue - Horace Kephart in "Our Southern Highlanders" wrote that when he moved in amongst the hillbillies, he was immediately considered the local "doctor" because he had "book learnin'". Of course hillbillies don't sue for malpractice, or didn't at the time. And they paid him with various trade goods - a ham, a couple of chickens, once they got to know him and that he was "cool" with 'shine - maybe a mason jar of that.



Not sure how that could be generalized to the current situation - maybe just that EMTs will be the de-facto medical care until they can haul you to a "real" hospital.

[slowlane3]

Loss of traditional jobs in both farming and industry, due to globalization, big pharmaceutical companies, big highly-mechanized agriculture, and the moving of American factories overseas

Two best-selling recent books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methland

In the rural south where my family originated, Prisons now seem to be a major industry.

[TheEnigmaMachine]

I am personally quite thankful for my ability to work remotely. This is a trend you will be seeing more and more frequently in many industries as time marches on, and what gives people like myself the ability to flee the cities. I would not have been given this opportunity even 5 years ago. I live in an unincorporated community far from town. My closet neighbor is over a mile away. While agriculture comprises the biggest chunk of those who live in my general vicinity, other tech workers are the next largest group.

What we are seeing now is that suburbs and exurbs are starting to extend farther and farther out from population centers. What this means is eventually people like myself who prefer to avoid these types of communities will eventually have to move farther and farther away to escape them. Being unincorporated also means that while I may be rural as of this moment, 5 years from now, or hell even 5 minutes from now, I could have a strip mall and a McDonald’s set up shop across the highway.

People sometimes ask me why I choose to live away from the masses and it’s really hard for me to articulate other than to say it’s where I am most comfortable. I grew up in a small town before college and grad school and as much as I thought I hated it and wanted something different, after working for a few years in the corporate world in the Chicago suburbs I could not get away from it fast enough to suit me.

The benefits on my well being of being out here are endless, and far overshadow the drawbacks imho. My cost of living is a mere fraction of what it was in the city. I can hunt, fish, ride four wheelers, shoot my guns, and enjoy the beautiful countryside on my large property at will with zero interference. People tend to police themselves out here, or each other when necessary. I also don’t have to endure the sociopathic political ideologues and pretentious and materialistic clowns who tend to congregate near the cities. I can do what I want, when I want, for the most part. To me, this is what true freedom entails.

This type of living arrangement would certainly not be for everyone, but for me it’s like paradise. I wake up every morning with an ear to ear smile on my face, and isn’t that what life is supposed to be all about ?

[TabulaRasa]

Not sure how that could be generalized to the current situation - maybe just that EMTs will be the de-facto medical care until they can haul you to a "real" hospital.

This is largely how it is. One challenge, here, is that in these communities, the EMS are largely, if not totally, volunteer. This does not denote lack of training... the personnel complete legitimate training. But it is reality that these emergency personnel are... people with a day job. They generally rely on mutual aid from other area volunteer departments, but this still affects response times.

[Larry Caldwell]

Small towns have a hard time paying for infrastructure upgrades, like sewer treatment plants and water systems. Old water pipes are leaking, old sewer lines are collapsing, and nobody has the money to fix them. Water and sewer service in a small town can often be over $130/month, a big bill in a low wage area.

[TheEnigmaMachine]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Small towns have a hard time paying for infrastructure upgrades, like sewer treatment plants and water systems. Old water pipes are leaking, old sewer lines are collapsing, and nobody has the money to fix them. Water and sewer service in a small town can often be over $130/month, a big bill in a low wage area.

My water and sewer bill per month is 0$.

It's called a private well and a septic system.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by TheEnigmaMachine

My water and sewer bill per month is 0$.

It's called a private well and a septic system.

When was the last time you replaced your well pump? Had the septic system pumped?

TANSTAAFL

[Diana Holbrook]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Small towns have a hard time paying for infrastructure upgrades, like sewer treatment plants and water systems. Old water pipes are leaking, old sewer lines are collapsing, and nobody has the money to fix them. Water and sewer service in a small town can often be over $130/month, a big bill in a low wage area.

That doesn't sound like small towns here.

Our small towns and infrastructures are not that old, not so old that old pipes are leaking or old sewers collapsing. If anything, people are mostly still on individual systems and any town or city system is relatively new and growing fast. Some of our little towns are growing faster than people want.

We're on an individual system here at home... We replaced a well pump last year for around a thousand bucks. It had been there decades.... maybe original back to 1985.

Our septic costs about $300-500 to pump every 5 years or so. Ours is the old gravity type. Some of the fancier systems require more monitoring.


If people have the option of staying on individual systems, they almost always choose to stay on their septic.

[TheEnigmaMachine]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

When was the last time you replaced your well pump? Had the septic system pumped?

TANSTAAFL

I recently moved in, so I am super familiar with the service records on both as this was provided to me by the seller. Pump was new in 2017 and was last serviced in May of this year. Septic was last serviced in July of 2018.