Changing Trends in rural America

[StrawberrySoup]

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.

I always muse about how it appears to be difficult for small towns to upgrade/fix/expand any infrastructure.

Water and sewer tend to be fix on failure unless a state-mandated upgrade to a facility is in order. Sidewalks? The recipe appears to be forgotten years ago. Roads are rarely redone to any significant extent.

Somehow, all this stuff seemed to be a lot more possible 50+ years ago. For one thing, I expect that the crews in days of yore consisted of a couple of guys and a pickup, now it's 8 people with orange vests with flaggers.

[Biker53]

Originally Posted by StrawberrySoup

I always muse about how it appears to be difficult for small towns to upgrade/fix/expand any infrastructure.

Water and sewer tend to be fix on failure unless a state-mandated upgrade to a facility is in order. Sidewalks? The recipe appears to be forgotten years ago. Roads are rarely redone to any significant extent.

Somehow, all this stuff seemed to be a lot more possible 50+ years ago. For one thing, I expect that the crews in days of yore consisted of a couple of guys and a pickup, now it's 8 people with orange vests with flaggers.

A big part of the problem for small towns/rural areas is that in most States they are held captive legislatively and regulations-wise by that State's large urban areas that control the Statehouse. Urbanites tend to have more complex and more expensive solutions for everything given their population densities and the complexities that entails. As a result more complex/more expensive mandates get imposed on small towns that don't have the economies of scale to afford it.

[StrawberrySoup]

Originally Posted by Biker53

A big part of the problem for small towns/rural areas is that in most States they are held captive legislatively and regulations-wise by that State's large urban areas that control the Statehouse. Urbanites tend to have more complex and more expensive solutions for everything given their population densities and the complexities that entails. As a result more complex/more expensive mandates get imposed on small towns that don't have the economies of scale to afford it.

That seems like a reasonable observation. It's not dissimilar to (for example) modern California building code which is the aggregate of a number of peoples' good ideas. The endgame will always be high density mass-produced housing in order to handle the additional overhead.


I was watching a youtube video of a guy in the California desert building a shipping container house. It's arguable whether it makes sense or not as a methodology (probably not, given the structural issues with the things), but you gotta love the fact that the permits cost more than the property and that a shipping container in the desert required a fire suppression system (at $8k? something like that).


A similar situation might be with cars. Each additional generation requires a huge step up in engineering due to mandates. It's a Moore's Law in reverse.

[TimAZ]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

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

TANSTAAFL

Indeed, replacing a septic system drain field (they all eventually clog up and fail) is a $10K - $30K expense. We were in northern NM last week and heard stories about some “ranchette” owners who built nice homes several years ago only to have their wells run dry. Again there is a fix, but it’s $$$.

[wharton]

Originally Posted by TimAZ

Indeed, replacing a septic system drain field (they all eventually clog up and fail) is a $10K - $30K expense. We were in northern NM last week and heard stories about some “ranchette” owners who built nice homes several years ago only to have their wells run dry. Again there is a fix, but it’s $$$.

My son just learned that he has been extremely lucky to just now run his well dry, after three years of living at his rural home. It seems that all wells in the region have to be fairly shallow, since there is no water past 150 ft. or so, and a GOOD one delivers a gallon a minute. He now realizes that dad moved from a rural area, to a suburb of a big city for many reasons, but one was the fact that I pay $150-200 a quarter for sewer and water. I never have to spend another new years day pulling a 500 ft deep well pump, in ten degree weather, or deal with a state bureaucracy that mandates a giant raised sand bed septic, costing $20K, to replace a "failing" inground one that costs 1/5th as much.

Thinking that you got it made, since you don't have a water and sewer bill, but a much cheaper well and septic, can result in some tears, when either system fails.

[Biker53]

Originally Posted by wharton

My son just learned that he has been extremely lucky to just now run his well dry, after three years of living at his rural home. It seems that all wells in the region have to be fairly shallow, since there is no water past 150 ft. or so, and a GOOD one delivers a gallon a minute. He now realizes that dad moved from a rural area, to a suburb of a big city for many reasons, but one was the fact that I pay $150-200 a quarter for sewer and water. I never have to spend another new years day pulling a 500 ft deep well pump, in ten degree weather, or deal with a state bureaucracy that mandates a giant raised sand bed septic, costing $20K, to replace a "failing" inground one that costs 1/5th as much.

Thinking that you got it made, since you don't have a water and sewer bill, but a much cheaper well and septic, can result in some tears, when either system fails.

Up here in New England water is abundant and cheap. Where I used to live my water bill was $30 every 6 months. Sewer was about $200/year. Now I live in a rural setting with my own well and septic. It is all but impossible for my well to ever run dry so that's not an issue but yes it is possible I might someday incur a costly repair to the well or septic system.

The flip side to the points you make is you are dependent upon the power grid to have water and working toilets. My toilets will work indefinitely w/o power so long as I carry water from my pond to fill the tank. Without power my well will go on working too simply by using the handpump it has. Yes some manual labor to get water and keep the toilets working but that's better than doing without in a prolonged outage.