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They move in.
Then complain about the sound of gunshots, people riding atv's, lack of streetlights, no municipal garbage pick up, all of the wildlife is a nuisance, etc, etc...
The biggest problem I see is that the expenses incurred by the town/city to keep up with all the new requirements of the transplants (better roads, extension of water and sewer lines and facilities, school improvements, streetlights, you name it) outweighs the tax revenue generated from the newcomers, and the tax rates go up for everybody. This hurts the relatively poorer long-time residents.
I hear what you say, but watching what has happened to our little community that is doing a lot better financially but the stars are gone and the crime rate has soared, etc., sometimes it feels like we've sold our birthright for a mess of pottage.
Though this is not so much gentrification (though there's some of that) as massive subdivisions.
Gentrification in the country, to me, is people from the city moving to the country because they LOVE the country, then complaining because there's ANIMALS in the country, and they make noise, and smell, and commit rude acts right out in public, and we should do something about that, and there are no sidewalks on the country roads, and some of them aren't even paved like city streets, and we don't have street lights (because they're afraid of the dark, apparently), and the farmers go to work WAY too early and that shouldn't be allowed, and there are people shooting SHOTGUNS on adjoining properties (where they've been doing that in hunting season for four or five generations on the same property), and there oughta be a law to make the country just like the city and they try to get such passed (sadly, sometimes, successfully).
Much like people who move from one state or country to another and then complain that it's not just like where they came from.
Massive subdivisions AND allowing smaller and smaller minimum lot sizes = far more intensive development, population density, pollutions of all kinds, potentially crime, just plain overcrowding.
We moved to a rural area and do NOT want wider or straighter or more paved roads, streetlights, etc. There are already plenty of suburbs and towns and cities where people can find those!
Gentrification has been happening in my neighborhood for the past 10 years. We used to be a mainly middle class working class group. Now, the professional class has moved in. Our property taxes and insurance rates have increased. We could not afford to buy our home today.
The new residents bring their suburban and city ways with them: mowing lawns and weed whacking buzzing almost every day, trying to eliminate target practice on private property, etc.None of them have veggy gardens preferring to buy at the Farmers Market, the horses are gone and we now have McMansions where forests and wetlands were.
We used to have neighborhood potlucks; now there are parties (pre-COVID) with live entertainment but we aren’t invited. No more friendly waves as the parade of Lexus and Land Rovers drive by. Some of them have bought big trucks and tractors. The tractors are used to bring garbage cans to the road and the trucks are those crew cab short bed models which are useless.
At least we have enough acreage to only see one house. We tried to be friendly but we are the poor white trash of the neighborhood.
I moved out here in part to get away from it all, to live like in 1950s-60s Outback. When I hear, in other areas, that people want high speed broadband everywhere, I cringe. I like being in a consumer communications blind spot but then again, I am single, not trying to raise a family.
But on the other hand, I also bought the 10 acres with well water to work on my dream engineering research (still in the some day state) of algae experiments, windmills that wind up high torque flywheels to use as emergency fire pumps. Right now, I live in another direction of having all this land, having an animal preserve.
So, I don't know what side of the fence, all puns intended, I am on.
The anti-industry sentiment there, and organic fruit-loop over-the-top "let's make paradise for visiting rich New Yorkers" makes me ill. If cattle could have burp guards, the PTB would require them.
Alabama is much more my style. Heard a couple gunshots getting my mail today and smiled. Drove past the open junkyard and smiled. Look at the mix of houses next to each other, dirt poor to some money, with no major hassles and smile.
I'd much rather deal with a loose cow on my property than a loose ... that would be an unkind word.
I have often thought that kids who didn't get at least a taste of farm life when at a young age grew up to have a disability understanding life.
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Southern New Hampshire has always had a fair amount of this in the border towns, but it's moved out into the rural areas which are well outside "commuting distance to Boston". Facebook and NextDoor are full of complaints about neighbors who target shoot on Saturday mornings, and asking why the town can't pass a law to forbid the keeping of noisy AM-crowing roosters
I knew things were getting bad when I saw a new transplant out in her yard with a bottle of Clorox, yellow dishwashing gloves, and a scrubber -- she was literally bleaching the rocks that made up the hundred-year-old stone wall in the front yard.
I believe you might be referring to the concept of "The New Rural Rich". City folks have discovered fresh air and small town life is nice. So they build big beautiful houses on the outskirts of small towns and commute an hour to the city. It radically changes the dynamics of that small town.
^ This is what destroyed my town.
These people are insufferable, they look down their noses at the long time natives, complain about everything, (no Panera, Applebee’s etc.) they are horrible drivers, basically a pack of entitled Karens.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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That has happened in several places here. We are a city of 65,000 but still have rural parts, and woods within the city limits. One area that had a few horse ranches and a big llama farm have become big housing developments. That was a few years ago but even then they were in the $800k range, now selling used for $2-3 million. Until about 2005 this was all woods and farms.
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