Ask HN: Who is coordinating a plan to make small towns hipster?

Your whole argument seems to be based on turning a small town into a big town... doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? Sure, the early adopters will make a profit on their property values, but then what? Do companies just keep hopping from town to town to keep this going, and what happens when they leave for the next hip place?

It is possible for small towns to grow an evolve while maintaining their culture. A small town doesn't need to become a tech hub full of hipsters to grow. Slow sustainable growth is what most of these towns want, not a massive boom and culture shock.

I grew up in a small town. Yes, I left right after high school and so did my sister, but she moved back once she had a family. A lot of people move to the city to start their career, make some money, and meet someone, then transition to a smaller town (or at least a suburb) once they have kids. This is an intentional choice. If the small town turned into a big one, they would likely look to leave and go somewhere else.

The place I grew up voted down a freeway proposed near town when I was in high school. They didn't even want faster access to a bigger city, because they were afraid of people working in those cities living in town and the impact that would have. I didn't agree with it, as I wanted a fast way out of there, but that's democracy. If a city, and it's people, want this to happen... ok. But a company deciding on its own that their way is the best way and changing the entire culture of a city by force is no better than one country invading another to try and impose their political structures as "best".

I moved to an area that was near freeways, but I still understand why some people don't like it. I kind of like the pace of small town life, but I want more job options, so I chose a larger area. Transforming a small town doesn't seem like it will solve anything. If I want the pace of a small town and that pace changes to bring in more job options, then it would no longer have that small town pace. The last place I lived had a lot of rules in place to keep it from feeling too "big". They had max building heights, didn't allow chains downtown, etc. I left for a few years and when I went back, a lot of that seemed to have changed. They are building giant condo complexes downtown, there are chains going in left and right, traffic is a mess. The place is worse and it lost the essence that made people want to be there in the first place.

> Serenbe is a very cool example, thank you. Do you know of any others?

Not off the top of my head, but there were a lot of attempts at something like that in the 20th century. Most of them were associated with escaping social norms (e.g. communes, cults, etc.) and ultimately failed.

> 120k blue votes would do it

You're missing a few factors:

1. Land votes, not people. One of the reasons Republicans are a minority party and control the country, even at most state levels, is because of gerrymandering. You need far more than 50% of the state to take it back over, especially if the Supreme Court is tolerant of extreme gerrymandering (as it has been for years now).

2. A large percentage of people don't vote. If you want 120k votes, you need probably 200k+ potential voters.

3. There is an explicit strategy by the GOP to make purple states (like Texas) scary or unpleasant to live in for Democrats.

> The only reason we all huddle in cities is because the rest of it is so left behind that we don't want to help it anymore.

I'm not sure this is true. I think the #1 reason for living in a city has been the job opportunities, and the #2 reason was the social connections. Maybe it's close to friends, family, or a like-minded community.

You don't have those things in a random spit of land in the middle of nowhere. You won't have an airport, convenient highways, easy weekend getaways, nearby beaches, etc.

Serenbe is cool, but it took decades to develop it into a real competitor to a city, and it was also consciously built close to the busiest airport in the world. You can't replicate those conditions quickly or easily.

I think if you had $30B to spend, you could either build a town or boost the endowment for youth voter turnout, and I think the latter would give you better social returns on your investment.

This is what I'm talking about, today in the WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-counties-are-booming-pand...