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Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#171

Post by refurb »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #155
engineer_22 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd argue you need to think about climate change and whether the US will continue to subsidize rural life. Not to fault you, but you're a seriously urban-centric thinker. Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods. Food, fiber, fuel, etc come from the rural reaches. Flip this on it's head an…

It's important to understanding how just wrong the thinking behind this comment is. "Everyone needs X" does NOT mean that it's impossible for X to be subsidized, or for "the place that produces X" to be subsidized. > Flip this on it's head and we see that rural communities are providing a huge subsidy to urban communities in the form of labor and commodities. That's not how economics works. That's not how any of this…

Cities literally can’t sustain themselves without outside inputs - food, building materials, energy, etc.

Subsidizing agriculture isn’t a “rural” subsidy, it’s a “population” subsidy.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#172

Post by seoaeu »

ryandrake wrote: post #34

Not to gatekeep the word rural, but: Problem with some of these replies is they’re pointing out small cities, not rural areas. When I (and maybe OP) think “rural/pastoral” I am thinking villages with less than 500 people. A house on 2 or more acres where you can’t see your neighbor is considered a small property. That’s rural. Not Asheville or Fort Collins. Those are just small cities.

"Population thresholds used to differentiate rural and urban communities range from 2,500 up to 50,000, depending on the definition." [1] That page goes on to describe a bunch more details, but the fuzzy idea of what people mean is somewhere with population density below roughly 500 people/square mile and not in commuting distance to an urban center.

[1]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rur...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#173

Post by sojournerc »

DaltonCoffee wrote: post #154
engineer_22 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd argue you need to think about climate change and whether the US will continue to subsidize rural life. Not to fault you, but you're a seriously urban-centric thinker. Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods. Food, fiber, fuel, etc come from the rural reaches. Flip this on it's head an…

Increasingly, many of these rural primary industries will need on site tech workers as well. Rural Canada is where I'm located at the moment. I tend to agree with GP that cities are an inevitable migration towards efficiency and that rural life is increasingly an unsustainable welfare state.

How can you say unsustainable when rural communities are where food comes from? Mass famine is unsustainable...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#174

Post by ghostly_s »

tristor wrote: post #132
ohyoutravel wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow

I feel like there's a huge semantic disconnect in this thread about the meaning of "rural". You and the grandparent seem to be using it to mean small suburbs/exurbs in economically declining regions of the US (e.g. The Rust Belt), not what it actually means which is farm towns and mostly farm land / private land disparately spread out with primarily county-level governance. I'm also a big fan of StrongTowns, and I do…

Most of these small "farm towns" no longer have a majority of their population engaged in agriculture. The economic landscape of rural america has shifted profoundly in the past 50 years and a lot of these places are functionally exurbs now - populated by people who are economically dependent on nearby metro areas but choose to live/remain in small towns for lifestyle reasons.

Also, I happen to be born and raised in the area the Strong Towns guy calls home, and while I don't follow his work closely I can say the abstracted rural community he builds his theses around has a very loose relationship to the actual semi-rural communities he has spent his life living and working in.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#175

Post by TulliusCicero »

renewiltord wrote: post #147
_ehqz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Hi there. I guess you are having a day of bad luck or something, cause you managed to get me to reply to you. heh. I'm basically the walking oxymoron of your example. I was raised rurally, and am more educated than many city slicks. I'm not religious, or poor. Not rich, but not des…

Much of the condescension you have attributed to the post appears to not be present in it. Population statistics are not individual statistics. Perhaps he is wrong about the population statistics but your existence doesn't invalidate that. Note how "Children are more often shorter than adults" is true despite the existence of Sophie Hollins of Southampton and Peter Dinklage the actor. That isn't an insult to children…

A lot of posters here aren't interested in discussing the actual data. They're personally offended, and responding off of that.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#176

Post by ghostly_s »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #143
julianlam wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems peculiar to me that there is no standard process for the winding down of city governance when population dwindles. It's probably just the human element. I don't mean to be promoting some sort of libertarian "self-governance is great!" philosophy, just thinking out loud. Imagine a city building game where city expenses increase with each population milestone (due to new positions in local government, new depa…

It was simply never anticipated so why would you have such a thing. Plus people do still live in the Rust Belt and rural areas around it so it's all "working just fine still". One thing that's interesting: around where I live, property lines are defined by stone walls and you see tons of rando stone walls in the middle of the forest. Then if you do some research you find that 100% of all the trees were clear-cut back…

This is true of almost the entirety of the US.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#177

Post by dogman144 »

binarysolo wrote: post #97

Short answer: depending on your definition of rural, yes, there are def pockets of tech folks in rural areas. These rural areas with tech folks tend to be outer suburbs of cities and/or niche touristy/outdoor places -- basically work-remote tech folks who live at an area to enjoy the other aspects the land can offer. I run a remote-first business around Lake Tahoe in Nevada and there's def large pockets of CA tech ex…

I like "art hippies who happen to tech." In a similar area if you swap out the desert. Agree with pockets.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#178

Post by bradlys »

celdon25 wrote: post #134
mdasen wrote: post #48

> I've heard that people tend to be very different to those you find in a city In a lot of cases this is true - and it's not just about tech. Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Cities also mean that there's often a critical mass for many interests and minority groups. Are you LGBT? Are you a religious or racial minori…

Have you ever actually lived in a rural area?

I have and literally everything they've said is extremely accurate to my experience and those that I've talked to.

Moving to a rural area is very much greener grass syndrome. Once you have to deal with the meth heads and associated issues with rural communities (low education, low opportunity, etc.) you will move the fuck out.

Obviously if you don't plan to have children and live a semi-hermit lifestyle then whatever.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#179

Post by jonathankoren »

hunterb123 wrote: post #113
mdasen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can wind down certain things, but at what point are you winding down stuff that's more on the necessity side of things? The US has a lot of crumbling infrastructure that needs repair and replacement and I don't think people want to be told "sorry, your house is only accessible by off-road vehicle now." We're spending over $20B to increase rural broadband because people in rural areas don't want to be told "sorry,…

I just wanted to say your walls of text are very offensive, inaccurate, and read as someone who has never lived in a rural community.

I grew up rural. I regularly visit home once or twice a year. He’s not wrong.

My friends growing up were pretty much the exceptions. We moved out, got advanced degrees, and almost all of live in major metro areas. The two that don’t, live in college towns, which are they’re own thing.

The main economic driver, the coal mines, all closed, and pretty much everyone with half a brain moved away. Those that are left… well, they’re stereotypes.

Last time my friends an I got together back where we grew up, we talked about it. The place has changed, and not for the best. As one friend put it, “It’s gotten more churchy, and not in a good way.” It’s meth labs, gun stores, video slots, end times evangelical churches, and militias.

Now you can make your own community anywhere you are, but it’s harder in rural areas. A lot harder. There’s just fewer people, less opportunities, and less appeal for the right kind of weirdos.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#180

Post by justin66 »

engineer_22 wrote: post #139
mdasen wrote: post #48

> I've heard that people tend to be very different to those you find in a city In a lot of cases this is true - and it's not just about tech. Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Cities also mean that there's often a critical mass for many interests and minority groups. Are you LGBT? Are you a religious or racial minori…

>I'd argue you need to think about climate change and whether the US will continue to subsidize rural life. Not to fault you, but you're a seriously urban-centric thinker. Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods. Food, fiber, fuel, etc come from the rural reaches. Flip this on it's head an…

> Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods. Food, fiber, fuel, etc come from the rural reaches.

We pay a premium to buy food from the rural US in the form of common import tariffs that stifle or eliminate competition at the expense of the consumer and to the benefit of agricultural interests, and of course, taxes that subsidize agriculture. Large volumes of food need to come from some rural area, but if left to its own devices, the market would never demand that so much of it come from the rural US, or that the rural US make so much from the crops it produces. That's presumably some of what the OP was hinting at.

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