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Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

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Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#31

Post by ivolimmen »

Rural is actually a perspective. I live in a "town" of 23.000 people. I am Dutch and I do not live in a large city. Amsterdam is the nearest city for me and that is 65 Km away. It's one hour by train and 45 minutes by car. Every time someone asks we where I live they never heard of my town as it is insignificant. 4 Km from my town is a slightly smaller town called Enkhuizen and it more known so I always reply that it is near Enkhuizen.

BUT: Even though this sounds big: I do not have access to Greenwheels (car ride sharing service) this is only available in big cities. Specialty shop that promote more green, no plastic and healthy stuff: big cities not in my town.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#32

Post by pigsinzen »

I live in a small, relatively rural farming community in central Maine. Electric bikes would be great but I wouldn’t trust drivers on country roads to be aware of them. Otherwise, it’s been amazing and I could never go back to the sprawling suburbs or cities.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

ActorNightly wrote: post #22

This really depends on your tolerance for people. If you are young, cities can be great for social life. I used to live right outside of DC after college and it was great when the important things in life were enjoying social gatherings and meeting girls. Now that Im much older, I prefer seclusion because I don't really care that much for making new friends, and on the flipside I don't have to deal with idiots who in…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#35

Post by quietthrow »

What is the real question here (if there is one). Where one lives, just like everything else has trade offs. And like most (but not all) trade offs the value or the opportunity cost is relative to the individual incurring it. Generally speaking people go where the economic opportunities are because today you need to be a part of the economy to survive. This increases your dependence on things and people. Life in a rural area decreases your dependence on things relatively speaking. Also which stage of your life you are in changes the cost equation. If you have kids you may be someone who doesn’t want their children growing up in a podunk town with few resources. However the opposite could be true for some people where they prefer a smaller idyllic environment compared to a “commoditized” city /urban environment. There is no right or wrong here but where you feel more safe / content. And for most people that is an urban/city or suburban environment. Rural living is definitely on the edges there.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#36

Post by nrr »

vel0city wrote: post #21
nrr wrote: post #19

I used to drive the Case to the Rural King every so often. While it was fun trolling the suburbanites heading to work during rush hour by going 25 mph in a large piece of farm machinery that they couldn't run off the road, I ultimately got a city job, so I gave the rural life up and haven't really looked back. Miss carding my own wool and spinning my own yarn though. That was nice and meditative. I think the major re…

> that's where the majority of industry happens to be. The majority of certain kinds of industry. Finance, software, fashion, marketing, sure. I grew up surrounded by people working at chemical plants, rotating shifts at off-site drilling platforms, dock workers, etc. The other side of town, ranchers. Another side of town, sugar processing and sugar farms. Other than the dock workers and offside drillers (on their of…

I think you might be reading stricter definitions into some words than I intended.

If Everett, WA; Renton, WA; and North Charleston, SC, are not urbanized areas, what are they?

If a factory with a ZIP code in San Antonio, TX, isn't in a city, where is it?

Going closer to home for me: is Red Bud, IL, not a city? Hecker? Freeburg? Mascoutah? Belleville?

That city job I wrote about was not in St. Louis.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#37

Post by waveBidder »

CSMastermind wrote: post #7

Grew up in a rural area but have lived in many places now including cities and suburbs. Totally agree with your point though: a large segment of the car hatred movement types strike me as lacking significant perspective.

My main beef as someone living in cities is suburbanites wanting to impose all the costs of their lifestyle on those living in the actual city. The need for automobiles in actual rural places is fairly obvious.

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#38

Post by __rito__ »

I live in small town India. Was born and brought up here. Population: ~30k. This is made possible by WFH since Covid-19.

Nearest megacity Kolkata (Calcutta) is ~140 km away. ~3.5h by car or train. We visit the city for any serious enough health issues or big shopping events or to catch flights.

My town is historical and extremely old (mentions in literature go back 600 years or more). It is very walkable. Everything is some minutes away. Fresh organic vegetables, fish, and meat available in the market 5 minutes away. The High School I went to was 15 minutes away (using bicycles).

We have a ~100 cc motorbike (50 kmpl or 117 mi/gallon) and bicycles that we ride. For family, we hire fully electric tuktuks [0]. Very cheap and environment friendly.

Very calm town with non-existent crime. Can get reliable broadband up to 250 MBPS. Amazon does 1 and 2 day deliveries. (I cannot imagine living here without ecommerce and internet)

Big fan of this lifestyle. Can comfortably afford a car but we don't own one because we don't need one.

Lived in Kolkata before. Everything was so far away. Had to spend money to get anywhere. Spent too much time in commute to everywhere. And the amount of money you save by living here adds up. My father also lived in the same house, as did my grandfather.

[0]: https://assets.telegraphindia.com/telegraph/02metanup4.jpg

Re: Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

#39

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

I live in a small rural town in the UK (Charlbury, Oxfordshire: population 3000). It’s incredibly walkable, we have a direct train to the nearest city (and on to London), and I have an electric bike for longer trips not served by the rail line.

These places do exist - you just have to hunt them out.

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