Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

Why not look to small towns around state universities? Also, in the USA, look for micropolitan towns. Places that aren't tiny, but aren't major metro areas along with those kinds of challenges. Smaller towns can be easier places to afford homes, shorter distances to truly rural places. The people can be - not always though - challenging. May be more conservative politically and culturally. May be resistant to progressive ideas and efforts. Wife and I live in a smaller university town and love it here. It is a small community of similarly minded people who like the town and like technology and/or share similar progressive ideas. Fortunately we can hop in a car and be in a big city in an hour or so and enjoy big city entertainment and shopping. That said, our town punches well above its weight with plenty of shopping and entertainment opportunities.

You might be interested in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Digikey is based there and one of the largest electronic retailers in the world, but the town itself is relatively small (few thousand people)

Afaik they're the only company to work for so it's a bit limited. But I have a friend who lives there and is one of their many developers and she loves it. I understood from her that they're staying permanently remote even after the pandemic, but they might give you preferential treatment if you're willing to move anyways. And I know she still has the possibility of going into the office whenever she wants and has great relationships with her coworkers.

Some of their problems are very interesting too, as much of the software is to run their highly optimized warehouse. Their whole schtick is that they can get your product out of the warehouse in just an hour or two, so if you can pay for fast shipping it will get to you however fast you want. And this ends up being a very interesting optimization problem with human and machine components as well.

There are a lot of tech folks in western Mass and western Connecticut, both very rural. I've met a few. Grey beards working remotely for a decade or two. And I've even met a few young people with kids who work remotely for NYC companies out of rural NJ.

Lancaster PA has or had a few tech companies.

So I'd say probably yes. Pick a county of 500 thousand people or so and start looking through their Craigslist for job postings. You'll find them eventually.

I don't know if it qualifies for your standard but Greenville, SC and its surrounding areas (Traveler's Rest, Simpsonville, Easley, Greer) have a blossoming tech community over the last 10 years. I'm one of the admins for our main tech Slack group and there's about 1,400 of us in there at last count.

Beautiful downtown area around a waterfall, tons of biking, near mountains and 3 lakes.

House prices are through the roof right now due to the influx of people though. Stories of bidding wars that used to be unheard of in this area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZA252lotHM

I live on rural property about an hour from SF. My neighbors aren't techies, but they really aren't that different. Lots of older/retired people, plenty of maker-type people. Out here there's space to have shops, tractors, and physically large projects. I can't discuss programming with my neighbors but welding, electronics, gardening, and construction are fun topics.

I still see many of my Bay Area friends; weekend parties at my place are way more fun than parties in their tiny city houses/apartments. And we still keep in touch remotely.

Not every rural area is the same; I also lived for a year in eastern Kentucky and the people are indeed a bit different there. But I still made friends, and I'm not a major extrovert or anything.