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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?

#71

Post by majinuub »

kodah wrote: post #44
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.

I'm curious why HN is continually so confused by the word "rural", certain subjects almost always fall apart on this website because of folks confusion over the word.

I'm thinking that its because many HN users live in or close to medium to large sized cities. So they have no perspective when it comes to a place that's truly rural. They just see that some small city has no high rises or large companies and just assume "that must be a rural town."

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

#72

Post by mgarfias »

kodah wrote: post #44
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.

I'm curious why HN is continually so confused by the word "rural", certain subjects almost always fall apart on this website because of folks confusion over the word.

Its because most here have never really been rural. Rural is a place to drive past or fly over on to something interesting.

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

#73

Post by oblio »

EntropyIsAHoax wrote: post #13

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 ev…

Company towns should probably not count.

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

#74

Post by countvonbalzac »

CalRobert wrote: post #59
toast0 wrote: post #23

Some of the Seattle 'suburbs' get fairly rural, lots of trees, at least some lots are a couple acres, a few working farms, lots of hobby farms, but still have a lot of tech workers. If remote work is important to you, check out internet options. There's a chance of Comcast and CenturyLink, but both get shifty about actually servicing homes in places (Comcast won't run a drop to my house even though their cable is on…

I'm on a train and just went through some charming town south of Centralia. Wonder if it would appeal to remote tech workers.

Is there bad air quality there from the coal fire?

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

#75

Post by paulorlando »

Thanks for posting this. I grew up in a rural area / small town. I've been trying to get back to that life (main drivers: I have young kids and like the outdoors more than office buildings). Happy to discuss this concept or try to help anyone interested. I've been discussing with a couple groups but they are in EU. Building this in the US would be a lot more straightforward.

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

#76

Post by wollsmoth »

countvonbalzac wrote: post #74
CalRobert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on a train and just went through some charming town south of Centralia. Wonder if it would appeal to remote tech workers.

Is there bad air quality there from the coal fire?

I think you're thinking of Centralia PA?

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

#77

Post by pineconewarrior »

rmason wrote: post #6

In Michigan there are software companies in small rural towns but no where I know about is there a concentration. I used to live in a small rural town West of Lansing when I worked as an agronomist in a past career. I left to do a SaaS startup and stayed local because this small town became a test site for cable Internet. Note this was a time when neither Lansing nor Grand Rapids had a broadband Internet option, ever…

Traverse City is becoming very techy. Over the course of the pandemic I have witnessed a lot of folks coming in from Chicago, etc, to work remotely, or to do tech work for one of the decent web/it/finance/insurance/medical companies here.

P.S. we are hiring web dev and analytics/data engineer if you know anyone in the area!

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

#78

Post by countvonbalzac »

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…

+1 suburban / rural areas are heavily subsidized by the federal + state governments. It isn't cheap to maintain that amount of roads / utilities and I could certainly foresee a future in which it becomes much more expensive to leave so far apart.
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