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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?

#141

Post by mmckelvy »

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…

There are some rural areas that fit your description, but many that do not, and are quite nice places to live.

Also, urban areas generally have very high concentrations of uneducated, addicted, and poverty stricken individuals as well, and the proportion of the population that fits this bill has increased dramatically in the past few years.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by xyzzy21 »

julianlam wrote: post #53
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…

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 in colonial times and all the trees you see today are under 100 years old (yet it's a verdant forest during the summer). There used to be a ton more people - easily 10x - but the existing political structures are the same and mostly still work well enough.

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

#144

Post by 1123581321 »

julianlam wrote: post #53
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…

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…

There sort of is, in the form of merging governing bodies and/or consolidating public services. This lets one entity size them appropriately to the budget, in exchange for giving up the ability for smaller entities to more effectively concentrate services in one area of a county or township.

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

#145

Post by wwweston »

_ehqz wrote: post #102
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…

> 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…

I'm reading the commentor you're responding to as commenting on general social trends in rural areas they're familiar with (or merely hearing about) rather than judgments on any specific individual.

It's certainly possible that they're mischaracterizing the social state of affairs in any number of places, but general rural economic decline does seem to be a frequent form of political handwringing (including complaints from some people ostensibly representing rural voters who claim they're left out when it comes to policy). I would definitely love to hear about specific areas or general statistics that prove the general narrative wrong, though.

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

#146

Post by Bjorkbat »

Albuquerque, NM is kind of rural.

It's weird, since at 500,000 people we definitely meet the definition of a big city, but culturally people behave like it's a small town. Additionally, it's feasible to live in the mountains and still live less than an hour away, or to live in one of the nearby villages (Corrales, Placitas, Tijeras) and essentially enjoy the same lifestyle as someone living in rural New Mexico despite Albuquerque being very close by.

And yeah, we have ample numbers of people who work in tech, albeit most of them are connected to the federal government in some capacity, so it's not the "trendy" kind of tech. For that reason, and perhaps also because of the age and general conservative nature of people who work for the federal government, the tech community here might come across as having less energy than a place that's a fraction the size of Albuquerque. You're more likely to find a fellow programmer through a outdoor group than a tech meetup.

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

#147

Post by renewiltord »

_ehqz wrote: post #102
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…

> 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 and it isn't arrogance on my part to say that I am likely taller than a child at my 183 cm. It's just that, absent other information, certain population measures are true about certain populations.

Anyway, I am curious as to whether rural counties vs urban counties exhibit the differences he's talking about. I'll go look at the census and Pew surveys and see what it brings up.

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

#148

Post by xyzzy21 »

countvonbalzac wrote: post #78
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.

Honestly not the case where I am. State money only comes if for natural disasters: back when Hurricane Sandy came through, there was state money to replace bridges damaged by the rain volume. Otherwise it's handled at a county but primarily the town (which in NY is a "shire" or "borough" government level between county and city/village).

There's a rotation of road resurfacing that follows a 2-5 year cycle. The key thing with roads in snow country is getting the drainage right - as long as there's no standing or under-road water to freeze, the road won't get frost-heaves which are one of the primary damage sources. So our town crews focus on drainage first and then resurfacing, and then smaller bridges. Larger bridges are generally partly funded by the county and state because of the scope but the one bridge recently replaced was over 50 years old and the new one has a similar expected life.

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

#149

Post by protomyth »

I find it interesting that I see a billboard in Carrington, ND for 10Gbps fiber. It is interesting to see if any rural towns would be attractive since some have some amazing internet speeds. Rural electrics like their fiber.

[edit] https://www.dakotacentral.com/services/internet/

BEK is the rural electric I was thinking of https://www.bek.coop/residential/lightband-internet

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

#150

Post by xyzzy21 »

tristor wrote: post #126
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 feel like you've never visited any rural area. I grew up in a rural area and most of the people I know from growing up ended up in a city at some point in their life because of the lack of opportunities in the rural area, but very few people fit the stereotype you're putting forth. The place I grew up was a farm town, and my family were also farmers, everybody in my family went to college even though we weren't wel…

Can't upvote this enough. Dead-nuts on point.
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