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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?

#251

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…

Rural communities are providing a subsidy to urban communities by ... selling them things? Isn't "charging money for" just about the opposite of subsidizing? Food is necessary; that does not mean that the US's rural communities in their current form are all necessary or even that they're unsubsidized. Food is an incredibly substitutable market, you'd expect the market to push prices down to a minimum.

In your worldview: the government subsidizes rural life by... building roads? Making gas cheaper?

How does all the food grown in rural areas make it into cities? Not by teleportation; by being loaded into semis, driven on roads, using gas. There's a cost. When roads get worse, when gas is more expensive; food gets more expensive; and it gets more expensive for cities more than it gets more expensive for rural areas.

That's... subsidizing. For cities. We live in an interconnected economic system. The fact that cities make more tax revenue, then export some of that tax revenue to rural areas to support their public infrastructure, does not mean cities are subsidizing rural areas. It means that cities need rural areas to survive, or at the very least, to keep costs affordable.

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

#252
To give you a perspective on Britain since most replies are US centric, I now live close to Shrewsbury near Llangollen on the Welsh border. I've a castle at the end of my road and regularly see (& smell!) cows, horses and sheep from my kitchen window who graze on a paddock where just a few weeks ago I noticed a hot air balloon take off.

My barn has wooden beams, four toilets yet cost less than half to buy than the middle terrace apartment in London that came with 1 toilet and only 1 bedroom and a corridor kitchen. It is also ~4x in area. It came with an allotment and 5 generous plots where I like to plant leeks, onions and runnerbeans where I batch freeze them rather than get them wrapped in plastic shipped from Argentina. I have breathtaking scenery, fresh air and countryside walks nearby along with many ofsted outstanding schools.

It is quite tricky to live far from amenities in the UK so expect markets and farm shops aplenty, I can get unpasteurised milk fresh from pasture grazed cow to bottle the same day which I could not in the city. Our island, being smaller than a state it is easy to get anywhere, festivals are aplenty, fishing in Aberystwyth, a blustery night in Edinburgh for instance and a car or short journey to the station can have you on the continent and in Ghent or Bruge, Antwerp, Berlin or Stockholm the same day.

People are generally rational, courteous and kind mannered. I am greeted as I walk past, unlike in parts of London or Birmingham. I do not lock my doors, and my daughter is learning about life in a safe and idyllic environment I can provide and ok ok it is true my neighbours are mostly old dears, it only means I am less likely to disturb them. I don't hear police sirens and ambulances every day and I don't have to stand armpits in my face travelling the tube yet I can still get to a major airport faster than I when I was in east London for a time.

Unless for the nightlife it beats me why anyone capable would want to be near the cities esp. now with remote work becoming the regular experience of many. If you choose the UK and would like to know more feel free to username -åt- gmail me.

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

#253
In my village in England, where I grew up, the house and land prices have increased 10-fold in twenty years, but the average salaries have only increased 2-fold. This makes it basically impossible for me to simultaneously make a living and live there. It makes me sad because I would like to live near my parents, other family and the place I grew up, but am essentially priced out by speculation and city folk from the south.

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my point was you don't need to drive to a "medium city" for groceries. Unless you're in sparser areas like Wyoming, Nevada, West Texas, etc. you're always 30 minutes or so from the nearest town no matter where you live. If you're looking for 4-40 acres, you're not wanting land out in backcountry, you're wanting land outside a town.

I really wonder about some people, and exactly where they’re finding these areas. I suspect it’s mainly people near the high desert in the West where you can go 90 miles between gas stations. I would consider where I am to be the edge of rural and even if I go deeper into it there are still grocery stores and hospitals. An overlay for Google maps showing the 30 minute boundaries would be nice.

Kansas City 2.1 Million people

My brother lives there. There are 20-40k towns 30 min in almost every direction. One is college town called Lawrence, Kansas, which had quite a few startups when Iwent through last summer. Coffee shops full of 20's coding.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's bizarre how often you see people arguing as if a lack of rural or farm subsidies would suddenly mean food disappearing.

The core function of the government is to provide basic necessities to its constituents. In other words, guaranteeing a food supply is a critical national interest and there’s no better way than to incentivize home-grown food.

The primary function of government was to protect liberty. The USA liberty experiment is nearly done.

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

#256
post #111

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.

I think the people of Centralia have been displaced enough by spoiled tech workers.

I don't think I'm advocating that anyone be made to leave?

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

#257
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…

This is one of the more pompous things I have read of late around some of the rural assumptions. Urban areas don't offer any better "opportunities" when you consider lower income areas. So, a lot of your arguments are hard to follow.

It is true that a lot of rural areas tend to be "more conservative", but honestly liberal and conservative are really hard to argue in this day and age. Both aren't what they were 10+ years ago. Both are parodies of that time with extreme ideologies with no room for the middle.

As someone born and raised in the bay area and spent decades living there, it isn't the bay area I grew up in. There used to be a broader community feel, there used to be more open space, there used to be a broader cross section of beliefs and ideas. Now it's a mix of liberal echo chamber letting communities go to shit due to "compassion", a bunch of transplant tech dweebs with no investment in the community - just chasing the mighty dollar, and a huge community that still exists providing services and looked down upon by many of said transplants. (Yes, there are more groups then that, but those are some pretty obvious ones).

The narrow mindedness of tech about the community they migrate to, the ignorance of what the community was and the people still there is actually a pretty big problem. The preponderance of a prejudice on this site that an urban lifestyle is better due to density, etc. is pretty prevalent as well.

I now live in a rural community. Is it all that I want? Not one bit. My partner and I decided to fill our lack of spare time with a retail shop around a mutual interest during the second year of covid and record CA fires. Was it bright? No. Has it given us a better connection to the community and the people here, yes. I have weekly discussions with people connected to generations of forestry as well as 60+ y/o individuals who have spent decades experimenting with foods that could grow at 4500 feet mentioning how things have changed. I also interact regularly with blue collar truckers, mill workers, teachers, etc. Some of these conversations have been much deeper than any that I had interacting with the generic bay area tech person.

Rural areas also have problems. A smaller population means the food selection can be a challenge, drug problems can be exasperated (that said, SF and Santa Cruz are WAY WORSE than up here), be prepared for everyone to know your business - good or bad.

The above post approaches a log of rural from a tech person perspective.

I think the average HN person would do well to get out of their routine and spend time in the communities outside their little bubble.

I've been in this rural part of CA for about 6.5 years after 7x that in the bay area. I couldn't live in the Bay Area again because it has changed from my childhood, my teen, college and into mid adult years. Palo Alto and Mountain View have become a joke of what they once were. There are still pockets worth visiting - restaurants, culture, etc. - but the quality of life has changed. Everything is crowded.

The sad thing, with Covid, rural areas went from being a place that was a bit different to being infested with the same sort of people that claim rural communities have issues.

But, what do I know.

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider this scenario: 1. The US drops all agricultural subsidies and tariffs. 2. The US begins importing most of its food from elsewhere. 3. "Elsewhere" goes to war with a US ally and stops selling food to the US. 4. The US then wishes it hadn't given up its abilty to grow food.

> 2. The US begins importing most of its food from elsewhere Gonna stop you there. This wouldn't happen, because the US has plenty of growing acreage and plenty of demand. The farming industry doesn't need subsidies, and removing them would affect total output only slightly on average. Now, if we were more like Japan and had issues with enough space for farming, then yeah I'd agree with you.

Unless medium to large scale farming in the US is significantly different than the rest of the world, Land availability and demand are only tiny parts of the puzzle and not even the hardest issues to solve when farming. The need for immediate scale for any kind of shortage is guaranteed to cause significant shortages + massive price hikes starvation in the short term.

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

#259

Uk Oxford and Cambridge are bona fide tech hubs, and towns of ~150k people but in either you can totally live in a village with a 20-30 min bike commute. We’re talking cows in pastures and dark skies. Hell, I know someone who helped raised some cattle on a common in return for a share of the meat... while actually within Oxford City boundaries.

> We’re talking cows in pastures and dark skies. Can you actually see the Milky Way anywhere in Oxford? I was never able to when I lived there.

A friend lived in a “dark sky” village near Oxford, no street lights etc. Not sure just how dark it got.
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