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Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#101

Post by pesmhey »

theseatoms wrote: post #55
mr_tristan wrote: post #43

I suspect this is a much bigger deal in the US, since we have rural power bias built into our political system. Thus, the rural voter has a much bigger "say" in how things run. (Subsequently, if their life continues to get worse, well, I suspect more tendencies towards authoritarianism.) This is where I sense the tension. At least in the US, the political system seems to want to maintain people in rural areas, but th…

Plenty of economists push that idea. The way to make people richer is to move them to rich places. (Even more so internationally.) Your point about politicians stands. That's a great assessment of the tension between the two worldviews.

Not everyone wants to be ‘richer’. That economists push that idea begs the question. I’m not placing a value judgement on either worldview, just pointing out that in one worldview, there’s an assumption of constant growth. I happen to fall into this worldview, but I’ve grown an appreciation for those who don’t. Unbridled growth = cancer.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#102

Post by njarboe »

mrdodge wrote: post #69
mr_tristan wrote: post #43

I suspect this is a much bigger deal in the US, since we have rural power bias built into our political system. Thus, the rural voter has a much bigger "say" in how things run. (Subsequently, if their life continues to get worse, well, I suspect more tendencies towards authoritarianism.) This is where I sense the tension. At least in the US, the political system seems to want to maintain people in rural areas, but th…

What was different about America that small towns thrived? The economic system is short sighted, and doesn't always have to drive politics - this may be a recent phenomena.

For a very long time in the US (up to 1970's in Alaska) one had the homestead act that allowed people to claim a large amount of land (160 acres) if you lived on it for five years and improved it. There was a huge amount of land available and this "free" land would create a lot of rural population. People from all over the world came to get a chance to own land. Impossible in Europe basically for a person to be able to own land as just a laborer. Most of this land in the lower 48 was gone by 1900 or so and this is what people are referring to when they talk about the closing of the American frontier.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#103

Post by vitaflo »

fromthestart wrote: post #2

Are these same small towns also insulated from market crashes and recessions? Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Edit: apparently people are interpreting my comment negatively. I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects. I'm not questioning whether they should ex…

>I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects.

It goes both ways though, because they're small towns, they can have their own recessions that have little to do with national recessions. When a factory is shuttered, it can have devastating affects for a small town, much worse than a typical recession, but nobody outside that community would notice much.

This has been happening all over the rural US for the past 20 years. Everyone talks about the past 8 years of stock market booms, and low unemployment but there are a lot of small towns all over the US that are getting crushed by globalization. Nobody talks about because the problems are local to those towns, but for those that live there, the problems are very real and dire.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#104

Post by pesmhey »

mrdodge wrote: post #75
mr_tristan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the US was founded, about 95% of the population was rural, and notably, Thomas Jefferson was famously pro-rural, and viewed cities as corrupt. You can just search "thomas jefferson agrarian quotes" and get tons of pro-ag, anti-city statements from him, such as: “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their…

We've become a nation of employees.

Microserfs

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#105

Post by woolvalley »

nimbius wrote: post #99

speaking as someone who works in a small town in the midwest as an auto mechanic, the people that shot themselves in the foot with this idea were the very ones who proposed it. I got 5 months of free online Python classes from the local government. This was part of some larger state plan to 'revitalize' us as a 'web 2.0' something or other for the 'silicon valley' of the midwest. The whole thing read like snake oil b…

It's like the 'non-racist capitalists will out compete racist capitalists due to the discriminated group being "cheaper"' principle applied to the entire government.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#106

Post by war1025 »

illegalsmile wrote: post #66
lubujackson wrote: post #41

I grew up in a small town in the Berkshires and recently went back there to see family. It is interesting to see the shift from where it was 100 years ago to where it was when I was a kid, to where it is today (and where it's heading). 100 years ago there was a ton of industry: paper mills, textile mills, marble and limestone quarries. These were supported by a train that ran through town to transports goods to and f…

My small city of approximately 60k is doing just what you describe to bring in people from all over not only for tourism but to live. Relatively cheap housing, easy and relatively quick access to millions of acres of nature, cute downtown, low commute times, etc... There are tech incubators and work spaces here with younger more progressive groups working together in ways this city has never seen. We have growth rate…

What different people regard as big and small is always amusing to me.

The town I grew up in was ~3k people, and was the biggest in the county. The biggest city in the area was 30k. You had to drive at least an hour and a half to find anything bigger.

The place I live now has a population ~60k, and seems quite big to me. But to a lot of people that is still just a little spot in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#107

Post by gurumeditations »

johan_larson wrote: post #13

Maybe we shouldn't be trying to keep these small town alive. Maybe we should focus on shutting them down in an orderly fashion and help the residents move to more dynamic areas, probably in large part by helping them acquire skills that are actually in demand there.

American politicians have no vision anymore, so I think anything like that will never happen. Free public universities in the hundreds will not happen, we must dump $750B into weapons purchases and troop salaries. Guaranteed healthcare wil not happen, $500 bottles of Tylenol won’t allow it. New infrastructure for a bigger population will not happen, the people using the current infrastructure aren’t complaining much.

The people who don’t need the help have little incentive to sacrifice their limited resources to help the less advantaged, and the people who do need it don’t know what they need so they get sucked in by destructive authoritarian politicians who focus on the next election instead of the next 20 years.

However, the entire reason this is happening is because technology is shifting the economic system to require high-skill concentration into cities and low-skill jobs offloaded to cheap countries rather than needing lots of rural resource-generating towns. It’s easy for me to blame visionless politicians and people, but I think in the end we are all beholden to the system. But what is a system but lots of individual people effecting each other? How did socialism and communism reach their height of popularity in the US in the 1930’s? Can we beat the system by changing it, or is it just too big to ever reach a critical mass of change?

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#108

Post by [deleted] »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #71
mr_tristan wrote: post #43

I suspect this is a much bigger deal in the US, since we have rural power bias built into our political system. Thus, the rural voter has a much bigger "say" in how things run. (Subsequently, if their life continues to get worse, well, I suspect more tendencies towards authoritarianism.) This is where I sense the tension. At least in the US, the political system seems to want to maintain people in rural areas, but th…

>I suspect this is a much bigger deal in the US, since we have rural power bias built into our political system. Thus, the rural voter has a much bigger "say" in how things run. At the federal level there is a bias toward rural states mostly because of how the senate works. At the state level pretty much every state is ruled by a couple counties that have the biggest cities in the state in them and everyone else is a…

[deleted]

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#109

Post by jriot »

cmorgan31 wrote: post #40
jriot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a data scientist and work remotely, living in a small town on 3.6 acres. Moving to a city would be terrible, living within a 40 minute drive is plenty close enough. Why do you feel the need to shut down entire communities?

I don't think it's fair to say this person is shutting down entire communities. Isn't the market doing that? The reality of the article is not every town has a flourishing future in the economy. Although the way it is phrased suggests, they are going to pick you up and walk you out of town even if you disagree. Do we subsidize their lives as some have suggested with UBI? Do we try to revitalize industries that failed…

In all honesty, the biggest issue particularly in the south (Hawaii as well) is that most people are content with their lives. They aren't trying to move up the corporate ladder, learn the latest tech etc... They are happy with their jobs, culture, families, and traditions. This mindset clashes with the rest of America, particularly the West coast, were having a family, culture, and traditions are seen as negative to society.

We are trying to solve regional issues from a national perspective. Local government and issues needs to become more important. Locals need to solve local issue. People in Portland, OR aren't going to to solve issues in Mandeville, LA.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#110

Post by ProfessorLayton »

Kalium wrote: post #54
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pray tell, where do you expect all those agricultural products, lumber, livestock, and so forth that we all depend on to come from without small towns and rural communities? They have to grow somewhere after all.

You're completely correct. We depend utterly on a lot of basic products of small towns and rural communities. That said, just because food and lumber has to be grown somewhere doesn't mean it has to be grown in American small towns and rural communities. My wheat and rice can come from Mexico and Thailand and my beef from Argentina.

This is great until a major conflict happens between the US and the country responsible for a major food staple, and domestic production is decimated by imports, and there’s a food shortage.
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