Could small towns disappear from the American way of life?

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by 10023

Ironically, most of America doesn't have the population density to support small towns.

In the modern world, small towns and villages are nice places to live when they're very close to other small towns and villages, as they are in Europe. It lets you live in a small town, but without feeling (or actually being) isolated. There's a network effect at work.

And American sprawlburbia has also killed the small town way of life. In England there are tiny villages an hour by train from central London. Drive or take a train an hour from Manhattan, and you've got another hour of driving to go before you stop passing big box stores.

I think this is totally wrong - not the reason small towns are dying at all.

The majority of small towns are not within the core of a major metropolitan area. They are either on the exurban fringe or not in a metro at all. They are the ones which are, by and large, suffering a slow death due to lack of local jobs and steady population decline.

In contrast, the small towns which are actually within a growing metro tend to do fairly well. One of two things tends to happen. If they are considered "quaint" and favorably located, they become effectively gentrified urban neighborhoods within suburban sprawl. Or they can become less desirable, but as long as they're in a growing metro, the population will remain steady. The business district might look pretty sad due to Wal-Mart and the like killing it off, but that's true in most city neighborhoods as well.

The only cases I can think of where "small towns" are truly dying that are within major metros are in the Rust Belt. For example, here in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh itself has turned around. But there are dozens of walkable suburbs with historic architecture - mostly old mill towns - which are dying, either slowly or rapidly. The population decline across the metro at large is still too high, and the city is basically absorbing all of the "revitalization." But these are unique dynamics to shrinking areas, where growth tends to be zero-sum, and aren't transferable to areas like the Northeast Corridor or California where someone's always going to want to live in a town, no matter how undesirable it gets.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by mhays

It turns out they (or the high-income ones) often migrate to high-demand, high-priced cities, which are that way for a reason.

I do agree that people who can work from anywhere might benefit from low-rent locations. But many consultants need that occasional face-to-face, or like social environments. And many people simply like cities.

With internet and the ease to travel one would think that the economy would have decentralized toward low cost small cities but it's quite the opposite happened.
The places of economic power of today seems even more centralised in large cities than in the past.

[pdxtex]

the manufacturing economy decentralized itself and moved to china! i bet chinese small towns are doing great. this has been a great century of irony. we moved all of our large scale operations overseas, while at least in the auto industry, our overseas competitors, citing high shipping costs moved their opertation over here to be closer to their customers.. annnnd we still had to bail out the domestic auto industry. what a mess.

[Minato Ku]

The small towns of China have several million inhabitants !

[pdxtex]

honestly, id say in at least in N. America, if the small town isnt near a growing metro or serves some regional purpose (hospital, university, tourism) then most are probably destined to die. check out that national geographic map of the lights from space(http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/m...-at-night.html), where there are bright lights will probably continue in some forward fashion, where its just lights out in the void, well, better move to the big city i guess......until the zombie apocolypse of course, in which case, stay put!

[Xelebes]

What is a small town. The small towns I think of have 200 to 2 000 people. Anything above 2 000 is a large town. The small towns here are sustained by agriculture. While agriculture may become more efficient, there is still a need for the towns.

[Minato Ku]

I think that the "small town" in this thread means urban areas under 50,000 inhabitants.

The idea of small town depends of the country and the criteria.
If small town means rural urban dominated by agriculture then in China, those rural towns have several tens of thousand inhabitants while in North America and Western Europe, I can't find anything above 2,000 dominated by agriculture.

But in my opinion, the matter of this thread is not just the agricultural towns but also the industrial towns between 5,000 and 50,000.
With the closure of factories, what is the future do they have?

This question is not just American, we face similar issue in France.

[10023]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I think this is totally wrong - not the reason small towns are dying at all.

The majority of small towns are not within the core of a major metropolitan area. They are either on the exurban fringe or not in a metro at all. They are the ones which are, by and large, suffering a slow death due to lack of local jobs and steady population decline.

In contrast, the small towns which are actually within a growing metro tend to do fairly well. One of two things tends to happen. If they are considered "quaint" and favorably located, they become effectively gentrified urban neighborhoods within suburban sprawl. Or they can become less desirable, but as long as they're in a growing metro, the population will remain steady. The business district might look pretty sad due to Wal-Mart and the like killing it off, but that's true in most city neighborhoods as well.

The only cases I can think of where "small towns" are truly dying that are within major metros are in the Rust Belt. For example, here in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh itself has turned around. But there are dozens of walkable suburbs with historic architecture - mostly old mill towns - which are dying, either slowly or rapidly. The population decline across the metro at large is still too high, and the city is basically absorbing all of the "revitalization." But these are unique dynamics to shrinking areas, where growth tends to be zero-sum, and aren't transferable to areas like the Northeast Corridor or California where someone's always going to want to live in a town, no matter how undesirable it gets.

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying more than disagreeing with it, but let me try again.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a small town within a major metro area, not even on the exurban fringe. That would make them metropolitan suburbs.

But yes, the places that are dying are the ones that lack local jobs, or access to jobs. They are the ones that younger people are leaving in droves, or not returning to after college. That is largely because, no matter how much they might like to stay in the place that they grew up in, close to family, there's simply no access to a bigger, more dynamic place. One would have to drive hundreds of miles to reach a big city.

In Europe, true small towns - or even villages - are often close enough to cities, or other towns, that one can live in a little place surrounded by farmland and still be at work somewhere else in half an hour. Perhaps not very young people just out of college, but certainly people in their 30s who have achieved some level of professional independence.

It's just not practical for people embarking on a career to live in the middle of nowhere, and much of the US is in the middle of nowhere.

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by mhays

That sounds like a nexus for an extremely large area, which is probably key to supporting that hospital etc.

Sort of. Our entire Bay Region, which is a 45 minute drive to the extreme edge in either direction west or south (east and north are uninhabited mountains) has a total catchment population of 30,000 people, and we function as a service centre for that area. Some of the really small towns within this area are also experiencing growth, one in particular registered a 6.3% population increase in the 2011 census for a total 949 people.

Our municipal numbers are showing we've broken 7000 again or are at least damn close to it, and our neighbour/suburb registered a 4.4% increase last time around to get up to 1,815 and should push 2000 in the 2016 census.

Livable and thriving small towns are a possibility in the 21st century, but it takes effort on part of the people running them to get there. There needs to be a push to make a place livable and that means more than a walking trail or a dozen restaurants. People need to be stimulated, you need arts and you need sports as well. These are things that build true communities and are often the things lacking in suburbs because they are consolidated in the major city, particularly arts. If you have a livable community you can attract employers to the area in two ways: 1) young people choose to return; 2) new investors see a good place to do business where employees won't be bored or subjected to ungodly commutes.

We have professional and amateur theatre, a plethora of local bands and entertainers, many bars to play in, great academic facilities, and top notch sports facilities. But you don't get there overnight.

Our paper mill closed in 2005 and we thought we were done.

[gtbassett]

Originally Posted by 10023

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying more than disagreeing with it, but let me try again.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a small town within a major metro area, not even on the exurban fringe. That would make them metropolitan suburbs.

But yes, the places that are dying are the ones that lack local jobs, or access to jobs. They are the ones that younger people are leaving in droves, or not returning to after college. That is largely because, no matter how much they might like to stay in the place that they grew up in, close to family, there's simply no access to a bigger, more dynamic place. One would have to drive hundreds of miles to reach a big city.

In Europe, true small towns - or even villages - are often close enough to cities, or other towns, that one can live in a little place surrounded by farmland and still be at work somewhere else in half an hour. Perhaps not very young people just out of college, but certainly people in their 30s who have achieved some level of professional independence.

It's just not practical for people embarking on a career to live in the middle of nowhere, and much of the US is in the middle of nowhere.

I think a major difference between a small town and a metropolitan suburb is whether said towns are simply bedroom communities for the bigger cities or if they have a sizable economy of their own. Take my hometown of Sonoma, CA for example. It has a population of about 10,000 people and is within the San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose metro area. But the thing is, that because of Sonoma's wine industry and tourism, it is actually a job creator rather than a bedroom community. This might just be one of very few examples, but small towns with viable economies definitely exist within metropolitan areas.

[pdxtex]

i dont know beans about small town economic marketing strategies but i do know all the best little towns ive been too have one thing in common, small compact form, the same quality we all seem to seek in larger urban neighborhoods. you can have a rural town out in the middle of nowhere but if the houses have all been developed that way too then thats only an additional hinderance....id be interested in seeing examples of small town/high density housing. canadian cities seem to be better at this then american cities for some reason.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by 10023

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying more than disagreeing with it, but let me try again.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a small town within a major metro area, not even on the exurban fringe. That would make them metropolitan suburbs.

But yes, the places that are dying are the ones that lack local jobs, or access to jobs. They are the ones that younger people are leaving in droves, or not returning to after college. That is largely because, no matter how much they might like to stay in the place that they grew up in, close to family, there's simply no access to a bigger, more dynamic place. One would have to drive hundreds of miles to reach a big city.

In Europe, true small towns - or even villages - are often close enough to cities, or other towns, that one can live in a little place surrounded by farmland and still be at work somewhere else in half an hour. Perhaps not very young people just out of college, but certainly people in their 30s who have achieved some level of professional independence.

It's just not practical for people embarking on a career to live in the middle of nowhere, and much of the US is in the middle of nowhere.

If a "small town" is close enough to a major metro to make commuting feasible, it's a suburb. The only difference is European ones are typically separated by a "green belt" of undeveloped land, whereas in the U.S. they usually are connected to the central cit by a solid band of development. Still, usually isn't always. Sausalito, California, for example is a suburb of San Francisco, but is effectively cut off from SF, along with the rest of the Bay Area, by the Golden Gate Recreation area and the San Francisco Bay.

Regardless, IMHO it's not the belt of undeveloped land which makes something a "small town" - but a sense of place. You can have small towns which still have this in the middle of metro areas - even within cities.

Originally Posted by pdxtex

i dont know beans about small town economic marketing strategies but i do know all the best little towns ive been too have one thing in common, small compact form, the same quality we all seem to seek in larger urban neighborhoods. you can have a rural town out in the middle of nowhere but if the houses have all been developed that way too then thats only an additional hinderance....id be interested in seeing examples of small town/high density housing. canadian cities seem to be better at this then american cities for some reason.

The best examples of American small towns with European-style style density are in Pennsylvania. The boroughs of the Coal Region in particular are like nothing I've seen anywhere else. Compact, walkable downtowns, surrounded by rowhouses, surrounded by...nothing but wilderness. Basically in these ares the areas economy peaked around 1920, which meant not even early automobile suburbs were built. So although they're dingy and blighted, they're intact micro-cities in a way few other places are in the U.S. See here, here, and here. And, for the gentrified version, here.

[10023]

Originally Posted by eschaton

If a "small town" is close enough to a major metro to make commuting feasible, it's a suburb. The only difference is European ones are typically separated by a "green belt" of undeveloped land, whereas in the U.S. they usually are connected to the central cit by a solid band of development. Still, usually isn't always.

If that's true, then pretty much all of England, the Netherlands, much of Germany, etc are single metropolitan areas.

If this thread is about the outlook for small towns that are several hours' drive from anywhere else, then yes, those will never be compelling places for most people to live.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The best examples of American small towns with European-style style density are in Pennsylvania. The boroughs of the Coal Region in particular are like nothing I've seen anywhere else. Compact, walkable downtowns, surrounded by rowhouses, surrounded by...nothing but wilderness. Basically in these ares the areas economy peaked around 1920, which meant not even early automobile suburbs were built. So although they're dingy and blighted, they're intact micro-cities in a way few other places are in the U.S. See here, here, and here. And, for the gentrified version, here.

wow.....wow.....WOW!! that last one is great. yeah, thats very unique. you kind of see development like that in northern michigan, some of the lake towns up by traverse city, the soo (canadian side), marquette also. maybe its all those practical people that came before us, swedes, germans, dutch and finns. anyway, thats cool stuff. pennsylvania as a whole kind of rustles my jimmies. something about its urban history and form seems like what modern planners are striving for.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by 10023

If that's true, then pretty much all of England, the Netherlands, much of Germany, etc are single metropolitan areas.

If this thread is about the outlook for small towns that are several hours' drive from anywhere else, then yes, those will never be compelling places for most people to live.

Germany is unusually decentralized in terms of European nations, as it has many vibrant small cities instead of having one metro which towers over the rest like a colossus. The other extreme is somewhere like France, were cities like Lyon and Marseilles are not only much smaller than Paris, but have precious little resembling gentrification. Rural France is indeed rapidly emptying out, because nothing can compete with Paris. England and the Netherlands are between these two extremes. I'd argue though that England is much more similar to France, in that major portions of north still haven't recovered from Thatcher, and London and it's suburbs seem to be where all the new job growth is located.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

wow.....wow.....WOW!! that last one is great. yeah, thats very unique. you kind of see development like that in northern michigan, some of the lake towns up by traverse city, the soo (canadian side), marquette also. maybe its all those practical people that came before us, swedes, germans, dutch and finns. anyway, thats cool stuff. pennsylvania as a whole kind of rustles my jimmies. something about its urban history and form seems like what modern planners are striving for.

Yeah, Pennsylvania's classic business districts, while handsome, aren't that unusual. The unique thing is that it's smack dab in the Mid-Atlantic rowhouse belt, so instead of small towns turning into detached single-family housing as soon as you get off the main drag, it stays dense and urban for blocks and blocks and blocks. If you want to see extreme urban form in an isolated setting though, check out Renovo.

[dc_denizen]

Plenty of thriving beautiful small towns here in central New Jersey with main streets, farmers markets, antiques, etc.

Lambertville
New Hope
Pennington
Princeton
Rocky Hill
Hopewell
Hightstown
Ringoes
shore towns (Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Belmar, etc)
Freehold
Allentown, NJ
Imlaystown
Bordertown
New Egypt
Easton, PA
Frenchtown, NJ
Stockton, NJ
Yardley, PA

...and more up north closer I-80 etc.

The problem is you have several massive gashs through the landscape (Route 1, Route 27, Route 9) and outside of it rural areas, some hellacious exurbs, and beautiful small towns.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yeah, Pennsylvania's classic business districts, while handsome, aren't that unusual. The unique thing is that it's smack dab in the Mid-Atlantic rowhouse belt, so instead of small towns turning into detached single-family housing as soon as you get off the main drag, it stays dense and urban for blocks and blocks and blocks. If you want to see extreme urban form in an isolated setting though, check out Renovo.

on the lam? hiding from the law? zombies? stalker ex? come to renovo! we've got you covered.....thats A, super weird. B, super awesome! might be the place where the record skips when the stranger walks in the bar though? stay off the moors, stick to the road!!!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Plenty of thriving beautiful small towns here in central New Jersey with main streets, farmers markets, antiques, etc.

Lambertville
New Hope
Pennington
Princeton
Rocky Hill
Hopewell
Hightstown
Ringoes
shore towns (Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Belmar, etc)
Freehold
Allentown, NJ
Imlaystown
Bordertown
New Egypt
Easton, PA
Frenchtown, NJ
Stockton, NJ
Yardley, PA

...and more up north closer I-80 etc.

The problem is you have several massive gashs through the landscape (Route 1, Route 27, Route 9) and outside of it rural areas, some hellacious exurbs, and beautiful small towns.

Well yeah, that's all suburbia. These are small towns absorbed into the metro area, and which derive their prosperity from the regional economy.

[dc_denizen]

But nobody in those towns (or very few) are commuting to Manhattan. Most work in the area in office parks. Plus, landscape surrounding those towns is mostly farmland, 80s and 2000s sprawl, and forests.