Why Rural America Needs Cities

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Rural America needs Urban America. But Urban America doesn't need Rural America in our globalized economy. If worse came to worse, it could get agricultural products and raw materials from somewhere else. City-states like Singapore do just fine after all.

You could of course flip it around as well. Rural America markets a good deal of its raw materials globally after all. But in order to export that material needs to go through a major international shipping port, which are invariably in major metropolitan areas.

Actually like 90% of our economy is internal, and of our trade based ecinomics half of that is canada and mexico.

But regaurdless Cities cannot exsist without the hinterlands supporting them, some concept that rural areas will cease to exist is retarded.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by 10023

That’s the issue.

These small rural towns, and rural population, aren’t necessary for that production to occur. Mechanization and cheap immigrant labor (necessitated by cheap supermarket prices), as well as modern transportation and logistics (e.g., the remaining farmers can get everything by mail) have made much of the local economy redundant. If they were economically essential, then they wouldn’t be in such a dire situation. There’s just no reason for most of those towns or people to be there anymore.

You could even more easily say that the city workers aren't needed. All of the value added occurs in rural areas. Computers can replace white collar workers just as easily as machines can replace blue collar workers. This idea that only blue collar workers have to fear automation is misguided.

It's a silly argument to begin with. Without the rural areas cities would have no power, no food and no water. A big city like NYC would descend into anarchy in 24 hours if it were somehow magically cut off from the surrounding rural areas. And it woukd only be a few days until huge numbers of people were dying from thirst, starvation and disease.

[bnk]

Now this is rural. I didn't know google did dirt roads but than again just learned you can go inside some stores on streetview.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9989...7i13312!8i6656

Even more rural


https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6034...!7i3328!8i1664


Dewey's bar and grill on the left


https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6091...!7i3328!8i1664

Center Ave

Raymer, Colorado

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0306.../data=!3m1!1e3

Powder River WY

How does this place have a school

Very small rural is quite interesting and a bit intimidating especially when you zoom out, when you are hundreds of miles from any town with any form of healthcare.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

You could even more easily say that the city workers aren't needed. All of the value added occurs in rural areas. Computers can replace white collar workers just as easily as machines can replace blue collar workers. This idea that only blue collar workers have to fear automation is misguided.

Automation has already wiped out millions of jobs both white collar and blue collar. The real problem for rural areas is that the new kinds of jobs that are replacing them (think creative jobs, software engineers, uber drivers etc.) are all being created exclusively in cities.

[Sun Belt]

Only Crawford would require rail transit in a rural town.

Is this a serious discussion, or is it another example of Crawford back peddling from yet another ridiculous claim by moving goal posts.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by badrunner

Automation has already wiped out millions of jobs both white collar and blue collar. The real problem for rural areas is that the new kinds of jobs that are replacing them (think creative jobs, software engineers, uber drivers etc.) are all being created exclusively in cities.

Exclusively in cities? Unless you consider every town over 50k a "city" then yes I suppose but with modern communications you've already seen geographic concentration of some industries obliterated for finance and Tech I would be surprised if in decades to come you see people working high-wage city jobs remotely in small towns because they prefer the environment and COL.

But besides that the concerns with automation are greatly overblown and basically identical to the concerns of industrialization. Dont get me wrong, there will be changes and upheavals but the amount of input and supply chain required to Design build and maintain a robot, or automated assembly line or develop an AI to eliminate a clerical position requires more people than the jobs it replaces.

And until such a time that we have AI and robots that replace all aspects of the economy from the creative design end to the legal wrangling on the back end we dont need to worry about hordes of jobless roaming the countryside in search of a job.

And if we ever do get to a point of total automation then we will live in a post scarcity world and all of our modern concerns about money and work basically become irrelevant.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Only Crawford would require rail transit in a rural town.

Is this a serious discussion, or is it another example of Crawford back peddling from yet another ridiculous claim by moving goal posts.

No, you made all that up. Transit isn't "rail", and yes, every "normal" first world country has transit to small towns.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Crawford

No, you made all that up. Transit isn't "rail", and yes, every "normal" first world country has transit to small towns.

You made up the idea that you can’t make a good living in a small town in America — Which is crawfordian non-sense.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

A big city like NYC would descend into anarchy in 24 hours if it were somehow magically cut off from the surrounding rural areas. And it woukd only be a few days until huge numbers of people were dying from thirst, starvation and disease.

LOL, the opposite would happen. Rural areas would die in short order without sugar daddy cities.

NYC owns all its water sources, BTW. The rural towns lost their resources two centuries ago. Any rural towns in proximity have no essential function except as weekend-home areas.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

every "normal" first world country has transit to small towns.

that was one of the things that really stuck out at me when i did that 900 mile bike ride across great britain years ago. many times we'd be riding down some lonely country back road and a bus would pass us by, making stops in the middle of sheep meadows and the like. and i'm not talking about greyhound style long distance buses, just regular old transit buses going round their routes in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

it was very strange to see from my american perspective.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

You made up the idea that you can’t make a good living in a small town in America — Which is crawfordian non-sense.

Except you're making up stuff, again. I never claimed this.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that was one of the things that really stuck out at me when i did that 900 mile bike ride across great britain years ago. many times we'd be riding down some lonely country back road and a bus would pass us by, making stops in the middle of sheep meadows and the like. and i'm not talking about greyhound style long distance buses, just regular old transit buses going round their routes in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

it was very strange to see from my american perspective.

And you can walk/bike to neighboring towns, right? I don't know the UK nearly as well, but I bet (at least for England) it's the same as Germany, where any non-infirm person could simply walk/bike on over to the next village, where they're like 2 km apart throughout the country.

Imagine trying to walk/bike between two small towns in rural Ohio. Good luck with that.

[Vlajos]

Chicago divvies out water to many of its suburbs. It gets no water from rural areas.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Crawford

.

I could move to a small German town tomorrow and have reasonable job options, access to urbanity and transit, good food, quality schools and decent quality of life. Couldn't do this in rural America (excepting a few rural places serving as weekend places for elites).

Sure you did.

Crawfordian generalizations about something you know nothing about.

Or are you an expert on small town life in America, Mr Brooklyn?

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Exclusively in cities? Unless you consider every town over 50k a "city" then yes I suppose but with modern communications you've already seen geographic concentration of some industries obliterated for finance and Tech I would be surprised if in decades to come you see people working high-wage city jobs remotely in small towns because they prefer the environment and COL.

Sure, modern communications can enable certain industries to disperse geographically, but they are not dispersing to the countryside. They mostly just go to lower cost cities, or overseas. Rural areas are not seeing the benefits of the new economy. In fact, they are being systematically shut out of the new economy. I'm not saying that's an ideal situation. It's been a disaster for the nation politically...

As for people remotely working high wage jobs in small towns, we've been hearing about the telecommuting revolution since the 90's and it really hasn't materialized. Instead today we see CEOs giving TEDtalks about the benefits of "co-location" and "synergy" and other corporate buzzwords. The best and brightest move to the big cities as they've done for decades. The trend has only accelerated.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Those aren't "rural cashiers", really. They're cashiers from the provinces (i.e. everywhere but Paris). France is notably less prosperous outside Paris, which is different than the U.S. urban-rural split. And France has always had a tradition of um, very participatory democracy, whether urban elites or provincials.

And France is kinda exceptional within Europe in that pretty much everything worth a damn is within 40 miles of Paris, and everywhere else feels 30 years behind. You don't get that feel in Germanic Europe, Benelux, the Nordics, etc.

I could move to a small German town tomorrow and have reasonable job options, access to urbanity and transit, good food, quality schools and decent quality of life. Couldn't do this in rural America (excepting a few rural places serving as weekend places for elites).

I don’t think any of that is right. Cities like Lyon and Bordeaux are great and prosperous. Sure the north of France is kind of bleak (though Lille isn’t that bad), and there are some fairly undeveloped parts that are like going back in time (parts of Brittany, the Dordogne). But for the most part, France outside of Paris is much better off than England outside of London.

The French just like setting things on fire. They’re like West Virginia fans.

[isaidso]

Rural economies/populations are in trouble everywhere. Is there a country in the developed world where this is not the case? If so, what's saving it?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And you can walk/bike to neighboring towns, right? I don't know the UK nearly as well, but I bet (at least for England) it's the same as Germany, where any non-infirm person could simply walk/bike on over to the next village, where they're like 2 km apart throughout the country.

yes, towns were fairly closely spaced but probably not as close as every 2 km. at least that was the case in the southern part of england, once we got north of kendall in the lake district, towns of actual substance (ie. something more than just a small handful of rural cottages) started becoming fewer and further in between.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Imagine trying to walk/bike between two small towns in rural Ohio. Good luck with that.

the rural midwest is too pulled apart to make walking a practical means of transportation. towns of substance tend to be spaced about every 5 - 10 miles from each other, at least in the great lakes midwest (i'm sure distances only grow out in nebraska or the dakotas). biking is probably very doable in many places, but it's all about finding routes that may be a bit out of the way on the country back roads to avoid having to ride on the shoulder of high speed county highways and the like. you'd probably want a good gravel bike.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by 10023

I don’t think any of that is right. Cities like Lyon and Bordeaux are great and prosperous. Sure the north of France is kind of bleak (though Lille isn’t that bad), and there are some fairly undeveloped parts that are like going back in time (parts of Brittany, the Dordogne). But for the most part, France outside of Paris is much better off than England outside of London.

The French just like setting things on fire. They’re like West Virginia fans.

Both UK and France have capital regions with significantly higher economic development than most other regions, it's a mixed bag in both countries as to how far behind those other regions are. On the other hand those capital regions also have much higher living costs than the regions which might not be the case so much in say Germany or Italy.

The UK actually has more regions with GDP per capita above the EU average than France does but also more regions right down at the bottom of the table (if you exclude the French overseas departments).



It depends how you are measuring 'better off' of course, if you are looking at physical attractiveness of the built environment or public infrastructure rather than just GDP per capita or average wages then that's a different matter I guess.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Rural economies/populations are in trouble everywhere. Is there a country in the developed world where this is not the case? If so, what's saving it?

It should be noted this has been true essentially for all of History. The migration to cities isn't exactly a recent trend.