Many rural towns in USA are dying ??

https://markets.businessinsider.com...ok-the-same-remote-work-city-authentic-2023-7

Cities across America are undergoing big changes. The shift to remote work early in the pandemic allowed wealthy residents to ditch big cities in droves and set up shop in smaller cities and towns nearby. This mass reshuffling caused huge spikes and dips in populations, and nearly every locale across the country has felt the impact at some point.
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I haven't seen this in my extra rural area, but the reported shifts to small towns in the article tend to be more toward "chic and trendy" than my idea of rural. The small towns used as examples seem like big cities to me. OK, they are not downtown New York City or Chicago, but they are definitely still urban.
 
If you search you can find articles about small towns dying in Canada, Australia, England and other places. Seems to be a popular topic in the last 5 years or so. I guess it just depends on what you want to point out.
 

Pepper said:
Small town America is responsible for the opioid problem. If small town America is anything like that song; good.

Lived in small towns in Wisconsin. Backwards and regressive and at that time Wisconsin progressive.

Listening from inside ladies room women gossiping about my husband "I can't believe he's with that Jew from NY!" Remember being relieved they didn't say "Fat Jew from NY." I wasn't fat, but we girls have been taught things about body image, so...........

A day in Walterboro SC was one day too much.

Small towns, small minds flourish. IMO. Sure thats true anywhere, saw evidence in several European countries.
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Sorry, i think that's just another kind of stereotyping, based on bad experiences and media hype. Not that much different from the stereotype of all big cities being crime ridden.

Especially in this internet age when small town folks can communicate with others from around the globe---not all small towns are insular, homogenous pockets of ignorance.

Small towns are just microcosms of the variety of people, attitudes that exist across the country and around the world. My E. Indian descent, Hindu first MIL was illiterate, her entire life she believed the stars were hung on a fixed permanent sphere around our world. Yet she took jets to England and the USA to visit grandkids. i challenged her stereotype of what she called 'European' (white) when we visited Guyana by pitching in washing dishes, cooked my own food as her curry too hot for me, and hand washed hubby and my clothes at outside faucet, pounding on concrete instead of river rocks.

When she visited us after twins were born she read hubby the riot act for not getting me a diaper service (i was washing 5 1/2 dozen diapers every other day in scalding water), which she knew about from English and American living daughters and DILS--who she pointed out him didn't do half the physical work of infant care i did, plus i answered phones, took messages for his small contracting business--and walked to the store and post office regularly with twins in stroller and backpack on my back.

Peoples experience can be limited but they can be still understand that others may have had different experiences and be open to learning about others.
 
i live in a 'village' under a thousand residents. i went to High School with more students spread across 3 grades. But we are on a main artery between Albuquerque and Farmington--so we had four sit down restaurants (all locally owned) when we came here---and looks like we're about to get a 4th--a Korean Grill--because the food truck that came to town with the road work and solar project crews last all got a lot of local business too. We have two chain fast food (McDonald's and Subway), a mostly drive thru chicken and BBQ place, two gas stations a Family Dollar and Dollar General. We had 3 gas station/convenience stores when we got here, but one was 2nd Circle K and they lost their least. We now have more mechanics available than when we moved here.

We also have a clinic and dialysis center that serves people from smaller villages out between us and the Reservations as well as people from the Rez's and here. Citizens run the gamut from the guy that has always (since pre-pandemic days) dressed in camo, wore a helmet like glass visored 'mask' and carried a gun on his hip to the highly educated former HS teacher and author who's in her 80s and still does her own errands and pumps own gas. They span the economic and political spectrum, but being a small town you run into the same people repeatedly. Yes we have some boarded up buildings but vendors are allowed to do 'boot sales', flea market type sales in empty lots or parking lots with store owners' ok, around 15th of month and end/start of months 1-3 days running usually depending how close to weekend the approved public sale dates fall.

In this day and age even if all one uses internet for is to play video games one will end up having some kind of broadening contact with others: Playing the games, commenting on game sites about changes, release dates or about the people who live stream their playing of the games. The easiest chat sites to find are generally the big ones that ARE international. You find out about smaller ones via people you meet on those. And even SF is international.

Because of the State and Fed 'Forests/Parks' and the Reservations there would be a limit to how big this village could get, but because of the locale we're not likely to end up a ghost town barring major national or global catastrophe.
 
davey said:
Was doing some browsing over the w/end and accidentally came across amateur sleuthes who are travelling throughout rural usa towns and intereviewing the remaining residents and describing the decay and decline of local industries large and small. I just hadn't realized the problem was so large and expansive throughout the usa. I counted town rural townships and areas and still counting. Just go to Utube and select a state and area. Are these exagerrated presentations by cranks or the truth of rural life today?
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I cannot speak of all areas but it can be vastly different depending on where you are ...... and when were videos made?

Many more rural areas had a population increase as some moved when work went remote etc through Covid.

I have seen many flee big urban settings and live in the smaller towns........
Sometimes the area grows and business comes with ... had some people who open business they used to get in big city area but was not available in small rural town. IMO it has not really helped some small towns in my state as they lost some unique and charming aspects when some things like Starbucks or franchise fast food moved in.
 
They have trouble keeping businesses here in the village of just over 1700 residents. The only thing that seems to stay are pizza/sandwich shops. There's one building that's changed hands about 6 times in the last few years. In no particular order it was a barber shop, an antique/collectibles store, a coffee shop, a used clothing boutique, an interior decorator's office and a sign maker's. There were long stretches when it was unoccupied. There are two or three more buildings like this in the village. One is in strip mall and it sold durable medical equipment, then it was a travel agency, now it's vacant. The white building was a dental office for a long time, then an insurance agency, now it looks like a private residence.

buildings.jpg
 
I left a small town in my rear view mirror 50 years ago and don't regret it. After visiting relatives and friends who are still there, I return home with even greater appreciation of my life in Los Angeles.
 
The record for the worst US County in which to live goes to....McDowell County, West Virginia, according to the US Census records in 2020. It led the USA in almost every negative census category. link. to McDowell County.https://www.bing.com/search?q=McDowel+county+west+virginia&cvid=6692d73e4c98466a8052349a4ffa331e&aqs=edge..69i57j0l8.62755j0j9&FORM=ANAB01&PC=U531

The County seat is Welch. There are only 2 full size grocery stores in the entire County. The largest employer in McDowell County WAS a Walmart, which closed in 2020. The population of the County is 90 percent white. McDowell County was the third worst County in the entire USA for drug deaths last year, with Monroe County in Kentucky next door at number 2, country wide. Why would anyone stay there ? Jimb.
 
80% of the people live in urban metropolitan areas in the U.S.

In CA, the percentage is even higher - 90+% of people live in urban areas. That's why if you looked at a voting map, CA would look like a red (GOP) state. Virtually all the counties are bright red.

But the cities are almost all blue - and that's where the actual # of voters are. This is true, btw, in many US states.

It's the natural progression of economics: as we shifted to a service economy from an industrial one, jobs get simplified and grouped together. Large #s of people in one area become naturally specialized, so service industries grow from that need. We ourselves have a financial adviser, a tax adviser, a mechanic's shop, a gardener, a contractor service, a dentist, an eye doctor, an HMO for healthcare. That doesn't even take into account the thousands of people constructing and maintaining the physical infrastructure which supports cities.

It's an interconnecting web.

Also, technology works in the same fashion: a single farmer in the US can grow food for hundreds of thousands of people, unlike before. Entire factories can be run with less than a dozen people, instead of the hundreds that used to be needed.

Fewer people = not enough profit to support a full service, complex infrastructure, especially over distances/difficult terrain (like in the Western states).
 
I had not heard of McDowell County, West Virginia as it is a small rural area, far away from me. In just a few minutes of looking I found out that it is coal country. The reason so many people are leaving is because coal mining areas in the US have been gutted by the climate control political crowd.

Right away I saw that it is in a beautiful area that offers outdoor recreation opportunities with gorgeous waterways, a state forest and campgrounds. Welch is located at the forks of Tug River and Elkhorn Creek in the center of McDowell County, West.
https://www.google.com/search

I took a look at its Facebook page and saw that Welch has a swimming pool. It has the Pocahontas Movie Theatre which was showing Mission Impossible 7, Indiana Jones 5 and Sound of Freedom during one week in July.

Welch has a Facebook page, a swimming pool and they had a Beach Bash 2023 Fun celebration. They put sand in a closed street and had a big party with water slides, live music, food, vendors, etc.

This summer they had a big motorcycle ride and they had a celebration for the kid's sports team that went undefeated two seasons in a row.

Yes, the income levels are low but that is not everything to everybody. The crime level is low, as well, very low. It seems very likely to me that generations of families have lived in that area. They have history and a lot of them may have homes that are paid for. There are a lot of reasons why many people prefer to live in rural areas but they won't make any sense to city people. In fact, the good things I've listed here will probably not seem good to them either.
 
the title of the topic does have two significant question marks attached. and so raises questions about how these phenomena arise are maintained and may subside? humans ususally do not live in isolation from each other or the larger communities - living in smaller communities can be fun [see the ozzie tv series "back roads" ] but also expensive. As has been mentioned when mines close down being a major employer people and families can suffer. The title has no 'criticism' associated just question marks - meaning for discussion - what does this mean ; what is the explanation. And as we can perhaps see already - the answers can often be complex ; varied and interesting. The small rural townships of Oz seem to be having a renaissance with a few exceptions. UK has over 6000 villages with many now empty ones but some indeed thriving. Many of us do not wish to live in large cities but prefer the greater serenity of the countryside?
 

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