15 ms·

> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. I like that quo

by rdtsc 10y ago

> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. I like that quote. Copied it to my notes for future reference. To expand more on the topic, I wonder if remote workers are a good way to bring some revival for smaller rural communities. I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other, there is a sense of a community. It is quiet. There is probably a tipping point where if enough companies would hire remote workers, people won't be afraid to move to such communities. Currently many (including me) even if they do remote work, would probably be hesitant to move, because if they have to jump ship, they know there is a smaller chance of getting remote work again. So staying closer to a tech center seems like a better option.

beachstartup 10y ago
it's happening more and more as the 90s and 00s veterans get older and want more land/space/whatever. the recent trend in insane housing prices has definitely accelerated it, just from my circle of anecdotes.
norea-armozel 10y ago
If I could get a reliable car so I could get to a metro when I needed to see an endocrinologist I would definitely do my work remotely from a rural community. I know that parts of Kansas have FTTH (it's not gigabit but it's reliable and has no datacaps) which are very cheap to live in. Edit: It looks like Nex-Tech now offers gigabit internet. It's around $200 a month with cable and phone but to be fair it's rural Kansas. I use to pay $65 for their 10/5 when that was the mid-tier Internet only package. So they've really improved their service.
- bigtex 10y ago
  I have business class internet in a rural community in Tx. Advertised speed in 10/2 but I usually get around 20/2 for $100/month. It is fixed wireless.
  - sfifs 10y ago
    Is this high price due to rural or is it normal range for the U.S? In Mumbai India I pay about 30USD a month for 50/5 and there are fibre providers in places like Bangalore that are much cheaper.
    - norea-armozel 10y ago
      Rural is usually higher in my experience. Especially if you live very far from any small city (25k-100k) like where I lived in western Kansas. It was jarring when it came to prices on everything from groceries to utilities. It's still cheaper on the whole if you have a reasonable salary (50-60k is the minimum IMO). The only big down side I think to rural communities in the US is the extreme isolation due to physical distance between towns and cities which is why so many people avoid them. IMO, if you go rural in the US it's best to pick a smaller town that's no more than 250 miles away from a metro. Getting any further away is just asking for cabin fever (if you grew up in any sizable city).
- gozur88 10y ago
  Depending on where you start you could easily save $200 in housing by moving to a rural area.
JPKab 10y ago
It's a weird situation, because I was working remotely for a tech company and was required to move to the Boulder, CO area recently. It's an awesome company and I was stoked about the area, so I went ahead and did it, but the requirement for collocation that has been driven by certain management ethos' is odd in such a technology driven world. The advantages I've had by moving from Arkansas to here have been numerous, and mainly this is due to human nature causing companies with enough co-located employees to leave remote workers out of the loop. The OP is right though: I find the "herd effect" that occurs from a bunch of very similar people especially potent in SF. What's funny is how diverse they think they are based on superficial traits like maybe ethnicity, but the reality is they tend to be very uniform in socio-economic background, age, and education.
- noddingham 10y ago
  As someone that also works in Boulder, is your compensation enough to allow you to actually live in Boulder?
  - madengr 10y ago
    Yeah, inquiring minds would like to know. I'm in Boulder right now for a conference, and looking at Zillow, it's f'ing insane. Prices seem to start at $1M.
    - m103forme 10y ago
      Buying inside of Boulder is a bit insane right now, hell most of Colorado is, and it's just amplified by the lack of supply in Boulder (no new building for 20-30 some years I think). Check out Gunbarrel, it's about 7 minutes away from Boulder and is still somewhat reasonable. Although my SO bought her 30yr old condo for $165K in the Fall of 2014 and Zillow is now saying 302K, LOL.
    - gacba 10y ago
      Lived in Boulder County for 15 years until I got married and moved south of Denver. Boulder itself has ALWAYS been expensive (even when I was in college in the early 90s) for housing. If you're serious about relocating, look at some less insane, but very close communities that the majority of the "Boulderites" live in: NORTH: - Longmont - Gunbarrel EAST: - Louisville - Lafayette - Erie SOUTHEAST-ish: - Broomfield - Westminster - Northglenn - Thornton You can have a "reasonable" commute, and a less insane house price in those areas. They are all bedroom communities for the area... Personally, I lived in Louisville and Lafayette at least half of my time in the county (the other in Boulder proper, renting, always). There are always options.
Torgo 10y ago
It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress.
- epalmer 10y ago
  > We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress. This is sad but not unexpected since politics and big companies play in this space.
- protomyth 10y ago
  > It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. Depends, REI has better internet for ND than anything I've seen elsewhere. Some of the rural telephone companies do quite well. Its really luck of the draw. > We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress. The key part of the last bill that killed it was the requirement that "broadband speeds" were not available in an area. The bill didn't specify a minimum price or that its was universal to the area. So, it pretty much killed a lot of attempts because broadband is available for $1,000 a month.
- skrebbel 10y ago
  > It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. Try rural Sweden.
- cellularmitosis 10y ago
  This is changing somewhat now with the advent of WISP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_provider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_prov... My parents are just about to install an 80' tower on their rural property, because a local WISP is the only unmetered option available. I feel like the cellular revolution has really crippled itself by virtue of nearly all "cellular wifi hot spot" plans being data capped to some number of GB per month. There's just so much culture I can't share with my parents if they can't spare the data to watch online video. This situation becomes only more frustrating each time you hear about a provider upgrading their network to an even faster technology. "Cool, so now I can exhaust my monthly data plan in... 10 minutes?". (Somewhat similar to the frustration of seeing Apple make thinner and thinner devices, rather than throwing in a bigger battery -- is this really what your customers want?)
bdavisx 10y ago
>> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. >I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other, there is a sense of a community. It is quiet. Depending on what part of the country you're talking about, many of those beautiful small communities are very bigoted also -- and not just in the South.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Agreed. That's a good point. Quite often poverty makes the situation worse, it radicalizes people and enhances the bigotry.
  - bovermyer 10y ago
    Poverty isn't tied directly to bigotry. Rather, a lack of new ideas and mindsets in close proximity can present an environment conducive to the development of bigotry (or its less malicious cousin, ignorance).
    - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
      Believing that no matter how bad your life is you're still better than someone else by virtue of race becomes more tempting the closer you are to rock bottom.
      - bovermyer 10y ago
        What data are you basing this claim on?
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      Well that disagrees with what I have seen. You can say it is correlation and that those are somehow born with the biggot gene can't escape poverty. I think it works the other way, poverty amplifies and accentuates biggotry, rasim, sexims and any other -ism. This is based on living in other countries, mostly in US though, in both poor and rich communities, some were diverse poor and diverse rich.

by rdtsc 10y ago

beachstartup 10y ago

it's happening more and more as the 90s and 00s veterans get older and want more land/space/whatever. the recent trend in insane housing prices has definitely accelerated it, just from my circle of anecdotes.

norea-armozel 10y ago

If I could get a reliable car so I could get to a metro when I needed to see an endocrinologist I would definitely do my work remotely from a rural community. I know that parts of Kansas have FTTH (it's not gigabit but it's reliable and has no datacaps) which are very cheap to live in. Edit: It looks like Nex-Tech now offers gigabit internet. It's around $200 a month with cable and phone but to be fair it's rural Kansas. I use to pay $65 for their 10/5 when that was the mid-tier Internet only package. So they've really improved their service.

bigtex 10y ago
I have business class internet in a rural community in Tx. Advertised speed in 10/2 but I usually get around 20/2 for $100/month. It is fixed wireless.
- sfifs 10y ago
  Is this high price due to rural or is it normal range for the U.S? In Mumbai India I pay about 30USD a month for 50/5 and there are fibre providers in places like Bangalore that are much cheaper.
  - norea-armozel 10y ago
    Rural is usually higher in my experience. Especially if you live very far from any small city (25k-100k) like where I lived in western Kansas. It was jarring when it came to prices on everything from groceries to utilities. It's still cheaper on the whole if you have a reasonable salary (50-60k is the minimum IMO). The only big down side I think to rural communities in the US is the extreme isolation due to physical distance between towns and cities which is why so many people avoid them. IMO, if you go rural in the US it's best to pick a smaller town that's no more than 250 miles away from a metro. Getting any further away is just asking for cabin fever (if you grew up in any sizable city).
gozur88 10y ago
Depending on where you start you could easily save $200 in housing by moving to a rural area.

JPKab 10y ago

It's a weird situation, because I was working remotely for a tech company and was required to move to the Boulder, CO area recently. It's an awesome company and I was stoked about the area, so I went ahead and did it, but the requirement for collocation that has been driven by certain management ethos' is odd in such a technology driven world. The advantages I've had by moving from Arkansas to here have been numerous, and mainly this is due to human nature causing companies with enough co-located employees to leave remote workers out of the loop. The OP is right though: I find the "herd effect" that occurs from a bunch of very similar people especially potent in SF. What's funny is how diverse they think they are based on superficial traits like maybe ethnicity, but the reality is they tend to be very uniform in socio-economic background, age, and education.

noddingham 10y ago
As someone that also works in Boulder, is your compensation enough to allow you to actually live in Boulder?
- madengr 10y ago
  Yeah, inquiring minds would like to know. I'm in Boulder right now for a conference, and looking at Zillow, it's f'ing insane. Prices seem to start at $1M.
  - m103forme 10y ago
    Buying inside of Boulder is a bit insane right now, hell most of Colorado is, and it's just amplified by the lack of supply in Boulder (no new building for 20-30 some years I think). Check out Gunbarrel, it's about 7 minutes away from Boulder and is still somewhat reasonable. Although my SO bought her 30yr old condo for $165K in the Fall of 2014 and Zillow is now saying 302K, LOL.
  - gacba 10y ago
    Lived in Boulder County for 15 years until I got married and moved south of Denver. Boulder itself has ALWAYS been expensive (even when I was in college in the early 90s) for housing. If you're serious about relocating, look at some less insane, but very close communities that the majority of the "Boulderites" live in: NORTH: - Longmont - Gunbarrel EAST: - Louisville - Lafayette - Erie SOUTHEAST-ish: - Broomfield - Westminster - Northglenn - Thornton You can have a "reasonable" commute, and a less insane house price in those areas. They are all bedroom communities for the area... Personally, I lived in Louisville and Lafayette at least half of my time in the county (the other in Boulder proper, renting, always). There are always options.

Torgo 10y ago

It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress.

epalmer 10y ago
> We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress. This is sad but not unexpected since politics and big companies play in this space.
protomyth 10y ago
> It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. Depends, REI has better internet for ND than anything I've seen elsewhere. Some of the rural telephone companies do quite well. Its really luck of the draw. > We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress. The key part of the last bill that killed it was the requirement that "broadband speeds" were not available in an area. The bill didn't specify a minimum price or that its was universal to the area. So, it pretty much killed a lot of attempts because broadband is available for $1,000 a month.
skrebbel 10y ago
> It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. Try rural Sweden.
cellularmitosis 10y ago
This is changing somewhat now with the advent of WISP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_provider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_prov... My parents are just about to install an 80' tower on their rural property, because a local WISP is the only unmetered option available. I feel like the cellular revolution has really crippled itself by virtue of nearly all "cellular wifi hot spot" plans being data capped to some number of GB per month. There's just so much culture I can't share with my parents if they can't spare the data to watch online video. This situation becomes only more frustrating each time you hear about a provider upgrading their network to an even faster technology. "Cool, so now I can exhaust my monthly data plan in... 10 minutes?". (Somewhat similar to the frustration of seeing Apple make thinner and thinner devices, rather than throwing in a bigger battery -- is this really what your customers want?)

bdavisx 10y ago

>> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. >I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other, there is a sense of a community. It is quiet. Depending on what part of the country you're talking about, many of those beautiful small communities are very bigoted also -- and not just in the South.

rdtsc 10y ago
Agreed. That's a good point. Quite often poverty makes the situation worse, it radicalizes people and enhances the bigotry.
- bovermyer 10y ago
  Poverty isn't tied directly to bigotry. Rather, a lack of new ideas and mindsets in close proximity can present an environment conducive to the development of bigotry (or its less malicious cousin, ignorance).
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    Believing that no matter how bad your life is you're still better than someone else by virtue of race becomes more tempting the closer you are to rock bottom.
    - bovermyer 10y ago
      What data are you basing this claim on?
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Well that disagrees with what I have seen. You can say it is correlation and that those are somehow born with the biggot gene can't escape poverty. I think it works the other way, poverty amplifies and accentuates biggotry, rasim, sexims and any other -ism. This is based on living in other countries, mostly in US though, in both poor and rich communities, some were diverse poor and diverse rich.