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Would remote work help? I would think encouraging or allowing more 'white-collar' workers to be more spread out throughout the country would help increase deman

Would remote work help? I would think encouraging or allowing more 'white-collar' workers to be more spread out throughout the country would help increase demand in places other than large cities and tech hubs. I, for one, miss rural life (wide open space, less traffic, mom and pop stores, etc.) but unfortunately my career as a programmer doesn't cater to that lifestyle all that well.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
Well, yes and no. It would help unless those jobs were shipped overseas. Many jobs that can be done remotely end up outsourced eventually. My father, who is a software developer, works remotely and makes an obscene amount of money for his area, but his position is not normal.
QAPereo 9y ago
A few generations of really focused, quality education would help a lot more. Until then, I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  How would education bring back jobs to rural America?
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Education would make some of these people employable in the first place, and in jobs which a handful of robot arms can’t do better.
  - kuro-kuris 9y ago
    Making an educated guess: better education with regards to job opportunities requirements allows you to compete in a smaller market so your work won't be offshored.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    It won't. You will just have educated people that now have to move away to get jobs. It's a simple easy answer until you think about step #2, getting a job in rural America.
- megaman22 9y ago
  It'll be a bit of a mess in any case. In a lot of rural school districts, you've got better than half of the students on free-and-reduced lunches, and often upwards of a quarter or a third of the students on IEPs. I grew up in such a place, my mother still teaches in that district. You really need to fix the basic underlying economic issues, so that you don't have kids coming to school hungry, and you don't have the best and brightest of the community fleeing so they can find work.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Absolutely! Frankly I'd argue that feeding your students should be a universal no-brainer anyway, especially when they can't afford it themselves. We know too damned much about the link between ability to learn and retain information, and a good nutritional intake to pretend that schools can ignore it to shave $$'s. The problem is that public education is public and so it runs into various forms of ideological resistance on that basis. Worse, the power of local districts to shape educational policy leads to predictable deficits, often also driven by ideology/politics. We have the money, we just choose to spend it on healthcare inflation, and weapons to sell. We don't see an immediate profit in education, so it's sidelined or privatized. We are shortsighted idiots, as a species.
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    Maybe this is just me, but fixing the underlying economic issues sound _hard_. Feeding kids breakfast sounds doable.
rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
Let's say you have a reasonably well-paying remote job and you could live anywhere. Let's also say you're married and have children. Do you want them to go to good schools? Do you want them to receive quality healthcare that does not break the bank? Do you want to use convenient services like Uber/Lyft when the need arises? Do you want access to a network of professionals that can help you grow your career? If you answered yes to these questions, you're not going to find many places rural America that satisfy your needs. At best you'll end up in an outer-exurbia like greater Atlanta. I don't think remote work of a few well-paid professionals is a viable and sustainable solution for rural America.
- ashark 9y ago
  I'd probably pick a smallish (sub-250k population) city, I think. The kind that rural folks mean when they say they're going to The City to shop. Maybe a "university town". Beats exurbs or ultra-pricey real cities. The trick is finding one small enough that you aren't stuck with shitty schools if you want to live in the city core.
  - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
    Well that often tends to be the case. Most college towns, even little ones, are so much more expensive than the countryside. Here in Ithaca NY, the property market (relative to income) is ungodly expensive, because most people either bought their houses decades ago when they were affordable, or they're college students who will pay any price in rent to get their quality education. Some people commute in from as far away as Syracuse or even Pennsylvania. Property prices are much more affordable 15 minutes drive in any direction, but no college professor or staff would want their kids going to any of the crackerjack rural schools. Can't say I speak for the Midwest, so it could be different there.
  - eropple 9y ago
    That's part of it. The other part is transit. Cars are bad; I don't really want to ever own one again and I definitely don't want to have to drive one every day if I do. So anywhere I'd want to move would need to either be super walkable or have transit. And small cities usually, IME, aren't the first and don't have the second. I live in a 50K-population city adjoining Boston, so they exist, I just don't know how well they exist independent of bigger cities.
kylehotchkiss 9y ago
I spent 4 years at my tech job in rural Virginia. Internet there was faster, cheaper, and more reliable than it has been in San Diego, where I am now. I had lots of friends there, it was always fun to enjoy the outdoors with them. So it can help, but you eventually feel like a fish out of water when nearly nobody you know understands what it is you do. I feel like we'll get there one day in the USA, paying under $1000 for rent for a comfortable home is a lifestyle I wish i could see more technical people adopt.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

Well, yes and no. It would help unless those jobs were shipped overseas. Many jobs that can be done remotely end up outsourced eventually. My father, who is a software developer, works remotely and makes an obscene amount of money for his area, but his position is not normal.

QAPereo 9y ago

A few generations of really focused, quality education would help a lot more. Until then, I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
How would education bring back jobs to rural America?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Education would make some of these people employable in the first place, and in jobs which a handful of robot arms can’t do better.
- kuro-kuris 9y ago
  Making an educated guess: better education with regards to job opportunities requirements allows you to compete in a smaller market so your work won't be offshored.
- Clubber 9y ago
  It won't. You will just have educated people that now have to move away to get jobs. It's a simple easy answer until you think about step #2, getting a job in rural America.
megaman22 9y ago
It'll be a bit of a mess in any case. In a lot of rural school districts, you've got better than half of the students on free-and-reduced lunches, and often upwards of a quarter or a third of the students on IEPs. I grew up in such a place, my mother still teaches in that district. You really need to fix the basic underlying economic issues, so that you don't have kids coming to school hungry, and you don't have the best and brightest of the community fleeing so they can find work.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Absolutely! Frankly I'd argue that feeding your students should be a universal no-brainer anyway, especially when they can't afford it themselves. We know too damned much about the link between ability to learn and retain information, and a good nutritional intake to pretend that schools can ignore it to shave $$'s. The problem is that public education is public and so it runs into various forms of ideological resistance on that basis. Worse, the power of local districts to shape educational policy leads to predictable deficits, often also driven by ideology/politics. We have the money, we just choose to spend it on healthcare inflation, and weapons to sell. We don't see an immediate profit in education, so it's sidelined or privatized. We are shortsighted idiots, as a species.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  Maybe this is just me, but fixing the underlying economic issues sound _hard_. Feeding kids breakfast sounds doable.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago

Let's say you have a reasonably well-paying remote job and you could live anywhere. Let's also say you're married and have children. Do you want them to go to good schools? Do you want them to receive quality healthcare that does not break the bank? Do you want to use convenient services like Uber/Lyft when the need arises? Do you want access to a network of professionals that can help you grow your career? If you answered yes to these questions, you're not going to find many places rural America that satisfy your needs. At best you'll end up in an outer-exurbia like greater Atlanta. I don't think remote work of a few well-paid professionals is a viable and sustainable solution for rural America.

ashark 9y ago
I'd probably pick a smallish (sub-250k population) city, I think. The kind that rural folks mean when they say they're going to The City to shop. Maybe a "university town". Beats exurbs or ultra-pricey real cities. The trick is finding one small enough that you aren't stuck with shitty schools if you want to live in the city core.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Well that often tends to be the case. Most college towns, even little ones, are so much more expensive than the countryside. Here in Ithaca NY, the property market (relative to income) is ungodly expensive, because most people either bought their houses decades ago when they were affordable, or they're college students who will pay any price in rent to get their quality education. Some people commute in from as far away as Syracuse or even Pennsylvania. Property prices are much more affordable 15 minutes drive in any direction, but no college professor or staff would want their kids going to any of the crackerjack rural schools. Can't say I speak for the Midwest, so it could be different there.
- eropple 9y ago
  That's part of it. The other part is transit. Cars are bad; I don't really want to ever own one again and I definitely don't want to have to drive one every day if I do. So anywhere I'd want to move would need to either be super walkable or have transit. And small cities usually, IME, aren't the first and don't have the second. I live in a 50K-population city adjoining Boston, so they exist, I just don't know how well they exist independent of bigger cities.

kylehotchkiss 9y ago

I spent 4 years at my tech job in rural Virginia. Internet there was faster, cheaper, and more reliable than it has been in San Diego, where I am now. I had lots of friends there, it was always fun to enjoy the outdoors with them. So it can help, but you eventually feel like a fish out of water when nearly nobody you know understands what it is you do. I feel like we'll get there one day in the USA, paying under $1000 for rent for a comfortable home is a lifestyle I wish i could see more technical people adopt.