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Are these same small towns also insulated from market crashes and recessions? Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Edit: apparently

Are these same small towns also insulated from market crashes and recessions? Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Edit: apparently people are interpreting my comment negatively. I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects. I'm not questioning whether they should exist or anything nonsensical like that.

ryanmarsh 8y ago
Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Are you asking if there's a good reason why these small towns should exist?
- madengr 8y ago
  Maybe rural america (energy, food) do Master Blaster style embargo on big cities.
  - troygoode 8y ago
    You’re assuming rural Americans actually own the food and energy they produce.
  - eropple 8y ago
    "Rural Americans" own neither the energy nor the food production located near them. By and large, rural America is subsidized by the rest of America, be they urbanites or large companies. And to be frank, that's fine; I support generally allowing people to find the best way for them to live, within reason. (Where people like me start getting snippy--and we do, we aren't saints--is when that's not acknowledged. "Real Americans" and the like.)
    - Rapzid 8y ago
      The Rest of America
- nine_k 8y ago
  Or, maybe, rather, should small towns be additionally supported. Say, there are benefits for the whole nation (and the whole humankind) from maintaining and supporting national parks and national monuments, even if they don't and can't turn a profit. Or, there are various considerations leading to support for local farming, even if it would not make business sense without donations. Are small towns equally important, and require some degree of support, or should they naturally close shop and disappear sometimes, when they stop making sense, the way businesses do?
  - davidw 8y ago
    > rather, should small towns be additionally supported. This is the key question. No one wants to up and remove those towns. The question is: should we subsidize their existence beyond the infrastructure like road, mail, etc... that we already pay for? And if we want to do that, how do we go about it to get the most bang for our buck?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
That's a good question... I have often wondered if many of our environmental/political problems would be solved if we helped everyone move to major cities. But the city environment undeniably makes many people less happy. Studies have shown a link between urban living and mental illness. So it might be nice to maintain options for humans who thrive in a more rural environment.
- caseyohara 8y ago
  > the city environment undeniably makes many people less happy. Studies have shown a link between urban living and mental illness. Do you have a link for these claims? Genuinely curious, I've always wondered about this.
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    This is from the National Institute of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ I'm not an expert at knowing what studies are good... so someone will probably comment about why this study is problematic, and that's ok. "Studies have shown that the risk for serious mental illness is generally higher in cities compared to rural areas. Epidemiological studies have associated growing up and living in cities with a considerably higher risk for schizophrenia. However, correlation is not causation and living in poverty can both contribute to and result from impairments associated with poor mental health. Social isolation and discrimination as well as poverty in the neighborhood contribute to the mental health burden while little is known about specific interactions between such factors and the built environment."
    - caseyohara 8y ago
      Thank you, that is interesting.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    Sure, living in a city drives me crazy.
snackbugs 8y ago
The people who lived in towns which thrived long before the economy failed them don't need to justify their existence in economic terms. The question you should be asking is whether or not this economy has any benefit to those people. What an absolutely inhuman comment this is.
- ubercore 8y ago
  I don't know the original intentions but I didn't read it that way. Seemed more like a question of the premise that a town _needs_ to be a tech hub to survive, which is sort of half implied by the article.
- tryptophan 8y ago
  >economy failed them Its everyone else fault that nobody wanted to buy the crap their local industries made?
  - snackbugs 8y ago
    You're better off just not posting if the first infantile misfiring of your brain is what you decide is fit to type into the comment box.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vitaflo 8y ago
>I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects. It goes both ways though, because they're small towns, they can have their own recessions that have little to do with national recessions. When a factory is shuttered, it can have devastating affects for a small town, much worse than a typical recession, but nobody outside that community would notice much. This has been happening all over the rural US for the past 20 years. Everyone talks about the past 8 years of stock market booms, and low unemployment but there are a lot of small towns all over the US that are getting crushed by globalization. Nobody talks about because the problems are local to those towns, but for those that live there, the problems are very real and dire.

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Are you asking if there's a good reason why these small towns should exist?

madengr 8y ago
Maybe rural america (energy, food) do Master Blaster style embargo on big cities.
- troygoode 8y ago
  You’re assuming rural Americans actually own the food and energy they produce.
- eropple 8y ago
  "Rural Americans" own neither the energy nor the food production located near them. By and large, rural America is subsidized by the rest of America, be they urbanites or large companies. And to be frank, that's fine; I support generally allowing people to find the best way for them to live, within reason. (Where people like me start getting snippy--and we do, we aren't saints--is when that's not acknowledged. "Real Americans" and the like.)
  - Rapzid 8y ago
    The Rest of America
nine_k 8y ago
Or, maybe, rather, should small towns be additionally supported. Say, there are benefits for the whole nation (and the whole humankind) from maintaining and supporting national parks and national monuments, even if they don't and can't turn a profit. Or, there are various considerations leading to support for local farming, even if it would not make business sense without donations. Are small towns equally important, and require some degree of support, or should they naturally close shop and disappear sometimes, when they stop making sense, the way businesses do?
- davidw 8y ago
  > rather, should small towns be additionally supported. This is the key question. No one wants to up and remove those towns. The question is: should we subsidize their existence beyond the infrastructure like road, mail, etc... that we already pay for? And if we want to do that, how do we go about it to get the most bang for our buck?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

That's a good question... I have often wondered if many of our environmental/political problems would be solved if we helped everyone move to major cities. But the city environment undeniably makes many people less happy. Studies have shown a link between urban living and mental illness. So it might be nice to maintain options for humans who thrive in a more rural environment.

caseyohara 8y ago
> the city environment undeniably makes many people less happy. Studies have shown a link between urban living and mental illness. Do you have a link for these claims? Genuinely curious, I've always wondered about this.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  This is from the National Institute of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ I'm not an expert at knowing what studies are good... so someone will probably comment about why this study is problematic, and that's ok. "Studies have shown that the risk for serious mental illness is generally higher in cities compared to rural areas. Epidemiological studies have associated growing up and living in cities with a considerably higher risk for schizophrenia. However, correlation is not causation and living in poverty can both contribute to and result from impairments associated with poor mental health. Social isolation and discrimination as well as poverty in the neighborhood contribute to the mental health burden while little is known about specific interactions between such factors and the built environment."
  - caseyohara 8y ago
    Thank you, that is interesting.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  Sure, living in a city drives me crazy.

snackbugs 8y ago

The people who lived in towns which thrived long before the economy failed them don't need to justify their existence in economic terms. The question you should be asking is whether or not this economy has any benefit to those people. What an absolutely inhuman comment this is.

ubercore 8y ago
I don't know the original intentions but I didn't read it that way. Seemed more like a question of the premise that a town _needs_ to be a tech hub to survive, which is sort of half implied by the article.
tryptophan 8y ago
>economy failed them Its everyone else fault that nobody wanted to buy the crap their local industries made?
- snackbugs 8y ago
  You're better off just not posting if the first infantile misfiring of your brain is what you decide is fit to type into the comment box.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vitaflo 8y ago

>I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects. It goes both ways though, because they're small towns, they can have their own recessions that have little to do with national recessions. When a factory is shuttered, it can have devastating affects for a small town, much worse than a typical recession, but nobody outside that community would notice much. This has been happening all over the rural US for the past 20 years. Everyone talks about the past 8 years of stock market booms, and low unemployment but there are a lot of small towns all over the US that are getting crushed by globalization. Nobody talks about because the problems are local to those towns, but for those that live there, the problems are very real and dire.