4 ms·

Diminishing returns? In the '80s half of America was in cities, and the rest rural. But today its more like half are in coastal cities, and most of the rest in

Diminishing returns? In the '80s half of America was in cities, and the rest rural. But today its more like half are in coastal cities, and most of the rest in cities. Rural folk are a diminishing fraction of America.

topkai22 5y ago
Did you mean the 1880s? The US population has been majority urban / suburban since the 1920s. The rural population is declining, but remains 17% of the population. That's a significant portion of the population and would be incredibly wrong to write off.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And even 17% is deceptive. One of my neighbors has an apple orchard. Another has a Christmas tree farm. We’re next to a bunch of conservation land. We’re urban by census classification.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Rural is a term that can mean different things to different people. When an Alaska talks about "rural alaska" they mean something very different than when someone else talks about "rural new york".
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Parent was presumably using the US Census definition which leads various people to conclude that 80% live in urban areas. I agree with your point though rural NY can be pretty rural too if not in the same category as Alaska and large areas of the West.
coding123 5y ago
I think you will see that in the next 10 years will be the big return of rural as people want to get away from... other people.
- elihu 5y ago
  That might happen if people can get good Internet. I read an interesting theory once that there was a huge shift away from cities in the U.S. after WWII because of the interstate highway system. It was now possible to commute much further distances to city jobs because the roads were better, so people migrated to the cheap land. We could see the same thing happen again, but instead of roads it's Internet. Living in the country sounds nice, but I can't imagine myself going back to dial-up. And I don't know if there's all that much cheap rural land anymore unless you're in a sparsely populated state, though. I grew up in the country, and awhile back I drove the old school bus route I used to take. Some things were the same, but there were a lot more fancy big houses than I remember twenty to thirty years ago.
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    Aside from network connectivity I'd be surprised if Amazon can deliver in 2 days if you're sufficiently far from a distribution center (not that they consistently hit that in major metropolises...)
    - elihu 5y ago
      Is that a deal breaker for many people? It seems like it would be a lot more inconvenient to be a long distance from services (grocery store, schools, hospitals, etc..)
      - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
        Probably not a deal breaker, just another thing people moving from cities out into the countryside would have to adapt to. I agree that being a distance from all the basics seems hard.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      In my experience Amazon voluntarily delays orders by several days before shipping anyway, presumably to encourage people to sign up for their sunk cost fallacy. Quick shipping can be handy some times, but it's really not this end-all be-all that people bought into the sunk cost fallacy make it out to be. And traditional big box stores have better search functionality, lower prices, and supply chain integrity. I'd be perfectly content with packages getting delivered only two days per week to better amortize the route length. It's the delivery companies that are pushing these every day routes, presumably so they don't have to be in the storage business.

topkai22 5y ago

Did you mean the 1880s? The US population has been majority urban / suburban since the 1920s. The rural population is declining, but remains 17% of the population. That's a significant portion of the population and would be incredibly wrong to write off.

ghaff 5y ago
And even 17% is deceptive. One of my neighbors has an apple orchard. Another has a Christmas tree farm. We’re next to a bunch of conservation land. We’re urban by census classification.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Rural is a term that can mean different things to different people. When an Alaska talks about "rural alaska" they mean something very different than when someone else talks about "rural new york".
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Parent was presumably using the US Census definition which leads various people to conclude that 80% live in urban areas. I agree with your point though rural NY can be pretty rural too if not in the same category as Alaska and large areas of the West.

coding123 5y ago

I think you will see that in the next 10 years will be the big return of rural as people want to get away from... other people.

elihu 5y ago
That might happen if people can get good Internet. I read an interesting theory once that there was a huge shift away from cities in the U.S. after WWII because of the interstate highway system. It was now possible to commute much further distances to city jobs because the roads were better, so people migrated to the cheap land. We could see the same thing happen again, but instead of roads it's Internet. Living in the country sounds nice, but I can't imagine myself going back to dial-up. And I don't know if there's all that much cheap rural land anymore unless you're in a sparsely populated state, though. I grew up in the country, and awhile back I drove the old school bus route I used to take. Some things were the same, but there were a lot more fancy big houses than I remember twenty to thirty years ago.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  Aside from network connectivity I'd be surprised if Amazon can deliver in 2 days if you're sufficiently far from a distribution center (not that they consistently hit that in major metropolises...)
  - elihu 5y ago
    Is that a deal breaker for many people? It seems like it would be a lot more inconvenient to be a long distance from services (grocery store, schools, hospitals, etc..)
    - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
      Probably not a deal breaker, just another thing people moving from cities out into the countryside would have to adapt to. I agree that being a distance from all the basics seems hard.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    In my experience Amazon voluntarily delays orders by several days before shipping anyway, presumably to encourage people to sign up for their sunk cost fallacy. Quick shipping can be handy some times, but it's really not this end-all be-all that people bought into the sunk cost fallacy make it out to be. And traditional big box stores have better search functionality, lower prices, and supply chain integrity. I'd be perfectly content with packages getting delivered only two days per week to better amortize the route length. It's the delivery companies that are pushing these every day routes, presumably so they don't have to be in the storage business.