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Even a completely free piece of land and free housing isn't a substitution for basic infrastructure and diverse local culture. Maybe if you have a growing famil

Even a completely free piece of land and free housing isn't a substitution for basic infrastructure and diverse local culture. Maybe if you have a growing family or are retirement age, but with the childless 35 and under crowd growing I can't imagine wanting to move to the middle of nowhere.

tjr225 5y ago
I can’t think of any sane reason a parent would want to isolate their children from socialization; either. It would be to deprive them from their own nature and it would set them back, probably irreparably.
- vitaflo 5y ago
  We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Lincoln, the town in this article has a population of 1.2k. I grew up in the rural Midwest in a town of 800 before the internet was a thing. I had plenty of opportunities for socialization. In many ways rural communities are more social than urban ones because the community is the only thing they have.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    > We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Do we? Online, maybe, but that's no substitute. In large parts of the country, kids can't go see their friends without their parents shuttling them around, in part because the terrain is near-impassable without a car. Maybe if the rural community is still somewhat walkable - the core of many small town would qualify - but my feeling is that many/most are not. (That said, this applies to most suburbs these days too, and even many cities. Unfortunately.)
    - vitaflo 5y ago
      Rural communities don't need to be walkable. I would regularly bike 5+ miles to visit my friends in our rural area (all farm country) and did so about as soon as I learned to ride a bike (6 or 7 years old). Kids biking wherever they wanted to go was very common. So was riding ATV's when they got to be preteens. In rural communities, parents aren't always chaperoning and shuttling their kids everywhere. You're given a lot more freedom as a child.
      - beerandt 5y ago
        Many states still allow 12 year olds to drive farm trucks on local roads.
      - pgcj_poster 5y ago
        How long ago was this? If you had freedom as a child, it might have been because of the time rather than the place. I was a kid in a rural area in the 2000s, and there was exactly one time in my entire childhood when I saw another kid that I knew outside of school without my parents having arranged it and having driven me somewhere. If I went for a walk alone, people driving past would stop and ask me if I was lost and needed help. Actually, that happened last time I was at my parents' home even though I'm in my 20s. I felt lonely and isolated growing up, and I still feel developmentally stunted from it.
  - kgin 5y ago
    I have to agree that. In some ways, there is more socialization in a small town than in a large city. The threshold for "having enough in common" is lowered to "we both live here". In a city, people often interact less with others in absolute terms because there are so many people and talking to any one person over another seems arbitrary.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize All the available data from credible sources shows the opposite. Research indicates that developed societies are facing an unprecedented loneliness crisis. With some good help from social networks.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    This really only works when you fit in with the local demo. If you’re not white in an all white town - it doesn’t tend to go over well! Same for if your interest are different than the mainstream for that region. For instance - I wasn’t into guns, hunting, or pickup trucks. Social outcast immediately. At least in cities there are more groups of people. You might not fit into one group but it isn’t the only group. The educational opportunities are also a joke. I hear what my coworkers at big tech had growing up even in just plain suburban areas and it’s incredible compared to what I had. I feel like I grew up in a developing country compared to them.
- PKop 5y ago
  It is debatable whether rural communities provide less opportunity for "socialization" compared to the atomization and isolation that comes from living in a big city, perhaps around people you have no long term ties or roots with. Take these last two years. Who would you imagine got more socialization: adults/children living in big cities where in-person socialization, schooling was banned to a large degree... or rural places that did not do this?
  - watwut 5y ago
    I would imagine people in the city had more access to socialization.
    - anonfornoreason 5y ago
      I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.
      - LanceH 5y ago
        Visited a friend in a town of 5000 for a month. A week or two in, I was running into people I "knew". Personally, I put the sweet spot around 15k, in a town an hour away from a city with a real airport.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      Not in my experience.; in small towns, you get to know everybody. In big cities, you pass through the streets like a ghost unless you make a real effort to escape your comfort zone. Move to a little town, and you're forcibly escaped from your comfort zone as soon as the clerk at the grocery store sees you twice and starts a conversation with you, and you find out his wife is one of your kid's new teachers.
    - ericd 5y ago
      Having lived in both places with kids during, that wasn’t at all my experience. Anecdotal, obviously.
- hedora 5y ago
  Yeah; some of the towns in the article are down to zero elementary schools. You're home schooling at that point, and with that few kids, I'm guessing there's no support network for the adults either.
- chmod600 5y ago
  Are you saying that cities are the more natural environment for children, and that rural living deprives them of their nature?
COGlory 5y ago
>basic infrastructure and diverse local culture Or, you know, a job.
PKop 5y ago
"Childless" cohorts are irrelevant if you mean to imply these people intend to remain childless. They will not have descendants nor create lasting communities. They are a dead end. The future is made by those that procreate. What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)?
- fells 5y ago
  > What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)? Strange to pit "diverse" against "cohesive" and "healthy and strong values" as if they are opposites.
  - PKop 5y ago
    Certainly "diverse" was present by OP as opposed to something yes? And since we agree on what actually matters (the other terms in this list) what is exclusive to diverse communities do you think?
    - Arainach 5y ago
      The opposite of diversity is not coherent, it is myopia. Groups lacking diversity lack fresh insight and allow opportunities for stereotype and intolerance to grow. I've encountered exactly this in dozens of Midwestern suburbs. I grew up in a town and school district where our class had "the black kid", "the Latino kid", "the Vietnamese girl" and so on surrounded by hundreds of white kids. The misinformation was real, and the opportunity to talk to someone and dispel those beliefs was low. University offered a chance to fix some of that, but my former classmates who never left town are bye and large a bunch of bigots. On the other hand, people I knew who were raised in diverse areas learned much broader perspectives and manage to incorporate new view points more easily.
      - PKop 5y ago
dehrmann 5y ago
> diverse local culture They've got both kinds: country and western.

tjr225 5y ago

I can’t think of any sane reason a parent would want to isolate their children from socialization; either. It would be to deprive them from their own nature and it would set them back, probably irreparably.

vitaflo 5y ago
We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Lincoln, the town in this article has a population of 1.2k. I grew up in the rural Midwest in a town of 800 before the internet was a thing. I had plenty of opportunities for socialization. In many ways rural communities are more social than urban ones because the community is the only thing they have.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  > We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Do we? Online, maybe, but that's no substitute. In large parts of the country, kids can't go see their friends without their parents shuttling them around, in part because the terrain is near-impassable without a car. Maybe if the rural community is still somewhat walkable - the core of many small town would qualify - but my feeling is that many/most are not. (That said, this applies to most suburbs these days too, and even many cities. Unfortunately.)
  - vitaflo 5y ago
    Rural communities don't need to be walkable. I would regularly bike 5+ miles to visit my friends in our rural area (all farm country) and did so about as soon as I learned to ride a bike (6 or 7 years old). Kids biking wherever they wanted to go was very common. So was riding ATV's when they got to be preteens. In rural communities, parents aren't always chaperoning and shuttling their kids everywhere. You're given a lot more freedom as a child.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Many states still allow 12 year olds to drive farm trucks on local roads.
    - pgcj_poster 5y ago
      How long ago was this? If you had freedom as a child, it might have been because of the time rather than the place. I was a kid in a rural area in the 2000s, and there was exactly one time in my entire childhood when I saw another kid that I knew outside of school without my parents having arranged it and having driven me somewhere. If I went for a walk alone, people driving past would stop and ask me if I was lost and needed help. Actually, that happened last time I was at my parents' home even though I'm in my 20s. I felt lonely and isolated growing up, and I still feel developmentally stunted from it.
- kgin 5y ago
  I have to agree that. In some ways, there is more socialization in a small town than in a large city. The threshold for "having enough in common" is lowered to "we both live here". In a city, people often interact less with others in absolute terms because there are so many people and talking to any one person over another seems arbitrary.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize All the available data from credible sources shows the opposite. Research indicates that developed societies are facing an unprecedented loneliness crisis. With some good help from social networks.
- bradlys 5y ago
  This really only works when you fit in with the local demo. If you’re not white in an all white town - it doesn’t tend to go over well! Same for if your interest are different than the mainstream for that region. For instance - I wasn’t into guns, hunting, or pickup trucks. Social outcast immediately. At least in cities there are more groups of people. You might not fit into one group but it isn’t the only group. The educational opportunities are also a joke. I hear what my coworkers at big tech had growing up even in just plain suburban areas and it’s incredible compared to what I had. I feel like I grew up in a developing country compared to them.
PKop 5y ago
It is debatable whether rural communities provide less opportunity for "socialization" compared to the atomization and isolation that comes from living in a big city, perhaps around people you have no long term ties or roots with. Take these last two years. Who would you imagine got more socialization: adults/children living in big cities where in-person socialization, schooling was banned to a large degree... or rural places that did not do this?
- watwut 5y ago
  I would imagine people in the city had more access to socialization.
  - anonfornoreason 5y ago
    I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.
    - LanceH 5y ago
      Visited a friend in a town of 5000 for a month. A week or two in, I was running into people I "knew". Personally, I put the sweet spot around 15k, in a town an hour away from a city with a real airport.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Not in my experience.; in small towns, you get to know everybody. In big cities, you pass through the streets like a ghost unless you make a real effort to escape your comfort zone. Move to a little town, and you're forcibly escaped from your comfort zone as soon as the clerk at the grocery store sees you twice and starts a conversation with you, and you find out his wife is one of your kid's new teachers.
  - ericd 5y ago
    Having lived in both places with kids during, that wasn’t at all my experience. Anecdotal, obviously.
hedora 5y ago
Yeah; some of the towns in the article are down to zero elementary schools. You're home schooling at that point, and with that few kids, I'm guessing there's no support network for the adults either.
chmod600 5y ago
Are you saying that cities are the more natural environment for children, and that rural living deprives them of their nature?

COGlory 5y ago

>basic infrastructure and diverse local culture Or, you know, a job.

PKop 5y ago

"Childless" cohorts are irrelevant if you mean to imply these people intend to remain childless. They will not have descendants nor create lasting communities. They are a dead end. The future is made by those that procreate. What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)?

fells 5y ago
> What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)? Strange to pit "diverse" against "cohesive" and "healthy and strong values" as if they are opposites.
- PKop 5y ago
  Certainly "diverse" was present by OP as opposed to something yes? And since we agree on what actually matters (the other terms in this list) what is exclusive to diverse communities do you think?
  - Arainach 5y ago
    The opposite of diversity is not coherent, it is myopia. Groups lacking diversity lack fresh insight and allow opportunities for stereotype and intolerance to grow. I've encountered exactly this in dozens of Midwestern suburbs. I grew up in a town and school district where our class had "the black kid", "the Latino kid", "the Vietnamese girl" and so on surrounded by hundreds of white kids. The misinformation was real, and the opportunity to talk to someone and dispel those beliefs was low. University offered a chance to fix some of that, but my former classmates who never left town are bye and large a bunch of bigots. On the other hand, people I knew who were raised in diverse areas learned much broader perspectives and manage to incorporate new view points more easily.
    - PKop 5y ago

dehrmann 5y ago

> diverse local culture They've got both kinds: country and western.