4 ms·

Wow

• tristor 5y ago
  I feel like there's a huge semantic disconnect in this thread about the meaning of "rural". You and the grandparent seem to be using it to mean small suburbs/exurbs in economically declining regions of the US (e.g. The Rust Belt), not what it actually means which is farm towns and mostly farm land / private land disparately spread out with primarily county-level governance. I'm also a big fan of StrongTowns, and I don't think what the grandparent is describing accurately reflects rural life.
  • ghostly_s 5y ago
    Most of these small "farm towns" no longer have a majority of their population engaged in agriculture. The economic landscape of rural america has shifted profoundly in the past 50 years and a lot of these places are functionally exurbs now - populated by people who are economically dependent on nearby metro areas but choose to live/remain in small towns for lifestyle reasons. Also, I happen to be born and raised in the area the Strong Towns guy calls home, and while I don't follow his work closely I can say the abstracted rural community he builds his theses around has a very loose relationship to the actual semi-rural communities he has spent his life living and working in.