5 ms·

related to this I'm surprised more people don't get together to start (or reboot) more small towns? Saw a video on abandoned CO towns and made me think that if

related to this I'm surprised more people don't get together to start (or reboot) more small towns? Saw a video on abandoned CO towns and made me think that if 20 people moved there are opened some small businesses while keeping it historic it would be fun.

shiroiushi 2y ago
There's several problems with that: 1) Most people these days want to live in cities, for good reasons: jobs are there, cultural activities are there, dating opportunities are there (for single people), good schools are there (for married people), etc. An abandoned town won't have any of that. 2) Sure, if a bunch of people moved to an abandoned town and revitalized it, it would be interesting, but how do you coordinate something like that? What are these people going to do for work in the meantime? Are you relying on a bunch of WFH people? And even if 100 WFH people suddenly move to a dying or abandoned town, how do they deal with all the things that aren't ready for them, such as the utilities, or lack of skilled labor to fix problems in their houses, etc.?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  You need something like Culdesac and a way to bootstrap the economics so there is enough income coming in: some retirees in pensions, some folks with local business, and some folks with remote jobs. https://culdesac.com/ https://culdesac.com/
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Where are the retirees going to get medical services? Some tiny town isn't going to have a hospital or any other medical services, and retired people need that more than anyone else.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Average travel time to an acute care facility for someone in rural America furthest from a facility (a quarter of rural population) is about 34 minutes. Assuming ~55mph country roads, that gives you a ~30 mile radius from rural hospitals where you can site. Closer is better but your constraint is price per acre, broadly speaking. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/12/how-far-americans-live-from-the-closest-hospital-differs-by-community-type/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/12/how-far-a...
    - blinded 2y ago
      Interesting. How did small towns in the past get created or become medium towns? Guessing there simply weren't those services. I wonder what was the last town in a america to be established? Are there suitable areas within 1.5 hour drive of a major one?
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        >How did small towns in the past get created People in the 1800s and before didn't worry much about medical services. When they got sick, they suffered with it, or died. The state-of-the-art with medicine at the time could be handled by one doctor. Expectations these days are a lot higher. >I wonder what was the last town in a america to be established? That's a good question, and probably impossible to answer without some qualifiers. I'm sure some new "towns" have been created in the recent past which were really nothing more than an incorporation of a previously-unincorporated area immediately outside another municipality, but that's altogether different from establishing an all-new town far from any other settlement, as was probably common in the 1800s expansion westward.

shiroiushi 2y ago

There's several problems with that: 1) Most people these days want to live in cities, for good reasons: jobs are there, cultural activities are there, dating opportunities are there (for single people), good schools are there (for married people), etc. An abandoned town won't have any of that. 2) Sure, if a bunch of people moved to an abandoned town and revitalized it, it would be interesting, but how do you coordinate something like that? What are these people going to do for work in the meantime? Are you relying on a bunch of WFH people? And even if 100 WFH people suddenly move to a dying or abandoned town, how do they deal with all the things that aren't ready for them, such as the utilities, or lack of skilled labor to fix problems in their houses, etc.?

toomuchtodo 2y ago
You need something like Culdesac and a way to bootstrap the economics so there is enough income coming in: some retirees in pensions, some folks with local business, and some folks with remote jobs. https://culdesac.com/ https://culdesac.com/
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Where are the retirees going to get medical services? Some tiny town isn't going to have a hospital or any other medical services, and retired people need that more than anyone else.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Average travel time to an acute care facility for someone in rural America furthest from a facility (a quarter of rural population) is about 34 minutes. Assuming ~55mph country roads, that gives you a ~30 mile radius from rural hospitals where you can site. Closer is better but your constraint is price per acre, broadly speaking. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/12/how-far-americans-live-from-the-closest-hospital-differs-by-community-type/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/12/how-far-a...
  - blinded 2y ago
    Interesting. How did small towns in the past get created or become medium towns? Guessing there simply weren't those services. I wonder what was the last town in a america to be established? Are there suitable areas within 1.5 hour drive of a major one?
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >How did small towns in the past get created People in the 1800s and before didn't worry much about medical services. When they got sick, they suffered with it, or died. The state-of-the-art with medicine at the time could be handled by one doctor. Expectations these days are a lot higher. >I wonder what was the last town in a america to be established? That's a good question, and probably impossible to answer without some qualifiers. I'm sure some new "towns" have been created in the recent past which were really nothing more than an incorporation of a previously-unincorporated area immediately outside another municipality, but that's altogether different from establishing an all-new town far from any other settlement, as was probably common in the 1800s expansion westward.