SpaceObama t1_itpw08e wrote
Reply to comment by probablymagic in Rather than heralding a new era of prosperity for rural and remote regions, remote working, inspired by the pandemic, is exacerbating the global urban-rural divide in the digital platform labour market by giuliomagnifico
That hasn't been the case in my area. Many parents have the money to send their kids to private schools in the area, even if it's a long bus ride for the kids. At least where I am, rural Canada, you can have that rural life while still being on a bus route for a city school. The bus might be 1hr each way, but its how they do it.
probablymagic t1_itpwqhd wrote
Interesting stuff. We moved from a city to a fancy burb. It feels rural with all the animals, huge lies, and driving. So much driving.
Half our neighbors are from other places. Half of them are from here and never left.
The houses are absurdly cheap to us, but are the high end of the market for the region.
But we are not private school people so I didn’t look into how that sound with in a rural place. Nature is great, but if you’re wasting your life on the bus and not even participating in your community, why bother living there when you’re still working all the time?
SpaceObama t1_itpzzy8 wrote
It’s because the prices are absurdly cheap to a lot of people from outside the local area.
Houses are still selling for over asking, sight unseen, no inspection to people from a HCOL area who sold their house and are flush with cash.
At least in my area, people don’t realize what rural means until they get here. It’s a running joke in my area about people asking where the local Asian Fuzion restaurant or Hot Dog Yoga Studio is. You would be shocked at the lack of research people so before moving here. That fact that our schools are dead last in the country here…people don’t usually hear that until after they move here. The only thing people care about is the cost of the house and how much land it comes with. The rest “can’t be that bad, right?” until it is that bad.
probablymagic t1_itq4vz3 wrote
“Wait, nobody comes to get the trees off the .75 mile driveway when they fall and take out the power and phone in the winter? What the hell!”
Good luck figuring out a chainsaw in the snow, mr soft hands!
Significant_Sign t1_itru3ai wrote
I mean, your neighbors come. That's what we did in the rural area I grew up in. Remote work has only increased the occurrence of something that's been happening since I don't know when. We knew if someone from the city had moved to our little town and we knew they probably didn't have what they needed to get through hurricane season. You go over there and help them, when they ask if you like the chainsaw you're using you say yes & offer to teach them how to use one safely if they buy one. Then you chitchat about the pros and cons of various generators. In just a year or so they have their tools and are contributing to the clean up like everyone else. They even bring food or beer when something is going to take all day. Sometimes their wife knows how to make something the locals would never have tried otherwise and then they all discover they love Greek food.
This idea of rural areas as a bunch of assholes who want to be lonely islands and never help each other is false and says lots more about you than someone who may not even have soft hands bc you can do manual labor in the city and know how to use lots of tools. Like my uncle, who worked in the city for the DOT and knew how to use all the tools including plenty of specialized ones us country folk couldn't afford so we had do workarounds with basic tools. It sure was nice when he would drive out to help.
probablymagic t1_itrx6g2 wrote
Sounds like your neighbors are close. Try seeing how waiting for your neighbors to show up works when your house is off a logging road and a tree falls across it taking out your power and phone lines, which only go to your house. Nobody is coming. You gotta cut your way out and drive into town to call the power company.
That’s what I mean by rural. It’s a fine way to live. But not for everybody. I prefer just to visit, and usually not in the winter months because I don’t have the right truck.
Significant_Sign t1_itrykae wrote
We lived ~half a mile off the farthest out road intersection my school bus driver was willing to come to. We had one neighbor family halfway between us and the end of the road. All around the hill we lived on was cow pastures and woods - which sometimes got clear cut, turning our road into a logging road. When we needed more help than the one neighbor, we walked over the pastures and through the woods to get to other houses when we could all them to lend a hand or let us use the phone to call relatives that lived in town. I think you and I mean the same thing by rural, we just have very different experiences of people knowing how to act.
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