> My father, and most of my 8 uncles, all left the state for jobs in their 20s. None of them wanted to stay on the dairy farm. "Too much work for too little money".

Thanks for your reply! I did Ag advocacy for about a decade (90's), mostly focused on feed costs, cull prices, finding labor, crop rotation, and a good chunk on succession and its prospects. in '99 I proposed doing a survey called 2020 - prospects of farming. Its a lot more than counting wheels:) I even suggested the Land Trust make allowances/exceptions to permit a co-housing plan in which those who farmed it lived rent-free, as it were, to address the succession issue. Not that it was a good idea, per say, so much as trying to think outside the box.

Kids leave the State since forever and its been a minute that your education taxes aren't making elsewhere more literate :) Fact is, for the rural parts, its boring AF; specially if not in a clique. We've done shit for supporting college because of it; tourism and second homes pays the bills (mostly) and keeps the trades in decent pay, so and raising (non-native) taxes is a lead balloon.

So instead we adapt to the new realities, which is what VSU is trying to do now due to lowering enrollments and higher costs. They're going Univ of Phoenix - Vermont Edition. Re-purposing libraries because mostly everyone doesn't go there for books. Cutting back sports because even the NCAA class is 3rd tier, few poor or minority students are going to turn pro and transpo costs alone are sky-high. VT doesn't need sports more than academic excellence, nor should it have to recruit from poor inner cities to boost enrollment. You'd be gobsmacked to know how many NVU students are 1st generation to get past HS.

Bet $5 will get you $8 closing Johnson w/in 3-5 years if not sooner. I don't envy those calling the shots, this sub is full of backlash and well-deserved calls for transparency. I know this bec wife is in academic support and I feel people's pain over uncertainty; but its the right (hard) call.

Encouraging teleworkers and knowledgeworkers is the right call, there should always be a livelihood in trades, in logging, in beef and hemp and like, if not in dairy. Dairy consolidation aside, my sis works an organic outfit (100ish head) near Poultney and they are getting by OK, but the parents are still in charge.

So, please don't think I'm complaining more than calling it as I see it. Most all commute 1hr to a job, outside of ChitCo the State is rural AF, Glover is no worse off for the hippies and Peter's circus, nor is MontP for the few still alive:)

Peace Out, bub!

Seconded. (5th generation Vermonter here who has spent his life in land development.) Act 250 / Land Use described as Statewide HOA: 100% correct!

> I tell them to imagine it as a statewide HOA.

Spitballing here, but I'd say 80% of VT is rural hamlets and villes. So lets talk that: valleys with properties usually very near the road built when some farmer sub'd their land and excluded the pastures behind said new homes. Or, properties up along some hillside or gore off dirt roads in the woods. OK?

Those places are akin to HOA's only due to the fact that they're run by the 'town fathers'; the click that collectively ignores everyone at town meeting day to preserve the status quo :)

> My house on 3.5 acres that is part of a neighborhood in rural VT subdivided in the 90s was rezoned to a 5 acre minimum several years ago.

My homestead was on 5ac, abutted by substantially larger tracts of land; either some farm or some woods logged or sugarbushed. I like the 5ac and think 3.5ac would feel too confining if I had neighbors. 5ac is about the min amount that offers real privacy and peace/quiet. I say this bec I have friends on smaller lots and they beef about noise/neighbors with too much regularity.

Just my .02 - Peace Out!

Many of the problems faced are not unique to VT, some (like graying and edu) are. Being a tourist State so close to the Tri-State corridor and 30M people is impactful too.

A lot of your assertions are correct. Many of these issues have persisted for a long time. Your anecdote regarding farmland may have merit, e.g. using 250 as a weapon. I also think that for as valuable as the VT Land Trust is, it needs more flexibility in addressing conservation vs succession issues. But the truth is that farming in VT is in peril. If not for lack of interest then for poor economy of scale. Beef, organic dairy, hemp, and the like have promise, but its still a threadbare life keeping the machines running.

Sure, its important to attract industries to work-centers like ChitCo, but outside of the 45-60minute commute, the rural problems are still going to be there regardless. I had hope for Newport, but that sure got F'd up. Maybe Hardwick can become a success story (a la Pete's greens and the like).

I just don't thing Big Business should be the first goto to find a fix to small State problems.

I'm a newcomer to Maine; and don't for a minute think of the irony when I'm posting on r/Maine; despite having the same sentiment vis-a-vis the stressors being faced.

I moved from (near eden) to ME a year ago. Partly because of costs, partly because I've gotten to old to buck/split wood and care for maintaining the homestead, partly to get out of a mortgage, mostly because said homestead is a 2-person operation that were something to happen 1 person couldn't handle the workload.

I would have stayed in VT were it not for insane RE prices, (even a house lot to throw up a tiny house), so after nearly 40 years, spouse-n-me decided to try a change. Maine (the ocean, the north woods) was a good choice, but despite visiting friends here regularly, I miss the greens that I know like the palm of my hand :)

Sounds like that flatlander should go home...;)

I'm not disputing the facts at all; they speak for themselves in being painfully obvious. I'm disputing the proposed fixes coming from a very unqualified source.

Can't speak to whether 'turning the other cheek' or just ranting is the only thing that's been done, or not. I do know that there's no lack of advocates trying to effect positive change(s), but its not possible to escape undeniable truths.

One being that there aren't too many solutions to fundamentally rural problems; which about 3/4's of the State is. Fortunately, our rural parts benefit (trickle-down) from tourism in ways that rural villes and hamlets in places from OH to VA .... don't. Those places now look like ghost towns.

We are a tourist state that attracts 30M people from Boston to Baltimore. Sure, we have a few industries, but even relaxing regs would not make Vermont competitive with elsewhere. We need industry that we can build from the ground up.

We do K-12 OK, but >50% kids don't stay past HS; because growing up rural can be boring and there's too little opportunity. So our edu taxes make places elsewhere more literate. We're graying out, and the new blood replacing it is bringing in new values and new money; making life even more expensive.

I don't have any solutions, but know any proposed will be a tough pill to swallow and invite the inevitable backlash, no different than what's happening with the VSC/VSU transition.

What I do know, for sure, is that fixing wealth inequality, employer tied for-profit healthcare, .... the big killers of our social safety net .... would go a long way to remedying many of the issues we're facing.