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‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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The decline is threefold:
Agriculture is getting significantly more efficient. You don't need 300 people do backbreaking labor for 12 hours a day in the beating sun anymore. We have automated threshers.
Industries are shifting. We generally moved away from manufacturing and an extraction-based economy. (Though the former is recovering, thanks to Biden's awesome investment plan)
jobs are moving to cities, where there are more schools, hospitals, high paying jobs, and may be more resilient to climate change.
Personally, I'd never ever consider moving anywhere rural for the aforementioned reasons, but also because rural americans are against my type family, and I don't care to be the queer pioneer family for them to realize we aren't so bad. I also never want to drive a car for a half hour+ for basic supplies or to see friends. It's too lonely. We have rail and ebikes here. I can get to the store or a friend's in less than 10 minutes.
Having come back to the farm later in life, the issue with rural communities (at least in Canada) isn't prejudice, it's that everyone is up in everyone else's business. But we have gay couples with kids around that seem to negotiate it fine. People are fine face to face usually.
Fine face-to-face but still vote to make your existence illegal. I'm not alright with that kind of "civility" and it's the reason I don't connect with an arm of my extended family. Fuck em.