You want people to move to your rural town in the age of people working from home? Invest in fantastic high speed Internet. If the houses are cheap and the nearest grocery store isn’t an hour away you’ll get all sorts of very smart, highly-skilled people moving there.
Unless there’s Confederate flags and MAGA signs everywhere. Then those people will stay the fuck away.
If you can put up a pride flag at town hall and keep it up year-round without a local political firestorm you might stand a chance 🤷
And I’m just going to presume that these aging workers voter (and will vote) for the same parties who have run their shithole states for decades, expecting things to change?
The party of personal responsibility has changed the mindset of those that listen to them. First, understand the ideal scenario for those small towns: they want things to stay the way they are and change is bad.
The people they vote for, that are killing them with policy decisions, don’t let their actions be directly involved in stymying the rurals. Farmers will raise hell if someone fucks with their water and dirt. But the right supports business, right? And so when a big business moves in and takes all the water for industrial use, the farmers get mad at the corp and not the politician who signed off on the water usage.
The right does directly harm rural communities - they let big business do it for them. When Walmart killed the mom and pop stores in those regions, no one blamed the politicians who did nothing. They blamed Walmart. And then kept shopping there.
They aren’t savvy, they don’t critically analyze their situation, and they don’t know how to politically defend themselves. So the right abuses them and then points to the change (regardless of its positive) that those “others not from around here” are trying to force on the people. It’s word games that the left doesn’t challenge so the right has de facto won most rural areas.
I’m guessing that’s are well paying jobs that provide a good work/life balance, eh? No?
“Work/life? Well yes, your work will be your life! Welcome to town stranger!”
I’d be happy to live in a smaller town where land is cheaper and the scenery is beautiful if my trans ass wouldn’t be run out of town
Yeah the whole “my neighbors would refer to my children using a racial slur” think is a damper on the appeal of rural life.
You know the town budget is getting tight when this is your town’s police car:
I mean, as long as the guy holds up a flashing blue light and shouts police siren sounds really loud it just might work 🤷
What’s the background here? This just looks like an office with an odd toy car, where is this from?
It’s from the actual article. I know, I know! Totally not necessary to read it, right? 🤣
Oh I don’t load images or other rich content in articles often sorry, just saw this image floating in the thread.
