The changing face of rural USA

[Jeffman52]

My 30 years in acquisition and merger work taught me that bigger fish eat smaller fish to capture their market share and get their plant equipment (assets). Then there is no need for the captured smaller fish.

30 years in Corporate America. Same thing. The company I w*** for is the single largest global eye wear company. They gobble up smaller eye wear companies for many reasons. Could be something as small as the geography of their store fronts, or for their technology. But as stated above, rarely are many of the fish kept for very long. Three of the largest in the last two decades were hostile takeovers.

 

[ERD50]

McHenry County is way out in the sticks?? It's on the Chicago Metra line.

Harvard is at the end of the line.

If this isn't the sticks, I don't know what is (images from wikipedia). Your main statue in the town center is a cow?

About a year ago, I fell asleep on the train, fortunately only missed my stop by one. If I ended up at the end of the line, I would have been in trouble. I checked my phone, no Uber drivers in Harvard at 10:30 on a Saturday night! Now that's the sticks!



-ERD50

 

[karen1972]

20 years ago several of the small farmers in my families small rural town started diversifying. Ostrich, elk, bison, reindeer, llamas, etc. They knew even then that the big factory farms were eating their lunch and they couldn't compete. I know it got even tougher the last few years and I don't see an end in sight other than adapting. I read an article recently encouraging miners in Virginia to become bee farmers... to start creating a new career path.

I think that is what it is going to take is that people will need to find something else to produce, whether its exotic animals or honey, maple syrup, wine, etc..

I think this is where local govt and school boards could do themselves a huge favor by looking at what new skills could be useful and training in the next generation as soy and corn will not likely have a huge future going forward.

Personally I'm going to a Kamboocha class next week. Time for a new hobby.

Personally I could never live in a rural town again, I am bored to tears but I understand my cousins love to hunt and fish and they grow huge gardens, live off of their well water and power their homes with solar or wind power so live a very simple self sustained life.

 

[Mdlerth]

Everybody who left the countryside is now stuck in traffic on I-95

Many small towns, dependent on a single employer or industry, face collapse when that employer disappears.

But even very large cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia and St Louis, have been hemorrhaging population since 1950. When the quality of life declines, people who are free to leave do so.

Where do the displaced people go? Consider Charlotte NC and Las Vegas NV, which were little more than villages when I was born. They managed to ride rising waves (banking and gaming) and now are large cities.

Perhaps the lesson is that towns, and for that matter states and nations, need to be ready to adapt to changing circumstances if they want to survive.

 

[ckelly78z]

The nearest town to me is about 100 people (depending on the birth , and death announcements in the local paper). There is one trucking company, a grain elevator, and a gas station. Many of the homes are run down, with several old single wide trailers in the mix. We have a much larger county seat (pop about 50,000) around 10 miles away that has all the ammenities, and is a thriving business center in NW Ohio.

 

[davebarnes]

The rural areas around here back in the 60's and 70's have grown and are booming compared to those times. .

Cook County is rural?
McHenry County?
Look at the population of Mattoon, IL. Flat since 1950.
Or Quincy, IL. Flat since 1930.

 

[ERD50]

Cook County is rural?
McHenry County?
Look at the population of Mattoon, IL. Flat since 1950.
Or Quincy, IL. Flat since 1930.

The towns I listed sure were rural in the 60's and 70's. My uncle farmed in Bartlett back then. Farms all around. Me and my cousin would wave to the engineers at the train that rolled through their farm. Harvard is still surrounded by farmland. Isn't that "rural"?

But my real point is - data. Observation by driving around, or me picking a few places I consider were/are rural isn't data.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm just saying data is better than random observation.

-ERD50

 

[ziggy29]

It's not just economic pressures that prevent rural and small town job centers to fold. It's also demographics.

Most rural areas are aging.... fast. Younger folks are leaving for the cities and older folks are retiring there in many cases. There are not enough younger and able bodied people looking for work in many of these areas any more. And the problem is, often when the one major employer in a small town closes -- or even stays but has massive layoffs -- it is a huge blow to the local economy.

And even if there are decent job opportunities in some rural areas, usually they are few and far between and with one or maybe two employers -- so it may be too much of a risk for someone to settle down and buy a home in such a community. If that job goes, there are almost none other within reasonable commuting distance and it's time to uproot everything.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Harvard is at the end of the line.

If this isn't the sticks, I don't know what is (images from wikipedia). Your main statue in the town center is a cow?

About a year ago, I fell asleep on the train, fortunately only missed my stop by one. If I ended up at the end of the line, I would have been in trouble. I checked my phone, no Uber drivers in Harvard at 10:30 on a Saturday night! Now that's the sticks!



-ERD50

Nah, the sticks is Medford, Wis. -- population 4000, centrally located 170 miles from Madison, St. Paul and Duluth. I spent a decade there one year in the late 1970s.

It's about as deep in the sticks as I ever want to be, but it's relatively prosperous with a decent manufacturing base that seems like it isn't going anywhere soon. People often commute from 30 or 40 miles out to work for the window manufacturers there or the company that made Medford famous, Tombstone Pizza.

It has a hospital that seems to be on a fairly solid financial footing, unlike the 100-plus rural hospitals that have closed this decade across the US, according to this report.

Great Bend, Kansas, former home of the Central Kansas Medical Center. Now that's the sticks.

 

[Senator]

When I was working in Madison, MN about 15 years ago, a 3BR house could be bought for ~$6K. No one was moving in.

 

[Gumby]

I nominate Gravois Mills, Missouri, where my brother lives. Population 144.

 

[morriss003]

Having the guts to get up and MOVE is often the key to success, even survival. Our immigrant ancestors are testament to that.

Easy when you are young. I did that. Harder when you are old.

 

[Doc0]

You can bitch about the situation, buy be very clear China has one goal and that is to eat our lunch and if we don't fight and just capitulate they'll eat our dinner to boot. It's not about politics its about macro-economics and wining and loosing. The trade war comes just before the kinetic war starts.

The deal is America has been an incredibly productive country. Production is beset by creative destruction. Mom and Pop gave way to Wal-mart which is giving way to Amazon prime. Soon enough OTR trucks will not be driven by people and then delivery trucks. If you don't constantly retrain yourself you're hosed. A life of putting nuts on bolts and getting paid for that is coming to an end and it has nothing to do with tariffs. It has to do with creative destruction, and creative destruction is inevitable and relentless. That is reality. Wanting to hang on to Mom and Pop and the family farm is quaint, but insanely expensive which is why they go out of business. If you have the dough to pay for your dream have at it. I'm not interested in subsidizing your quaint dream in lieu of subsidizing my own which is to not run out of money before I run out of breath. Farmers are quite dependent on and used to subsidy. It's built into the DNA of their business model. That inefficient model is not immutable.

Everybody is levered up the ying yang and we're in a society headed into deflation. The feature of deflation is debt becomes more expensive because you pay it off in more expensive dollars. Your business model needs to understand assume the risk. There wasn't any future in buying 2 new cars, a boat and a McMansion on a cabbie's salary either ala 2007. For that it took a second third and forth mortgage.

 

[indiajust]

The closing of old grandfathered power plants is being accelerated by high efficiency, low cost, high reliability, quick response times, and excellent environmental performance of new natural gas aero-derivative turbines, some with heat recovery to improve efficiency even more. Coal and oil are not cost effective anymore.

Malls have been collapsing and consolidating all over the country. Retail is changing.

Agriculture was something like 60% of employment a hundred years back. Today it is less than 1% and still dropping.

I guess my point is that these trends have been around a long time, and have nothing to do with tariffs or rural living.

I always despised the platitude "bloom where you're planted". I'm an animal, not a rooted plant, and I go in search of greener pastures, 20 states, and I'm not done yet.

 

[triangle]

DelMonte Foods just notified 600 workers in our next-door town of Mendota, IL, (pop. 7900) of the local plan closing. In this case, a combination of indirect result of tariffs causing 1. the loss of small farms to larger centralized operations and 2. the effect of the efficiency of million dollar farm equipment... and 3. a consolidation of smaller processing plants.

Isn't a bigger factor that eating habits are changing? It seems younger generations are not big consumers of canned goods as compared to their parents. There is more fresh and frozen food available these days.

Campbell Soup Company sales have suffered for similar reasons. Generic and store brands have impacted the sales of branded goods as well. Take a look at the stock price of KHC (Kraft Heinz), though partly due to poor management after the reorganization, it is clear that the value of older established brands has been eroded.

 

[jeffmete]

I started my career at GM in 1973, just before the oil embargo that was the start of the decline of the big 3. Flint’s Genesee county had the highest per capita income in the nation at that time. First was the southern strategy and we moved mfg to places like Alabama. Paid union wages to non-union employees with fewer work rules. Then we moved mfg to Mexico. In a free, open market, companies have to chase lower labor costs or go out of business. Lots of jobs and income lost and now Flint is barely alive. It’s hard to compete against places like China when their government props up a business and effectively outsources their unemployment. There is a place for tariffs, if we want to keep a mfg base in America. the Japanese car companies produce trucks in the US because of tariffs.

 

[timo2]

If we are nominating agricultural towns in the middle of nowhere, I nominate Salmon Idaho. Where I had the opportunity to works for 3 months once.

 

[YoungSaver]

Wow, I guess to you small rural towns have zero redeeming features. You make it sound like turning 18 and getting out is akin to a jail break. You lump every single person that stayed into the same category. No, they are not all broke, and they don't all spend their time at the bar complaining about how awful their lives are. You're pretty judgmental to say they think hunting is more important to them then providing for their families.

Small towns are like big towns, some people are happy and some are not.But don't lump all small town people into the same category. I don't even live in a small town, I live in a township with a population of a couple hundred people. Wonder where I fit in?

Couple hundred is not too bad, but I don't even understand how governments can even justify really small rural "towns". What's the point of a place like this?
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.661...Yp2aCzIXZnGkFFjl6fqA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

The maintenance costs per capita would be insane (roads, snow plowing, power lines, communications lines, police(?)).

 

[frugal-one]

It doesn't sound like a bad thing to happen to me. In particular, folks need to move to where the services they need exist. I'm talking about regional hospitals, health care, access to the internet, and trades people to fix things for them. Food can be ordered online.

After all, not many people lived in Illinois in the 1600's and earlier.

I surely don't want to buy food online!!!!!

 

[frugal-one]

Because of the tariffs, farms in WI are going bankrupt. Say what you want, but these tariffs are NOT a good thing!

 

[travelover]

......... What's the point of a place like this?
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.661...Yp2aCzIXZnGkFFjl6fqA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
...........

Hey! I think that is my house on the left.

 

[frugal-one]

A few other comments.

Farming is hyper-sensitive to economies of scale. While I have empathy for those who want that lifestyle (small family farm), it is no longer a viable profession. Those hanging on do so just like anyone else whose career field is in precarious decline - at great peril. I grew up on a small family farm. My dad sold out when he saw the handwriting on the wall.

I never understood homeschooling. I have a college degree and graduated summa cum laude. I cannot imagine thinking I am smart enough to homeschool a child. Teachers go to school for years to do so.

I would much rather have a textbook that the computer. I can't even comprehend that comment?

 

[RobbieB]

My humble CA central valley home is a quarter mile from 2 commercial ag operations. Roma tomatoes and dry beans are alternated. Sometimes drought restrictions cause them to fallow.

But most times I'll see the harvesters and the semi's from out my front window. The aroma of manure is often present. But mostly we are a silicon valley bedroom community.

Real estate prices continue to rise and we have 7 sushi bars -

 

[Clone]

Real estate prices continue to rise and we have 7 sushi bars -

So long as you have more sushi bars than cellphone bars, then life is good!

 

[RobbieB]

Not to mention 4 indian, 2 afgani and 1 korean. Life is good!