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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I certainly hope they have maps for Election Day - I'm particular interested in the Senate races.
Oh God! Natural light!I had a big rant written about how dying towns are created in the first place, but I suppose it doesn't matter. The bottom line is that these towns either need serious cash influxes, or they're going to die. The latter is the more natural way, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. I guess the plus side is that with more modern technology, we don't have to worry as much about coal towns popping up like daisies and then getting abandoned by the company when they're no longer profitable. So sad as it is, within a generation or two most of these dying towns will be gone and the problem off the table.
The only solution I can come up with (besides a number of stopgap measures like the thing about improving internet infrastructure) would be to find a way to move these people. Scrunch a bunch of towns together to turn them into a small city. Cities are more self-sustaining than towns. Of course, even if that would be logistically possible, people would not like the government coming in and telling them they have to move. And I really really wouldn't blame them.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.If nothing else Trump is a good cautionary tale as to what can happen when you never have to (or adamantly refuso to) accept responsibility or make amends for your actions.
You never grow and live in a bubble of your own delusions, thinking that you're entitled to everything and that nothing is ever your fault.
Forcing people to move isn't any more natural than throwing cash at them, nor does it really seem like a practical solution. And, if they're dying anyway, it seems like the younger people are already moving of their own accord; forcing it would just make them more resentful and justifiably so.
One question I would ask is how many of these towns are surrounded by farmland and thus many people's only close access to things like healthcare and school, assuming these towns have clinics and the like?
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OOOOOOOOOO, the Now Cast has Kander up in Missouri!
Love to see that guy win in a red state, he's just a hardcore bastard.
EDIT: Damn, the site isn't playing nice with the Youtube link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wqOApBLPio
Its been posted before but its still wicked/surreal.
edited 17th Oct '16 3:38:30 PM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Improved public transport would give such towns more life due to better access to services, investment in rural based industries (farming, resource extraction, ect...) or simply just new modern jobs being created that can go in rural areas (military bases, new solar power plants, drone delivery centres for a large rural area).
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranJust better access would do wonders, imagine if a person in a rural area could get a bus/tram/train to the next town within an hour, road improvement alone would be a big helper. I think we have a public transport thread if we want to go into more details.
This is all assuming nobody just drops the big daddy of fixes, a minimum basic income, suddenly such towns don't need to die as people have money and can sustain themselves with the minimum basic income.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranPopulation density vs square mileage is still a non-trivial problem for rural transport, all politics off the table. Small inter-village bus routes are a thing but busses are slow. Trains are a huge upfront cost for equipment and no one's going to lay track in areas where you can't guarantee enough ridership to make the cost worth it. Cities and dense subburbs are the only areas that math works out.
The countries that do have functional trains that go everywhere are much smaller ones.
edited 17th Oct '16 2:56:52 PM by Elle
As far as I know the US farmers are doing fairly well, including getting that sweet government money to keep their crops and lobbying the government to impose protectionist measures against South American and Asian farmers imports.
Anyway, US farms also take vantage of being very easy to be mechanized and automated because of the very flat terrain central US generally has.
The dying cities, the ones that were built around coal, oil or manufacturing are the ones reaching their dead end after those business left. They don't have anything really decent to bring them income. Farming jobs on the nearby rural areas can't really absorb the excess workers, other business centered around services need a relatively well trained workforce and an active consumer base to work and some of those cities are pretty damn small. Like 2 to 10 thousand people in them.
Inter arma enim silent legesThe huge conglomerate farms are doing well, and bring the problem of food deserts where such companies refuse to let local towns buy and sell their own local produce. Family farms tend to get the short end of the stick, such as in the case of Monsanto suing neighbors for growing produce that possibly got cross pollinated with seed that the wind blew over.
As for transportation; there's been talk about a high speed rail between Dallas and Houston for decades, and the latest attempt was a private venture likely to seek government investment. No idea how far it's gotten, but hoo boy I do not expect it to actually be built any time soon. More locally, the DART light rail and bus system has been busily expanding for years and enjoys good business. It's gone up to Denton, which is pretty small and also an hour away by car. If this keeps up, it may just keep expanding into ever more sparsely populated areas. (The rail, not the bus. I think the bus is mostly restricted to Dallas and surrounding counties. The rail is specifically what's expanding.)
edited 17th Oct '16 3:09:53 PM by AceofSpades
I believe family farms do work if they join a co-op. I believe that's the case for large portions of the dairy industry in NY and New England; offhand I can think of three regional and at least two national brands for whom this applies. A few farms also compete by targeting upscale and boutique products which they can get higher prices for. Also, while most of the time I do buy conventional farmed meat and I will likely never become a vegan, factory farming of animals has a ton of serious issues both for animal welfare and human health. (I recommend Michael Polan for reading on the subject.)
In terms of the big commodity crops like grain though, no, there's probably no good way for small farmers to compete.

Edit: I expect that 538 will be doing live election results updates just as the news networks are. How timely they'll be depends on what sort of channel they have to the vote count data.
edited 17th Oct '16 2:17:52 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"