Can Tech Save Small Town America? 219
theodp writes "Declaring that small town life no longer has to be separate from financial success thanks to technology, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos told North Dakota state officials to take hope in people such as Napster's Shawn Fanning. Interesting remarks, considering that Fanning conceived Napster in small-town Boston and the jobs Amazon's brought to rural areas don't exactly scream financial success."
still mostly an exception (Score:5, Insightful)
I think ultimately whether a town (small, that is) can be a place to be financially successful depends on:
Limited anecdotal cases show one can set up shop and make money in small town, USA, but a lot of what drives economies and business requires socially connected communities, typically large (larger than small towns).
People are still social creatures, business products are still tangible, and communities larger than small towns provide optimal management and distribution. I'm not sure this will change much in the forseeable future.
Yes, some people may make their fortune in small towns, but it remains the exception. And some big-money companies may toss a financial bone at small towns, but it remains only that. They're not developing a community, they're saving money -- it's little more than rural out-sourcing.
And for IT folks considering putting out a small town shingle, you can do it, but you'd better be good, and you'd better be prepared to sacrifice most of the small town life you'd anticipate, because, to land big-money gigs, you're going to have to be good above and beyond to assuage the suspicions of clients, and you're going to have to travel a lot, because they're still going to want to get a lot of face time with you.
Yes... and no (Score:3, Insightful)
On the no side: The mom and pop shops have dried up, losing a lot of the local economy. Towns that cannot adapt die. Neighbors do not talk to neighbors as much (why go outside), and the "homeyness" goes away.
Bottom line: Things change. For those who can adapt, it is a good thing. For those who cannot it is bad.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Manifest Destiny is over! (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to disagree but, (Score:4, Insightful)
Go save someone else (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure mod me down, but im not alone in my feelings.
Re:These articles drive me nuts (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Go save someone else (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a big tendency in this country to suggest that anything that's not on the upper northeast of the country or on the left coast isn't worth living in.
I'm not sure how people can say that. When I listen to those people talk, they complain about (1) Housing prices, (2) how bad the schools are, (3) how bad the traffic is, and (4) the crime. (Basically, in that order). Then they turn right around and say how they could never live in "fly-over country".
But, you can get a damn big house for $200,000-$300,000 (like between 2000 and 3500 square feet), some great schools (if you pay attention to where you buy), traffic that actually moves at more than 20 miles per hour on the expressway, 4) lower crime rates.
Granted, no everyone likes small town America. If you tried it for a number of years, or grew up here, you gave it a shot.
But, if they don't want to live in a place they have no direct experience with, that's up to them.... however, ripping on a place when you have no experience with it... well, that makes you look foolish and very close-minded.
Re:still mostly an exception (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that the angle for small towns is not small businesses working for big businesses, but big businesses setting up departments in small towns. A programming group set up in a small town should have better cohesion and while the big company can win the work on its big public image, the close-knit aspect of the small town center where the work is actually done can make the good product.
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the answer to outsourcing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bloomington, IN (Score:2, Insightful)
1 - You have never left Bloomington
2 - You have visited New York
since if if you had ever been to Bloomington and New York you would find ample evidence that the local university is not sufficient to provide even one or two legitimate tech based companies with experienced/talented employees.
You must be heavily invested in the local area.
Too bad.
People in big cities are jerks. (Score:2, Insightful)
I haven't heard of any black people in cities dragging white people behind their car.
I haven't head of any city people beating the shit out of a homosexual, and having their neighborhoood stand up for that action.
Very few cities are interested in making it difficult for poor people to get abortions. They may be apathetic, but at least they don't go out of their way.
If you have some links, I sincerely would like to see them.
I find that rural people do have a better sense of community. But only because they are all alike. Similar racial make-up, monolithic culture, fewer outsiders. Make that mostly white/maybe-black population more diverse and you see the same problems.
People aren't that much evolved from our tribal origins. We like to be arround those like us. Those dislike us cause stress on some very primal level (in my opinion).
THEY want to change ME, I don't care about them. (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel that the city IS a better place to raise a child. Exposure to differences (and not the two local flavors of Christianity) makes people better able to handle complex life situations.
Re:These articles drive me nuts (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention you can never ever get away from taxes. Your advantage was that your buyers didnt have to pay shipping, so they pay sales tax instead. Hell, right now many e-retailers charge tax.
Your anti-government rant is full of holes and looks like youre simply unable to blame the person who is most likely responsible for your failures - YOU. I mean, come on, you openly admit you lost your business to some paperwork. That's pretty incompetent.
My father has been running small restaurants in more than a few towns in his lifetime and has dealt with the same issues. When he had to close shop it all had to do with slumping sales from cause by competition from the big corporate franchises or just better restaurants moving into the market. The same thing happened to you. It wasn't the local goverment "mafia" it good old fashioned competition and the slowest gazelle loses. Your customers decided that the items you sold where best gotten from the web. They didnt need your salesmen and parking lot.
You big Republican anti-tax, anti-minimum wage, and anti-handicapped regulations rant is hardly convicing to anyone who has has the smallest experience in small business. Of course on a website full of "southpark conservatives" and with recent political issues which have re-energized conservative thought I fully expect you to keep that +5 informative you have because of your "blame the government" attitude.
Re:few telecommute friendly companies (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think that? I don't want my developers working someplace where they don't have regular, daily contact with the end users of the software and other members of the development team. Outsourcing software development to Podunk, KS is just a stupid as outsourcing it to Bangalore, India.
Re:These articles drive me nuts (Score:1, Insightful)
Been there, done that on the small town move out, had to move 3 years ago because of it. Lost the one job I had, (which was also my housing, caretaker work). Between yuppie weekenders and a massive influx of illegals, was unable to find affordable HOUSING, even though I could find WORK. The work just would not pay enough to afford even the cheapest housing. All the cheap housing was going to the illegals, at much inflated prices, because even at minimum wage, when you have half a dozen incomes in a small house, it's affordable. with one income it is not. It was either live second world status, or leave, I left. I'll be danged if I will go that route of second worlding the US. I have a similar gig now, different but similar, hopefully it will last. If I get forced out of here, I honestly don't know what I will do. I won't move to any huge urban area no matter what. I'll move even more remote with a tent if I have to, I simply detest urban life now and think it's dangerous and unhealthy. And I think to raise children in any major US city is borderline abuse just from forcing them to live 24/7 in smog. To each their own, money is not high on my list of priorities, it's maybe 5-6 from the top if that. If it was #1 I would probably think differently about it, but I never had that inclination.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
doesn't _exactly_ match up with the article: "Everybody is really happy with their business," he said. "It's a good economy booster."
Beats the hell out of me...
Re:These articles drive me nuts (Score:3, Insightful)
>have very high turnover rates.
Check again in a year. For 3 years now I have been interviewing small business owners all over the Midwest (urban, suburban and rural). In over 2000 face-to-face interview in 3 years, over 70% said they were taking out loans to support their businesses in hopes that things turn around.
Hold up now, the United States just went through a recession. Big and small businesses, and the US government, have been borrowing money. The idea that loans are somehow unique to small businesses is incorrect.
I also find your '2000' business owner interviews number suspicious. You would have to be interviewing 1-2 business owners every day of the week, every day of the year, with no exceptions. Even if you are a reporter, I'm not sure I buy your information.
Because.. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are people who are good employees and add to the bottom line of the company they work for, that have no desire to live in a large city. Businesses will be successful when they most effectively compete for the employee talent they need.
Also, I can see the monocultural effect* of large cities has already affected you. There are people that prefer not to live in large cities, for a variety of good reasons.
* despite places like NYC effectively implementing the "Mosaic of Subcultures" pattern (read Christopher Alexander), people born and bred in large cities are by and large socially dependant on others, and not necessarily ideologically different than their neighbors. Witness the solidarity of liberal/democratic voting in all the ubran areas of the US. I don't mean to suggest that you dont have an issue of monoculturalism but with the opposite political slant in rural america, but for problem solving ability, self reliability, and work ethic, i will choose someone raised on a farm _every time_ over a city-slicker. When you grow up solving all of your own problems just to be able to _eat_ reliably, or teaching yourself how to repair broken equipment in the middle of a field because nobody else is there to help you, an office job is trivial, comparatively.
Re:Yes... and no (Score:2, Insightful)
It's important to note that the reason this has happened is because of stores like Wal-Mart. If you look at state statistics of the number of stores in related categories before and after "big box" stores move into the state, you can see pretty clear trends in this direction.
It's also important to keep in mind that when this happens, the small towns lose a percentage of money that would have stayed in the community. This money instead gets sent to the corporate headquarters of whatever store moves in. This often further increases the economic gap between small and large towns.
Re:Cultural Capital Issues (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude, I get your point and all, but for future reference, Islamabad is in Pakistan and it is the capital of that country.
Can we build a computer that skins a deer? (Score:3, Insightful)
I just sense that this fascination people have in beaming product up from Little House on the Prairie is wrong in so many ways. And usually some urban guy's neo-hippie fantasy when he has never actually lived in a rural area.
Aside from the precedent of business being concentrated in metropolitan areas for the sum total of recorded history:
1. North Dakota isn't under snow from about mid-April to mid-October. Lots of luck recruiting if the idea is to bring labor in.
2. Nearest Starbucks -- 50 miles. That'll go over well.
3. What's your idea of "small town"? If it's much under 100,000 how will your salesforce feel about driving 50-100 miles through a blizzard to get on a national/international flight? Company near where I grew up felt they had to maintain a private airstrip, plane and pilot.
4. Is this a serious plan to hire the locals? North Dakota has had education spending ranks in the high 40s for decades competing with the likes of Alabama and Mississippi for least spent per pupil. When the bonding bill comes up for the school's shiny new computer lab how do you think those farmers driving into town are going to vote?
5. And can you honestly blame them that much? When you are talking about an area where the population density is that low there aren't enough taxpayers to build high-tech schools every 50 miles. Look it up in Wikipedia. You are talking about 183,000 square kilometers (360 miles by 210 miles) with the population of Baltimore City.
6. Last time I was in North Dakota, my town hospital had become mostly a nursing home. So when you are offered that job, go back and tell the wife, "Honey, when you go into labor, we'll have to drive 70 miles to the hospital" and see how it plays. And how much sex you get nine months before blizzard season.
7. The plasma TV is going to cost you. I doubt whether metropolitan people can imagine how many truly small towns don't even have a movie theater.
8. Think you are getting the kids away from bad influences? Rural/urban -- where do you think meth is made? You better hope the kids like hunting, fishing and school sports. If they're like me and my group we mostly amused ourselves with petty vandalism and pranks, drinking and driving, determining the top end on dad's hemi, whether we could touch bumpers at 90 mph and, of course, sex. That sort of thing.
Enjoy.
Re:These articles drive me nuts (Score:2, Insightful)
I can understand your point about the handicapped parking spot, considering you never had handicapped customers, but it sounds to me like you were an asshole who just did nice things for your workers only when preassured by politics and not becaused you wanted to.
Have you don't anything for anyone other than yourself, during your 9-5 regular business day? Donations after hours to ease off the guilty core-business soul do not count. It's what you do during your core business practice that is considered either virtue or not. If this wasn't true, then even a thief or a rapist who took a little bit of time to help out after hours would be a "good person".
Next time don't wait for the town to ask -- just do it yourself.