# Non-economically depressed small towns? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-economically-depressed-small-towns/756237 "2016-06-01T14:42:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-economically-depressed-small-towns/756237/81 "2016-06-09T14:49:05Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It seems like with the exception of bedroom communities that are associated with larger cities with industrial/commercial bases, or towns whose commerce centers around the tourist/resort industry, the small towns I’ve visited have been fairly dire places. That’s why I asked the question- it seems to me that a lot of the small towns outside of the two situations I mention seem to be pretty low income places and just on the cusp of disaster. It may well be the case for many towns that have lost their original economic anchor (local farming, mill, factory, fishing, etc.), don’t have a secondary anchor (tourism, bedroom-ism, alternate industry) and don’t have other qualities that make living there worthwhile (local college/U, exceptional environment, etc.) If a town in the stretch of a midwestern or southern state used to be the soybean capital and is now all Con-Agra megafarms, I can see it becoming little more than a slightly extended regional company headquarters, with no real future for anyone who isn’t a C-A employee. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-economically-depressed-small-towns/756237/82 "2016-06-09T15:43:27Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It seems like with the exception of bedroom communities that are associated with larger cities with industrial/commercial bases, or towns whose commerce centers around the tourist/resort industry, the small towns I’ve visited have been fairly dire places. That’s why I asked the question- it seems to me that a lot of the small towns outside of the two situations I mention seem to be pretty low income places and just on the cusp of disaster. The tiny town I mentioned was on the cusp of disaster: all the businesses closed except for a convenience store (which took over the lumber company’s old building) and the post office. Then new houses started going up at ~$350K per. In comparison, the big split level ranch we had is worth about half that. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-economically-depressed-small-towns/756237/83 "2016-06-10T16:14:39Z")
In fact, the town I was in that started me thinking is one that’s a county seat, but is sort of just outside the Greater Houston orbit. On doing some research, its biggest employers are the local school district (2x the number of employees of the next biggest employer, which is the county government which employs marginally more than the combined total of the oilfield employers in the area, which in turn employ slightly more than the local hospital. It strikes me that having most people employed by public institutions probably has a weird economic effect since economies aren’t perpetual motion machines, and without some sort of cash-generating industry, they’re probably more reliant on external cash flows like state money than anything else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-economically-depressed-small-towns/756237.md?page=4)