Quite probably so; I’m just relating the stories as told to me, in which it sounded like the dream of these young people was specifically to “own a farm”, rather than “work in farming” more broadly.
Yeah, I got that, and I certainly understand the situation and mindset. I sympathize with young farmers who like farming and have a dream of owning a farm. The hurdles are significant, both financially and managerially, as you pointed out. I personally know a couple of farmers who went bankrupt trying to buy and expand farming operations.
Change has hit all industries, and farming/agriculture is no different. Being a farmer isn’t what it was 30 years ago.
This article is a few years old but it does attest to the situation as Orwell describes it.
That sounds hypothetical. Is there a cite to support that “death sentence”?
In a constant population, jobs for young people are created through the death or retirement of the previous job holder. Furthermore, automation, efficiency and/or outsourcing can serve to maintain a rising level of wealth with a constant work force.
There are also a very large number of Americans who commute inter-city to their jobs, from one smallish town to another. According to factors like available housing and the evanescent nature of some local industries… City A remains vibrant, even though several hundred workers living there commute to jobs in City B which lacks housing or is exploiting a temporary resource or market need.
My dad grew up in a town of 18,000, that is smaller now than it was 100 years ago when he was a teenager. But the Fitch Rating for the town is Investment Grade, Bonds ‘BBB+’; Outlook Stable. Another man who grew up in the same town once said “reports of my death are premature”.
Thats what I’m seeing. Some big outfits basically buying up every bit of land that becomes available. AND they are sneaky about getting it on the cheap by say changing the place where it will be sold at the last minute.
Now some locals are trying to stop this by only selling local.
It is sad that when you to a small town surrounded by farm land and talk to residents, none of them actually own any of the land or do any farming. They work at say the school, hospital, highway department, local bar, etc…
Well when I last drove thru Mobridge about 3 years ago it seemed to be a decent town. But maybe I’m just comparing it to small towns in Missouri. But right, no, their are no new growth industries and young people are forced to move on.
But south Dakota is odd. One can point to a pasture or cornfield and that at one point was a small town complete with businesses, post office, schools, etc… What small towns their are reamining dont seem so bad either because they are miles apart and since their are few trees you actually know when you are driving into them (like Lemmon). They can also put on a pretty good parade.
A farmhand (at best) is not a farmer. The farmer is the one making decisions about how to work with a particular piece of land.
I just want to toss in some high points of small towns.
One is the local volunteer fire departments. The good ones, well the local young men and women, it’s quite an honor to be on them and they work and train hard with their own money for the available spots. Yes, the equipment might be older but they have been maintained and tuned up perfectly. Touch the key and the fire engine fires right up.
Another is community volunteer movie theaters. Several small towns have them. They are normal movie houses but they keep all the classic elements. Movies are cheap (we saw Captain America for $5) and so are concessions. There is one in Viborg called the LUND.
Absolutely. I have tremendous respect for volunteer firefighters. The ones in my town jump to it night or day, weekday or weekend, to go put out fires and handle vehicle accidents. They also attend all of the local parades. Incredible dedication. I make sure to attend fire hall fundraising events, and also make donations several times a year.
Another positive in small towns is visiting the bank, post office, hardware store, etc. No bulletproof glass at the bank, and the tellers and bank managers all greet me by name when I go in. If the bank (a large, regional bank) implements new fees, the manager just reverses charges for me, and helps figure out how to avoid the fees.
If there is a mail delivery issue, I can get results within one day, and often get to talk to both the postmaster and the carrier who delivers to my house.
There are a bunch of smaller towns around Madison that seem to be doing perfectly well. Middleton, Monona, and Sun Prairie come to mind immediately.
My guess is that a big reason for it is their close proximity to Madison, which though fairly small is something of an economic powerhouse. It’s the state capital, it has a very large university and some relatively large white collar businesses. And the people in the burbs commute in to work here.
I’m not sure whether more isolated small towns could fare nearly as well.
Abingdon, VA- art center for the region, somewhat of retirement community with a lot of old coal money thrown in.
Did you look at the demographics I posted? Mobridge is the biggest town in a 100 mile radius. All around it are towns that have died and/or dying. It has absorbed a lot of population from these small towns that have kept it from shrinking more.
I don’t think that saying rural small towns are and have been in serious economic trouble for a long time is something new/outlandish. It’s been going on for a long time and is well documented.
Death/retirement doesn’t open up enough jobs. It takes 18 years for a person to come of age and then they work for 57 years. Automation and efficiency do help the business owner but don’t do much for the person wanting to work for someone else. I don’t know if it’s possible for someone who hasn’t lived in one of these towns to understand what it’s like. There aren’t new jobs/business. They are less and less over the years.
Yes, small towns are great places to live. They have great volunteer fire departments and nice parades but this thread is about the economic viability of small towns.
The tiny Illinois town where I grew up has been making a comeback as an upper middle class bedroom community for Chicago. One can drive to Kankakee in 20 minutes then catch Amtrak and be in the windy city in another 90.
Kankakee may be doing great, I hope so. But it’s in no way operating as a typical suburb of Chicago. It’s way too far south for that, and the Amtrak train you refer to runs only once a day in a time frame that might reasonably accommodate commuters (and only those willing to accept a 3-4 hour daily commute).
Rather than being a slave to ‘cites’ I think the statement is in part self evident. It qualifies as common knowledge IMO that static economies in rural areas tend to result in many towns withering away while some others take over their roles in supporting a larger hinterland (with retail and other consumer services). And another factor to keep in mind is that static real economy size means gradually fewer jobs assuming productivity is gradually rising. Static output has tended to mean declining employment. Then also in a nationalized system of government benefits a static economy can consist of more transfer payments into the locale and less actual economic activity. Many rural towns (though not just rural towns, others types of community too) would definitely disappear without government transfer payments.
You could modify your criteria to say ‘I meant constant employment’. And hypothetically, but realistically, a town could stay static in population for a long time, there are many examples. And not limited to rural. I live in a now pretty upscale very near suburb of NY. Back when it was a port and industrial town the population was nearly 50% greater than now (ca. 1920). In a long period of decline to (ca. 1980), it halved, w/ 30+ years of gentrification it’s grown back ~50%. And it’s a different demographic. So sure, populations of municipalities can go up, down, one then the other, or stay nearly constant for decades. But still, I’d say the general idea that a static rural economy means some towns within them entering death spirals is pretty much common knowledge. But to the extent you interpreted the statement as some immutable universal law then I agree with you it’s not.
…the train pulls out of Kankakee, and rolls along past houses, farms, and fields?
Does it pass trains that have no name?
I live in a town of less than 10,000 people that isn’t economically depressed or a suburb of some place bigger. With the average household income being almost 115% of the state average, the median which was the highest of all states (at least in the 2010 census), people here are doing pretty well.
What about freight yards full of old black men?
I’m sure there are some, but if a small town isn’t in the orbit of a larger city or a tourist destination, what is sustaining the town? I suppose maybe you have these towns where there is like one corporate headquarters or maybe college towns. But even then, you have this “town and gown” phenomenon where the town is economically depressed, except for the students and faculty or employees of the local tech firm.
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.