pantom, now that’s a good question! Here’s a link to what, IIRC, is Oklahoma’s smallest county, with 3,331 people spread about 1,142 square miles of farmland. Cheyenne, the county seat, comprised all of 778 people in 2000.
The answer for most of these communities is that they are not self sufficient. A local convenience store will typically meet the day to days needs of the community, such as basic food, health and hygiene goods (as well as gasoline, of course). There may be one or two restaurants. But any service one would need more often than, say, once a week is not to be found at all. Any police or fire protection is going to be entirely volunteer, and usually the county sheriff’s department is the only professional law enforcement to be found. “Utilities” may or may not exist at all, if they do the community is probably part of a “rural water district” serviced by a larger neighboring community. But most people get their water from wells and handle sewer through septic tanks. Garbage collection is unheard of… you burn or bury your trash, or maybe dump it in a convenient ditch. The so-called “universal service fee” we all pay to the phone companies is used to subsidize extending telephone lines to these areas, but your cell phone isn’t going to work. Electricity, in larger rural areas, may be provided by “Electric Cooperatives” or by municipal power companies. Tinier areas get their electricity from the larger ones.
Governments in these areas are typically funded through property taxes, and usually there are largish corporate owned farms that the local assessor will stick it to so as to keep the county’s coffers filled. Oil pipeline owners are also supposed to pay taxes, and some counties have hired essentially “pipeline bounty hunters” that find these pipelines and report 'em to the county assessor. “Visual Lease Services” out of Holdenville, Oklahoma is one such company.
The “economic base” of such counties is primarily the agriculture business. Another popular base is private prisons. Tourism might generate a trickle of cash, but mainly it’s farming and ranching. The money these people make from selling farm goods is just about enough to support a small community of light retailers and a county government. Federal government money, of course, doesn’t hurt either… but the county’s success at getting it depends a lot on the skills of their U.S. Congressman.
It’s austere living, but some people greatly prefer it. They don’t really need police protection, no one commits a crime if everyone knows everyone else. Fire protection is minimal, but for most minor emergencies the whole community can get together to put it out. If it gets out of hand, the folks in the nearest city will bail 'em out (hopefully in time!) People don’t make much money, but the cost of living is cheap and there’s only so many things they really need, anyway. Health care is probably the biggest draw back, the nearest regional medical center is maybe 50 miles away.
I think if you asked a lot of these folks, they might be all for these various tax incentives, but they have no interest in boosting their population. I run into this a LOT. We’re happy the way we are, why do need to change anything?
Well, I’ve hijacked enough…