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They'll pay you upfront, but will you pay for the rest of your life?
While 54% of Americans lived in rural places in 1910, that number fell to 19 percent by 2010, Zillow reported. To revive their communities, these places are hoping that everything from cash grants to paying off student loans and giving away free land will help draw a younger generation to them.
But it's not just small towns that hope to draw more people to them with these programs. Some cities like Baltimore and even entire states like Alaska will pay you to be their newest resident.
Tribune, Kansas will pay off $15,000 of your student loans. Marne, Iowa will give you free land if you build a house that's at least 1,200 ft2 on it. Baltimore, Maryland will give you a $5,000, 5yr forgivable loan and $10,000 down payment toward rehabilitating abandoned homes.
Tempted?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday November 11 2017, @12:27PM (18 children)
I find it an interesting program idea. I do wonder if it's working tho. Lots of things might be interesting as ideas or on paper but turn out to be less ideal or successful in reality.
Tribune, Kansas has according to the web an estimated population of 776. Will there be a lot of high paying job for academic types around Tribune? $15k is nice and all but it probably isn't the entirety of the debt that has to be somehow repaid. I think this might be the issue with a lot of these offers, there won't be jobs out there. So either you better be self-employed, a job you can do from home, retired or already rich.
It is a similar issue with the Baltimore Maryland offer, except there might be a lot more jobs around there, 10k+5k just isn't a lot of money when you have to renovate an abandoned house for them. It's nice to get free money and all but it will just cover a fraction of the costs involved.
This doesn't even take into account that a lot of people have become urbanized and they just wouldn't cut it living out in the country or in a small town. They are to used to what the cities offer, they would probably go mental out in the country.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday November 11 2017, @01:04PM
Yeap, teacher at the Sunday scho... sorry, head of religious studies at the Humanities Academy of Tribune, Kansas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @01:35PM
Creation scientist, custodian of culture, women's health protection officer, religious freedom advisor, patriot first class. The possibilities are endless.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 11 2017, @01:36PM (9 children)
Don't rural regions generally have bad internet connections? This should severely limit the types of jobs you can do from home.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 11 2017, @02:05PM (7 children)
ssh generally doesn't need that much bandwidth. I'm good.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @03:47PM (3 children)
Hope you never land a gig that involves video editing, gaming, high frequency trading, or any other bandwidth intensive job.
You short sighted ignorant moron.
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 11 2017, @03:53PM (2 children)
Me too. They sound like miserable ways to live.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:39PM (1 child)
Yeah you love the taste of cock and advertising your cocksucking service on craigslist doesn't use nearly any bandwidth at all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:06PM
Capitalism, baby. Gotta love it. Sometimes even literally.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 11 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @01:16AM
Many businesses need to have the occasional meeting, but in most cases using project management software should remove the need for an actual meeting. There are definitely companies out there that don't do meetings at all, they handle all of the information sharing and prioritization over project management software and email. And, it's really best for everybody if you don't have a meeting unless you absolutely have to. Getting everybody out of work in order to attend is a real pain.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday November 13 2017, @12:08AM
Tunneling RDP, VNC RFB, X11, SFTP, or mysqldump over SSH can need quite a bit of throughput in some cases. SSH for anything interactive also needs low latency, which satellite doesn't provide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @08:27PM
Can't speak for anywhere but here in Meigs County, Ohio (verrrrry rural) and we have Suddenlink 10GB cable intenet and crappy Frontier DSL.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:01PM (1 child)
You underestimate how much lower the cost of living is in a small town. Monthly rent can be less than $300, and houses cost only $50k. Some foods can be had pretty cheap too, direct from the farms. You may burn a lot less gas doing a lot less traveling, if you can slow your life down, stockpile a tiny bit more, so that you're not doing daily shopping trips, grabbing take out, or grocery runs. WalMart killed local businesses, now Amazon is killing WalMart, and you're saving even more gas.
One thing that drives people away from such places is sheer boredom. Dating prospects can be terrible. For years, most people with brains moved to the big city to escape that. Also, you have to leave to attend college, and then to apply what you learned, you need the sorts of jobs that are only available in a big city. It was and still is hoped that the Internet can equalize things. But we have the telecoms oligopoly screwing small towns, refusing to serve them or let them set up their own services. I was appalled that my grandfather's home town, still small today, not only doesn't have broadband, but not even decent cell phone service. Couldn't get a signal anywhere in town. My relatives there are stuck with dialup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @11:36PM
The only thing cities have going for them is sheer volume. If you have low standards and just want to fuck, have at it.
In the city, it is hard to find somebody suitable for raising a traditional family. You'll waste so much time on dating apps unless your profile picture has you wearing a MAGA hat and holding a deer you've shot. With that, you filter out an additional 99.99% of the city people.
It's not easy if your expectations are: Both people will be virgins until marriage. Soon after marriage, there will be kids. The woman will be a full-time mother, and the man will support his family. A home will soon be purchased, preferably with a yard.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:07PM (1 child)
I've got friends that are nearing retirement age. They want to move to a rural area and are looking at some of these so that they can actually afford a place. (Money is tight for them, as is for many others.)
They've settled on Alaska and have been visiting there a couple times a year for the last couple years. They like the seclusion and the weather and the lack of taxes isn't too bad. They hunt and are used to taking care of all their needs on their own. Your mileage will certainly vary. I know I could never live there.
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:50PM
Tough place to live on an retirement income.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:24AM
Guessing there's some sort of rural redevelopment grant at work here.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Monday November 13 2017, @05:45AM
As a side note, Baltimore is considering a plan to sell off a large numbers of the blighted properties for $1 each. Aplan that was done in the mid-1980's (I think, but am too lazy to look up) with some success
The fact is, Baltimore's issues are far more systemic. They are a few years behind Detroit for the blight, and giving Chicago a run for their money as the murder (per capita) capital of the country.
The only thing that keeps it running is the constant dump of taxpayer dollars into the city by the rest of the state. It sucks. I keep thinking how great the rest of Maryland would be without the $$ suck that is Baltimore City.
Nuke it from orbit... It is the only way to be sure.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson