[uberman]

I initially wrote a rather long post about the disaster that was my experience. I have not really talked about it in a decade and it felt good to rant about it. If there is interest, I'll post the longer post as well.

I'm sure there are great small towns and not all experiences will be like mine. My caution from personal experience is this: Make sure you actually understand the politics before you invest any resources. Perhaps as a this is your hometown you will be able to succeed where I failed.

Small town politics are insufferable. In this town of 2800, one extended family held every political office and every board membership, and by extension controlled every municipal job. If the town leadership don't support you, you are screwed.

No matter what your intentions are, you should expect that some members of a small community will question them and distrust you if you are an outsider. This prejudiced will extend to any out of area employee you bring on board. Someone actually challenged my efforts to install solar power stating it would cause cancer.

The graduating class typically had one kid moving on any form of higher education. Education and technology were just not priorities for the people of this more agrarian community.