| This article is mostly focused on people who have remote jobs. So the daily commute is not really a concern. I grew up in a rural town in Wisconsin and we had to drive an hour into the city of Madison, WI to do anything "city-like". We just did it every Saturday as a matter of habit. Anything you needed throughout the week that required going into the city was just scheduled or done on Saturday. We did it all on one day and have one "commute" per week. It really wasn't a huge deal. Even living in San Fran or Seattle or any other big city, it is likely that you spend more than 2 hours each week in transportation time. I recently moved out of Seattle, but even to do errands on a weekend we spent many hours sitting in traffic. We might only be driving 10 miles, but it still takes an hour or longer. I could even back up my argument that I spent less time sitting in cars each week when I lived in rural Wisconsin than when I lived in the heart of Redmond Washington. Life is different in rural areas. I think that is what most people miss. You won't have that same urban culture in rural America. You won't be running your kids to sports clubs, art clubs, etc. You will spend more time with yourself and your family. Your kids' activities will be with community programs from the rec center, the schools, and/or church group. The goal isn't to live city-life in a rural area. It is a shift in how you live. For some people, rural life isn't for you. If you cherish those elements of city-life then you need to live in the city. But what has changed in the world now is that for many people (myself included) we were forced to move to a city because of the work we chose to pursue. For those people, there is now an opportunity to live a more rural lifestyle and still be able to maintain jobs that we enjoy (through remote work). |
It's a change along only one particular metric, but it's a big change, nevertheless.