Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

[beacham]

I know the majority live in urban areas. But when I read a post about something like electric bikes or walkable cities, I can’t find a single comment supporting a rural lifestyle. I’m not complaining, just shocked that there aren’t even a few.

[defrost]

I was born and live in Western Australia, a state almost half the land area of Australia, three times larger than Texas, with a population of ~ 2 million most of whom live in and around the one big city in the south west corner.

I grew up in the Kimberley on cattle stations, went to high school in the Pilbarra , and travelled 1,000 km to university (1980s).

I did a lot of STEM courses, built robots, remote signal aquisition instrumentation, pre Google Maps global mapping software (and data processing) travelled the world (two thirds or so of the 190+ countries) zeroing in WGS84 against old mapping systems and doing a bit of exploration geophysics.

I currently mostly live in the wheatbelt district, large farms you can shoot 5,000+ yards across (*), and live a fairly rural lifestyle - with drones, GPS controlled two storey machines, multi spectral crop imaging, etc.

(*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE

We like walking and do a bit of track maintenance (**) and prefer motorbikes over cars (***)

(**) https://www.bibbulmuntrack.org.au/

(***) https://youtu.be/mdx5xttosxY?t=124

[trevo]

R

[defrost]

Jobs here, for myself at least, are very word of mouth and Weddings, Parties, Anything.

I have no LinkedIn, Facebook, Github profile .. just a backlog of people and companies I've worked with since the late 1970s.

There's a Radio Quiet Zone here for the SKA Square Kilometre Array which has ongoing odd jobs, there and on the super computer farm. Some kid I used to joke about with on the School of the Air when we were in short pants is now some kind of multi billionaire with agriculture, aquaculture, mining, green hydrogen, etc stuff going on.

We (circle of scaly mates) started a few companies when short of things to do, back whenever .. these are still about in various forms - one got picked up by the US Standard & Poor for their intelligence desk.

This week I'm making the cage over the peach tree parrot proof, pitchforking sawdust and shit underneath the fig tree, and waiting for a call to come and be a chase bin driver (pulling up behind and parallel to a moving combine harvester to take the offload back to the bins .. rinse, repeat).

Mining companies like data driven solutions, there's a lot of mapping | survey work, Rio Tinto is automating the Feck of everything, Trains, Trucks, and so on.

There's lab work, lawyers up the whazoo, accounting firms, parts and tradespeople warehousing yards - so a lot of that type of web | office support stuff happening.

[k310]

We’re busy keeping the well pumps running, ordering propane when the generator kicks in after power lines fail, cleaning up tree limbs (and trees) that fell in the winter storms.

Other than that, it’s a dilemma. I have a spectacular view, living on a ridge, but except for the gas station/quicky mart, everything “a.k.a. Downtown” is 12 miles away and all the stores not named hardware stores are 50 miles away. So are colleges

DSL internet is the best you can get here. There’s one hospital in town, whose board is just short of fistfights at meetings.

Just have a toolkit handy for when something lets loose in a winter storm, and an evacuation kit ready at all times in case of wildfire. And don’t try to grow roses, because they are candy to deer. You need a 7 foot high fence to keep them out.

Civilization has its advantages.

[anonzzzies]

There is Starlink now. Gamechanger for us; we had total crap radio (line of sight) internet before that; not even dsl.

[pcvarmint]

CBRS is faster than Starlink here and doesn't have limits or throttling.

It's a 50ft tower powered by PoE Ethernet.

100-250 mbit/s down, 50-80 mbit/s up

[logical_ferry]

Where is this? Just ballpark it.

[k310]

Near a famous national park. ;-)

[__rito__]

I live in small town India. Was born and brought up here. Population: ~30k. This is made possible by WFH since Covid-19.

Nearest megacity Kolkata (Calcutta) is ~140 km away. ~3.5h by car or train. We visit the city for any serious enough health issues or big shopping events or to catch flights.

My town is historical and extremely old (mentions in literature go back 600 years or more). It is very walkable. Everything is some minutes away. Fresh organic vegetables, fish, and meat available in the market 5 minutes away. The High School I went to was 15 minutes away (using bicycles).

We have a ~100 cc motorbike (50 kmpl or 117 mi/gallon) and bicycles that we ride. For family, we hire fully electric tuktuks [0]. Very cheap and environment friendly.

Very calm town with non-existent crime. Can get reliable broadband up to 250 MBPS. Amazon does 1 and 2 day deliveries. (I cannot imagine living here without ecommerce and internet)

Big fan of this lifestyle. Can comfortably afford a car but we don't own one because we don't need one.

Lived in Kolkata before. Everything was so far away. Had to spend money to get anywhere. Spent too much time in commute to everywhere. And the amount of money you save by living here adds up. My father also lived in the same house, as did my grandfather.

[0]: https://assets.telegraphindia.com/telegraph/02metanup4.jpg

[ivolimmen]

Rural is actually a perspective. I live in a "town" of 23.000 people. I am Dutch and I do not live in a large city. Amsterdam is the nearest city for me and that is 65 Km away. It's one hour by train and 45 minutes by car. Every time someone asks we where I live they never heard of my town as it is insignificant. 4 Km from my town is a slightly smaller town called Enkhuizen and it more known so I always reply that it is near Enkhuizen.

BUT: Even though this sounds big: I do not have access to Greenwheels (car ride sharing service) this is only available in big cities. Specialty shop that promote more green, no plastic and healthy stuff: big cities not in my town.

[kcplate]

Quite true, where I live is “rural”. There are miles and miles of farmland all around me, but I am also less than hour away from 4M people

[nrr]

I used to drive the Case to the Rural King every so often. While it was fun trolling the suburbanites heading to work during rush hour by going 25 mph in a large piece of farm machinery that they couldn't run off the road, I ultimately got a city job, so I gave the rural life up and haven't really looked back.

Miss carding my own wool and spinning my own yarn though. That was nice and meditative.

I think the major reason why you don't see support for rural living as often (or, as you noted, at all) is, well, the people who want walkable cities and bicycle infrastructure are the folks for whom economic opportunity is predicated on being close to the city. As it turns out, that's where the majority of industry happens to be.

It also turns out that cars are annoying when going slow and steady to get someplace (and enjoy the moment all the while) is just as fine.

(Is that truly why I used to abuse my old Case that way? Maybe!)

[vel0city]

> that's where the majority of industry happens to be.

The majority of certain kinds of industry. Finance, software, fashion, marketing, sure. I grew up surrounded by people working at chemical plants, rotating shifts at off-site drilling platforms, dock workers, etc. The other side of town, ranchers. Another side of town, sugar processing and sugar farms. Other than the dock workers and offside drillers (on their off-times) potentially being more urban-adjacent, neither of these two industries are really dense urban area kinds of industry.

Then, up the highway a bit, was Houston.

I don't see many car manufacturing plants deep in dense urban areas in the US. Loads of large manufacturing in the US happens well outside those dense urban areas. Living in most dense US cities is expensive. Real estate is way more expensive. Imagine trying to build commercial airliners in Manhattan or San Francisco.

[nrr]

I think you might be reading stricter definitions into some words than I intended.

If Everett, WA; Renton, WA; and North Charleston, SC, are not urbanized areas, what are they?

If a factory with a ZIP code in San Antonio, TX, isn't in a city, where is it?

Going closer to home for me: is Red Bud, IL, not a city? Hecker? Freeburg? Mascoutah? Belleville?

That city job I wrote about was not in St. Louis.

[vel0city]

I can see our miscommunication here. I feel we need more resolution between the binary of urban and rural.

Where I grew up we'd have the neighbors cows wander into our yard and eat our plants when they got out. The Census defined it as urban.

So when I see Renton, WA and you ask if it's "urban", well yeah I'd agree it's urban by the census and limited binary choices. Is it "urban" like San Francisco or Manhattan or even Seattle? Not even close, it's far from that still. It's almost all single family detached homes.

[nrr]

I don't disagree that more resolution is needed, but we do need to start somewhere when it comes to what truly is rural.

For me, the occasional farm interspersed between single-family homes (or the occasional subdivision of single-family homes interspersed between farms, same deal), strip malls, and Boeing Field (or, in my case, Scott AFB) isn't it. That's merely the outskirts of town.

Alternatively, if you have any chance at all of being reached by anything other than a 50 kW AM radio station from a major city like KMOX, you're probably some semblance of urban.

Similarly, if you can have mail delivered to your street address and not merely a shared delivery point, you're probably some semblance of urban.

Densely urban? No, absolutely not.

[bombcar]

One large aspect common among rural folks is knowing when to keep your head down and not draw attention to yourself against the hive mind.

The rurals are here but you have to be quiet to notice them.

(The majority of the rurals are considered urban by the US census, btw.)

[georgeoliver]

> (The majority of the rurals are considered urban by the US census, btw.)

I wonder if there's some administrative reason the census considers huge cities and little villages both 'urban'?

[bombcar]

It has to do with what the Census report is used for. Most people consider a small village 30 miles from the big town to be rural, but it has many services and supplies that an actual rural property won't.

Also remember when the Census was begun, the divide was much more stark between rural and urban as you couldn't travel quickly.

[ActorNightly]

This really depends on your tolerance for people.

If you are young, cities can be great for social life. I used to live right outside of DC after college and it was great when the important things in life were enjoying social gatherings and meeting girls.

Now that Im much older, I prefer seclusion because I don't really care that much for making new friends, and on the flipside I don't have to deal with idiots who inconvenience people around them because of careless, negligence, or stupidity.

[smallstepforman]

I spent 53 years in a big city, and finally moved to a rural area. Tired of all the commotion, congestion, pollution and stress, and watch wild blackberries, strawberries, mushrooms grow, trees and flowers blossom, orchard bloom and give fruit, pheasants and deer entering the property and observing natures life cycle. My wife although hesitant is now peaceful with life. And I’m an embedded software developer, do Haiku OS and robotics for fun. My lifestyle is 8 hours professional work (from home), and on average an hour a day looking after the estate. And an hour each evening sitting on the veranda with a glass if wine watching the sunset. And this costs me 50% of a cramped appartment in the city.

And at this moment at the airport waiting for takeoff for a business meeting.

[b20000]

where are you located?

[cc101]

I'm a camp host for the forest service during the summer. I use my e-bike to explore closed logging roads looking for gold. The highway into town is dangerous so I haven't used it to go shopping yet. Maybe next summer. Frankly, I'd love to live in a walkable urban area with a university and a library nearby. I'll never be able to afford that. For the winter, I live in an inexpensive house in a walkable city in Mexico. No university, no library, and no community of similar minded Yankees. It's the best I can do.

[EdwardDiego]

I live rurally in Canterbury, New Zealand, but I'm only 25 minutes away from Christchurch CBD.

I've lived far more rurally in the past, long commutes down metal roads with the occasional ford, septic tanks, private water schemes supplying algae-green water from rivers that rise in the front ranges, Internet via microwave or satellite or... ...dial-up giving 2KiB/s if you're lucky, electric fences often lowered the bit rate on copper.

I'm not sure why you think a rural lifestyle needs supportive comments. It's, after all, a choice we make, because we're privileged enough to be able to.

[logical_ferry]

> metal road

TIL metal road is actually gravel road in NZ.

[danaris]

I live in rural upstate NY, and have for (essentially) all my life.

Even ignoring the posts that just straight-up assume all tech workers (or at least all the ones worth considering) are in Silicon Valley, I've seen so many posts that assume, in various ways, that tech workers live in cities. Or even that basically everyone lives in cities.

From people talking about self-driving cars ignoring that rural roads (including gravel and dirt roads) exist, or that roads exist that might not get plowed/sanded immediately after snowfall, to people talking about employment and compensation just assuming that any tech worker can instantly find a new job paying as much as or more than their previous job if anything goes wrong, to people talking about nutrition, health, and food assuming that everyone has access to a wide variety of great supermarkets and specialty stores...

The bias is real, and it's so deeply disappointing a lot of the time.

Even worse are the people who appear to genuinely believe that we would be better off if no one lived outside of cities. They never seem to have much answer to questions like, "Then who's going to grow the food?" beyond handwaves.

[anonzzzies]

People here seem to love cities; I lived in some of the biggest and smallest ones and I never liked them; noise, pollution, nasty people. Can’t see what the attraction is. So I live rural for most of my life. The easiest plus thing is the talk of people how expensive urban housing and life is ; not here; it’s cheap. If you work in IT you can retire in your 20s/early 30s if you want. Cannot see how the ‘comforts’ of a city can ever beat that freedom.

[rkagerer]

I do - there's a datapoint for ya.

Projects take a bit longer as there's no Fry's or Radio Shack around the corner. You tend to stock more things on hand, and Amazon Prime is a godsend. Cars are still a thing, and you have to drive them yourself! I wave to neighbours when I pass them. Look up at night and there's lots of twinkling lights in the sky which aren't Starlink trains.

Aside from that it's just like city life.

[readthenotes1]

You must be in the boonies! "Fry's or Radio Shack".

Hey, just a thought, have you ever tried Velcro, or zippers?

[quietthrow]

What is the real question here (if there is one). Where one lives, just like everything else has trade offs. And like most (but not all) trade offs the value or the opportunity cost is relative to the individual incurring it. Generally speaking people go where the economic opportunities are because today you need to be a part of the economy to survive. This increases your dependence on things and people. Life in a rural area decreases your dependence on things relatively speaking. Also which stage of your life you are in changes the cost equation. If you have kids you may be someone who doesn’t want their children growing up in a podunk town with few resources. However the opposite could be true for some people where they prefer a smaller idyllic environment compared to a “commoditized” city /urban environment. There is no right or wrong here but where you feel more safe / content. And for most people that is an urban/city or suburban environment. Rural living is definitely on the edges there.

[thefz]

Town shy of 30K residents. I can go anywhere by foot, if I take the car it's because I have to leave the city or go to the supermarket. 10 minutes from my home I can find an amazing network of trails to ride with my MTB or to hike by foot. I would never live in a city. We recently received FTTH which is amazing, coming from a less than ideal 10Mbit/1Mbit DSL.

[throwaway81348]

Curious about MTB trails and fiber. Where is this?

[aliasxneo]

I live in a rural area of Oregon. I was born in the Bay Area and once I had my first taste of rural life I had no desire to go back.

[iamEAP]

I live in a village of about ~1300 in West Sweden (couple hours outside of Gothenburg), surrounded by lakes and forests.

There are two art/craft/design schools in town, one of which has been here for nearly a century, resulting in a regular influx of young people with creativity and energy (of which a handful stay in the area) as well as a populace that’s become accustomed to new ideas and new ways of doing things through generations.

I’m a member of a non-profit association (consisting primarily of former students who stayed) that operates a co-working space, which is where I work most days. Working alongside primarily non-tech folks is wonderful—no need to talk tech during lunch or breaks.

It’s not all roses. It’s a poor region with declining population (and therefore worsening quality of municipal services). I think remote work could play an important role in revitalizing the area, but I’m naturally a bit biased about that.

[pigsinzen]

I live in a small, relatively rural farming community in central Maine. Electric bikes would be great but I wouldn’t trust drivers on country roads to be aware of them. Otherwise, it’s been amazing and I could never go back to the sprawling suburbs or cities.

[morog]

Living in a small village in a rural part of South Africa 2 hours from Cape Town. Off grid solar & water, keep chickens. Coder / remote sysadmin mostly for EU based companies. Same timezone as CET, so it works well. No cars needed, everything is in walking/biking distance & reasonably cost of living. Online shopping is big here, so if you are prepared to wait a couple days everything is available (no Amazon but it's coming soon I hear)

Check out https://greytontourism.com - our villages answer to Airbnb, made by yours truly

[CSMastermind]

Grew up in a rural area but have lived in many places now including cities and suburbs.

Totally agree with your point though: a large segment of the car hatred movement types strike me as lacking significant perspective.

[lowkj]

I would probably qualify as being in the car hatred movement but I don’t lump in rural areas. I do believe that cities should be largely car free. Cars belong in rural areas but when coming into a city should park outside and take rapid / convenient public transport into the city. This transition is already happening in many international cities.

That said, even rural areas shouldn’t require cars nearly as much as they do in the US now. Trains can service rural areas as well the same as they do in Europe.

[logical_ferry]

I live in SE Europe, 800k city, part of EU. This notion that public transport is well developed over here applies only to more developed parts of the continent. I am in Croatia and trains are... a joke to say the least. In a 800k city we don't have any notion of rapid urban transit. For us a tram is best you can get. Recently I took public transport for fun, took me 1h to get 9km and that's in 8pm, when there is no peak traffic.

I have to drive a car everywhere.

[samtho]

The problem with rural areas and cars is not usually getting from unincorporated settlement to the big city, it’s getting from your home in an unincorporated settlement to the Main Street of the closest city with a Walmart. Especially as you look eastward into the US, there is a spider web of tiny junction cites, settlements, town, etc, all would be difficult to serve with mass transit effectively.

[waveBidder]

My main beef as someone living in cities is suburbanites wanting to impose all the costs of their lifestyle on those living in the actual city. The need for automobiles in actual rural places is fairly obvious.

[nickcotter]

I live in a village on Dartmoor, UK, complete with a pub dating back to the 12th century. But the village shop has disappeared, the internet and even the water connection seem increasingly fragile. On the other hand, working from home in my own office with a view across the valley, and working on our woodland are great for body and soul. Also, there are enough children around that our kids don’t feel isolated - at the same time we’ve never worried about traffic when they go off on their explorations.

[indigo0086]

Moved to NH not long ago from the bay. It's more of a small town vibe here but lots of rural areas, farm stands, with most action off a main street or highway. I'm contemplating chickens and people sell them freely. If I ever want to change careers I could definitely find someone to apprentice with. I'm not living on a farm rural but there's plenty and life is good.

[sheepshear]

I don't see why I would bring that up in a post about electric bicycles and walkable cities. No idea how I would "support" it.

[vax425]

Here’s another upvote for rural life:

I live on an island in WA state, USA. I’ve got a spectacular view of Admiralty Inlet & the Olympic Mountains, and a workshop big enough for my CNC machine and other equipment. I’m using the workshop on weekends to make weird Arduino-powered clocks and LED art, which I sell on Etsy for beer money.

[vitalurk]

Loving life in the woods, 1 acre in the sticks, with gigabit fiber and squirrels. It’s peaceful and productive.

[Doctor_Fegg]

I live in a small rural town in the UK (Charlbury, Oxfordshire: population 3000). It’s incredibly walkable, we have a direct train to the nearest city (and on to London), and I have an electric bike for longer trips not served by the rail line.

These places do exist - you just have to hunt them out.

[porompompero]

Innovations (overall) are created and (very intensely) diffused from cities. I also love in a rural area, but my lifestyle is not different of what I did earlier in a city. Really honest question: how can you keep a rural lifestyle with a nowadays job?

Edit: I am in Europe.

[anonzzzies]

Work from home from my olive grove in the EU. With the current olive oil prices, it’s actually starting to be a blip in my income as well.

[lta]

Reaching you through VDSL from a runny village next to the Alps in Provence, France. Country side is a mess in term of professional networking and social activities. I regret it deeply so far

[gonesilent]

I moved off-grid from SF bay warehouse living love it. Started a small wireless company to feed me and those around me better internet. Connected with zayo direct to San Jose.

[raptorraver]

Me!

Bought a small farm year ago near my home village. Life is good here. Only downside is that I like sitting on my desk less than when we lived in the city :)

[happytoexplain]

There are more than a few - there just aren't as many opportunities to talk about it in the context of tech news as compared to city or suburban living.

[deadfece]

I live in a smaller city outside of a metro. I can hear goats from a farm next door, but I have 5gbps symmetric fiber.

We have an ALDI here at least.

[richardjam73]

I live in a suburb of a city in Australia but it is a rural inland city. I can walk to farmland from where I live.

[phyphy]

I guess you can call Dausa, Rajasthan as rural compared to the rest of the first world.

[theodric]

Irish countryside reporting in, brought to you by Starlink

[nickcotter]

How have you found Starlink?

[theodric]

Unremarkably good

[llamaInSouth]

next to atlanta airport... wish I was in rural area in another state... although its nice not to have to use a car

[samtho]

I’ve been primarily a city dweller for most of my life but have had a few stints in very rural, mountainous areas and I cannot get enough of it. Think gold country in Northern California between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.

There are a few advantages to settling here:

- Quiet: As long as you’re off the main road by a mile or so.

- Cheap: Land sales are usually FSBO and you have to be in the know. Locals generally don’t like selling their land to where it ends up on Zillow.

- Utilities: Most land is federal or state owned but the few private lots often have power and telecom on one end of the property.

- Building permits: Easy to get in unincorporated county assuming you’re outside of TRPA. As long as you are not cutting down trees, you’re good (usually)

- Allergies: I find it easier to breath even very thin air (elevation is about 5000 feet)

But there are also some drawbacks, too:

First off, Snow. The mountains get loads of this goddamn frosty Satan jizz. People cannot drive with it being either too cautious or too aggressive - both are very dangerous, sometimes it blocks private roads so you’re trapped until a neighbor with the snow blower is kind enough to come clear the road (there is a startup idea here I’m sure). For the driving part, there are few feelings worse than stepping on your brakes and realizing they have frozen over despite needing them to be functional in about 3 seconds. Snow also also breaks random stuff, allows water enter orifice, turns into black ice, makes going grocery shopping dangerous, and in general is a scourge if you have to go outside for any reason.

On a similar topic, convenience. In the city, I can generally find 24/7 stores. We have a handful of Safeways, WinCo, and 7-Elevens. In the mountains, things shut down for any weather, it’s 20 miles away, and the gas station may be closed. So you have to stock up, on everything. I have 10 gallons of gasoline in two 5gal containers (that I cycle through regularly), propane (so many tanks, all either full, partially used, or empty), canned food, frozen food, indoor dried, de-pested firewood, drinkable water, sat phone, spare adjustable tire chains, the list goes on.

Lastly, the weird shit that just happens. All the odd things you see in the deep woods, on your property cameras, random people that have no business being there (lost tourists, tweakers, illusions, etc). I saw (on my cameras) a guy in full business attire walk up to my remote cabin, look around then look directly at the camera, and casually walk the away. I’ve seen on a hike a newish Kia Optima stopped in the forest, driver side door open, keys in ignition, chime still ringing. From my porch, I’ve seen a girl in a white night gown walking along the ridge across the road at night. I’ve also seen strange shit like a mini cement obelisk, shrines to deerman, a wooden staircase to nowhere, half buried vehicle from the 1950s. I’ve also seen several bears, a mountain lion (well, two but one was someone’s pet and was dangerously sweet), deer like crazy (but no deerman yet). Also, it gets very dark. Darker than you can imagine sometimes.

Despite all of this, making your own power and being off grid is cool.