by James A. Bacon
Remote work isn’t the only trend encouraging Americans to relocate from major metropolitan areas to small towns and rural communities, suggests Hamilton Lombard in a new StatChat post. The rise of social media has allowed smaller communities to emulate the entertainment and culinary offerings of big cities, while the rise of Amazon.com puts even remote communities within one-day delivery of the world’s largest marketplace of retail products.
The lower cost of real estate has always favored rural/small town America but that advantage has been more than offset by the “agglomeration” effects of big metros with larger, deeper labor markets and clusters of industry expertise. New technologies are tilting the balance back toward smaller communities. Even as professionals and free-lancers find it easier to make a living in remote areas and smaller metros, Lombard observes, they enjoy access to a greater range of amenities than ever before.
There’s another factor that Lombard omits, no doubt because of its intrinsically political nature — he is scrupulously nonpolitical in his analysis — and that is the growing unease at signs of social breakdown. Decriminalization of minor crimes. Disorder in schools. Protests in college campuses. Homelessness and tent cities. A sense that things are spinning out of control and that urban elites are either blind to it or are part of the problem.
Whatever the reasons for the migratory shift, the data leave no room for doubt that it is occurring. Continue reading