What makes rural areas retarded?

[Darth Mortis]

[[*]Lack of learning resources. For example, in Toronto we have a huge public library system, including the well-stocked public reference library downtown. Anyone can also walk into the University of Toronto libraries and read material, although you need a membership to borrow anything. The sheer volume of literature at your disposal in a major city is staggering. Now go into the public library in a typical small town. Pretty damned sad, isn't it? And no, Google is not a substitute.

In general, towns too small to have a library will not have internet access, either.

Oh come on, this isn't 1991, I highly doubt that small town America doesn't at least have DSL by now.

[Darth Mortis]

Ghetto Edit:

And despite being a city dwellar myself, the trend in the North Eastern US is to move from the city to the country, as most American major city educational programs lag FAR behind the growing area/suburbs in waiting.

I would rather my son be educated in Utica than go to a public school in NY.

[Darth Mortis]

Sorry guys:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2000pubs/p25-1133.pdf

It appears the trend is somewhat in the middle, with the West and the Northeast moving out and the South moving in.

[Azazal]

Oh come on, this isn't 1991, I highly doubt that small town America doesn't at least have DSL by now.

Actully there are tons of little blip on the maps towns that are lucky to get a 14400 on a dial up connection. Had to deal with a lot of them back in my helpdesk days for the USPS. Besides, do you think a town like Paintlick, Ky would know what DSL meant.

[Darth Wong]

I don't think he understands how DSL works. If the lines are too long, DSL doesn't work at all. And rural communities tend to have very long lines connecting houses to the local switch. To make matters worse, he's confusing "rural " and "suburban".

Besides, I pointed out earlier that the Internet is no substitute for good libraries, and that's still true.

[His Divine Shadow]

Oh come on, this isn't 1991, I highly doubt that small town America doesn't at least have DSL by now.

Actully there are tons of little blip on the maps towns that are lucky to get a 14400 on a dial up connection. Had to deal with a lot of them back in my helpdesk days for the USPS. Besides, do you think a town like Paintlick, Ky would know what DSL meant.

Heh, we don't have DSL here either but in the small village a few kilometers from here (or town or whatever, it's just a few hundred people) they do get DSL, and now they are laying down fiber optics as well.

[MKSheppard]

You know, once the big oil crash dealie happens, these places are only going to become more isolated and the problem's going to get worse.

*executes Uranum235*

Do you even know what caused the boom of small town america? Why yes, it was the railroads making mass delivery of just about anything to any point in the country within a reasonable amount of time feasible.

[Admiral Valdemar]

*executes Uranum235*

Do you even know what caused the boom of small town america? Why yes, it was the railroads making mass delivery of just about anything to any point in the country within a reasonable amount of time feasible.

We had a load of horses back then too. Point is, for that situation to become reality again you will need a lot of cash and you have very little time. I'm all for rail. Whether you can replace America's #1 mode of transport - the car - with it in any reasonable time before TSHTF is another thing altogether.

Regarding DSL. I think this is as good a case as any to get more investment in Wi-MAX technology. Satellite Internet was always crap, but if you can get all the benefits of DSL without having to lay physical lines, then you've overcome one major hurdle in rural areas, that being access to a (literally) entire world of knowledge. Actual books are nice. If you haven't the space for them nor the cash, then virtual is better than nowt. Google Books and similar ideas should be given Federal funding to improve access to knowledge that would help the country, regardless of cost.

[Uraniun235]

You know, once the big oil crash dealie happens, these places are only going to become more isolated and the problem's going to get worse.

*executes Uranum235*

Do you even know what caused the boom of small town america? Why yes, it was the railroads making mass delivery of just about anything to any point in the country within a reasonable amount of time feasible.

Today, a person can very easily make a day trip from a small town into a larger city via automobile. With the train, depending on the regularity and speed of train service, this trip may require an entire weekend and may (or may not, admittedly) cost more than it currently costs to drive in via car.

I'm not saying they won't ever go to the city, but it will likely be much less often, and thus they will be more isolated.

[MKSheppard]

We had a load of horses back then too. Point is, for that situation to become reality again you will need a lot of cash and you have very little time.

Do you realize how many miles of trackage we have lying unused in this country?

And lots of it was converted to hiker/biker trails, with the proviso that the railroad still owns it...

There's also tons more trackage around the country which used to be full service stations for the PRR, NYC, etc which had their stations torn down, and replaced with a parking lot which amtrak stops at like once a week.

[Darth Raptor]

Until just after WWII, rail service went through my town (a sneeze speck on the map with under 300 people). But since then, the tracks have been completely torn up and parts of the line itself have been tilled up by farmers or paved over by state highways. I'm a half hour's drive from the nearest town that still has rail service. Towns like mine are simply fucking boned. We'll need MORE than what we had in 1945, and right now we don't even have that.