On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer the urban areas.
That's not new. What also isn't new is that when those same people get married and have kids, they'll be looking to move out of that urban environment.
And all of that is completely unrelated to what the article is about.
What is new is that people are getting married and having kids much later, or not at all, and so they're staying in urban areas for much longer.
Great read, but probably off-topic.
It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living.
The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities.
The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to.
And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.
The problem is, without an urban hub it becomes difficult to foster the sort of connections it takes to accelerate a company to the sort of fast growth that's expected of today's unicorn-oriented startup economy. So you haven't heard of any of the software shops in NB or PEI, because they're all small, and if one is destined to become big it'll take some time.
Really remote communities are quite different. Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Also, with respect to kids, everyone's in the same school. So, you can't really segregate based on socie-economic or educational background of the parents.
Hahahaha that's what makes it awesome! :D
I'm presently adjusting to the complete lack of decent internet speeds. That has been my single biggest issue with moving to the country. As soon as I figure out alternate methods to delivering my work, I'll be a much happier person.
(Edited to add: thought I should say why. Besides fantastic scenery and wonderful people, the traditional music scene there is amazing. St. John's may be a fairly small city (100K), but there are more traditional sessions an easy walk from downtown than there are within an hour's drive of Detroit. Actually, possibly about the same number as in metro Toronto? It's just insane. Hell, last time I was there I was walking back from playing one session and got roped into joining a party of strangers who had an accordion and guitar going on the back porch.)
We saw some other tourists, mostly from nearby Canadian provinces. But from what I heard, there's almost zero tourism in the other seasons.
Sure, the ratio of IN:OUT probably leans toward IN, but I wouldn't say (at least around Seattle) that the desire to live in the bubs has died out.
"How many Newfies does it take to screw in a light-bulb?"
"Don't screw in that light bulb - the power-grid can't take the extra load!"
Popular public opinion but not actually true: http://web.archive.org/web/20160327033112/http://blogs.wsj.c...