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Comment by fuball63 | Hacker News Reader

I'm from the region, and work remotely as a coder. Some of these really backwoods areas are very beautiful and tranquil, and when combined with the affordability, I think it is a great place to code. A lot of local politicians and economic developers are grasping to coal/lumber/manufacturing, but I think there is opportunity to build small tech hubs for young people burnt out on expensive, crowded, and distracting cities. Invest in a few bars, coffee shops, low rent office spaces, and most importantly, broadband, and I don't think it would be hard to convince coders and entrepreneurs to come.

EDIT: additional thought: there are also great outdoor recreation opportunities that is one of my favorite things about living here (hiking, mountain biking, rafting)

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There are dozens of cities in the U.S. that want to be the next hub for young tech entrepreneurs, and most of them have more financial options than Kentucky, which is among the most dependent state budgets on federal dollars. Additionally, young people are socially and politically liberal, while KY voters overwhelmingly elected staunchly anti-LGBT representatives and were strongly in support of Trump.

I think it would be pretty hard to convince even the most disillusioned Bay Area or NYC software developer to move to rural Kentucky over e.g. Pittsburg or Portland.

I'm totally with you on that. There are all sorts of charming towns in socially progressive areas of the country that I would move to long before Kentucky if I ever got disillusioned with NYC. There are some amazing towns in Vermont that I've been to with great access to nature, skiing, and locally farmed food. And they've also accepted the Medicaid expansion under the ACA, they aren't homophobic, and they aren't trying to strip government to the bone at the expense of providing important services like infrastructure and public education. And if drug criminalization is something you care about, Vermont is a lot more friendly as well.

Techies tend to be socially liberal, or at the very least, libertarian, and the appeal of a place like Kentucky just isn't there.

>> Additionally, young people are socially and politically liberal, while KY voters overwhelmingly elected staunchly anti-LGBT representatives and were strongly in support of Trump.

in case you haven't seen "Generation Z" numbers - you're in for a surprise - http://www.dailywire.com/news/12785/gop-tsunami-looms-genera...

also, while the 20-30 year olds did vote primarily for Clinton - definitely not in an overwhelming fashion by any stretch of imagination.

that said - yes, it would be pretty hard to convince a native New Yorker to move to KY, but then again that person might be a Midwest transplant living in NYC to begin with...

Looks skewed because majorities in a bunch of liberal states chose the third option (and several red states, though for the most part red states were very red): would not vote in this election

https://public.tableau.com/profile/mycollegeoptions#!/vizhom...

Something I picked up online is that lots of young people didn't want to vote for Clinton, as they felt she wasn't progressive enough, and they didn't fully understand how to best achieve their goals within the current political system.

Not sure how that translates going forward, if the left leaning young people split their vote or don't bother voting then that really helps the opposition, but it's different from young people being more conservative.

Agree 100%. Any climbers who haven't checked out the Red River Gorge don't know what they are missing.

And for those who don't know, the correct pronunciation of Pikeville is 'packvul'. (I grew up in the area)

There isn't anywhere else I'd rather be. Before I joined a program in Hazard like the one mentioned in the article, I was in construction for 15 years, and I've been a lot of places. Appalachia is the best place though. We could also stand to have an influx of bright young people with a broader view.

Do you feel that a lot of your friends and family are open to this type of development? I haven't ever seen surveys gauging local public opinion, but I had assumed that the foremost economic issue for Kentucky was coal, and the focus was on preventing legislation which would harm that market.

In general, the fervor surrounding coal stems from the fact that for a long time it was the only industry where a person could bring home more than minimum wage, and see the decline of the industry as a personal attack.

What the people really want is work. The article tells the tale - a thousand applicants for a handful of positions. The program I'm in had hundreds of applicants for only ten positions.

To me, too much money has been spent trying to resuscitate the coal industry when it could have been directed at new industries. The politics of it all doesn't interest me, and it wouldn't interest the legion of skilled technical personnel now clamoring for even minimum wage jobs if they had somewhere else to go (aside from relocate entirely).

As an outsider who has spent a fair amount of time in the area (climbing in the Red River Gorge area, specifically), thanks for shedding some light on the politics and mentality of the area.

Can you shed any light on how the oil industry is viewed, how many people it employs, etc? I've really only ever been down to the area on the weekends, and while a lot of the climbing access is via oil company roads, I've never seen any oil workers or trucks. Is this because the industry doesn't employ many people, or just because they don't work weekends?

Incidental fun fact, the Gallery climbing area has a huge overhang (15-20 meters horizontally, 20-30 vertically) where there's a well casing that goes from the ceiling to the floor for no apparent reason. Presumably there's an oil jack up top, but I'm curious why the well is located there...

Thanks for your informative participation throughout this discussion.

Oil fields used to employ people only during the drilling phase. Once in production, they're mostly unattended. The classic oil field is a spread-out collection of pumpjacks running endlessly with nobody around.

Fracking operations, though, are complicated. There's usually a sizable site from which directional drilling spreads out underground. There's water, sand, and hydrochloric acid going down the holes, and mixed oil, gas, and sludge coming up. Lots of trucking activity.[1]

[1] https://www.fractracker.org/resources/oil-and-gas-101/explor...

Good luck with the broadband, especially in the current political climate of the FCC.

I believe that having affordable, high-speed internet (where you are allowed to actually host a server), would revitalize Appalachia.

Between the shuddered coal-plants that can be repurposed as data-centers, and rails-to-trails right-of-ways that can be used for fiber runs, there is plenty of opportunity.

Good luck convincing the politicians, though.

I am confused, are you guys suggesting that some cities and towns in Kentucky and other areas within the US lack the same broadband infastructure that I enjoy access to in small-town Mississippi?

I live on the most populous hilltop in Hyden KY. Our only ISP caps at 1mb, and its not terribly reliable. Satellite is of course an option, but the expense is prohibitive if you use a lot of data.

Oh wow, maybe since Mississippi is fairly flat, it is just easier to set up decent infrastructure here.

DSL or wireless?

DSL is what's available. Wireless is too susceptible to the terrain.

Wow, that just sucks. North Dakota has pretty good rural broadband on the whole. I get the feeling its because we seem to have multiple providers everywhere and the rural electric cooperatives and local telephone companies have stepped up with some serious fiber.

Technically, you should have benefited from some of the legislation passed, but after looking at it, it was pretty impossible to access.

It's not the lack of infrastructure, it's the push to ban municipally owned ISPs that's driven by the telecom industries. Several states have already passed laws restricting municipal broadband, and in 2015 the FCC passed rules limiting the ability to expand municipal broadband in the name of competition. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband

My small town has DSL with 12Mbps/768kbps (DL/UL) for $45, or a 5Mbps/1Mbps CATV option for $50/mo (plus modem rental - even though the cable provider has FTTH, w/ the ONT having an RJ-45 connector, but requiring customers to use a cable modem).

I would love a symmetric 6/6 (would love to host a server).

KY is definitely behind (being from there). But they have started an initiative to get fiber out to the backwoods areas. The initiative, called "Kentucky Wired", is going to start with outfitting the backbone against major highways, then push out from there.

http://kentuckywired.ky.gov/Pages/index.aspx

Not sure how efficient it is at the moment, seems pretty slow going. I get all the ads for "Fioptics", but the best speed that is offered in my location is 10 MBps :\. But supposedly it is actively underway to connect the state with increased internet speeds.

I'd love that kind of life too, and the bad broadband wouldn't worry me too much. "git push" doesn't hog too much bandwidth, after all.

But having to fly around the country for interviews ? That's the deal breaker, unfortunately.

I'd move if I knew that the locals wouldn't make my life hard for being transgender and not the typical Christian (I'm a Christian Gnostic, so I'm way out there in terms of my faith). But if anything living in my home state of Kansas has taught me is that no matter how much you reach out and try to show kindness folks will inevitably stay focused on the foreign qualities you bring in their midst.

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