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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> The question is, how do we get rural economic development going again?

That's like asking how to revive the blacksmith industry in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. These regions aren't declining because of inattention, they're declining because their native industries are shrinking.

Surely there are regulatory treatments that can be applied here to relieve some of the suffering, but "return to the good old days" isn't an option.

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I might agree with you if gp had said how to get the coal industries going again - but is there really _nothing_ which can usefully be made in community with lots of space and (compared to the bay area) insanely cheap housing?

Plenty of things could be manufactured or coded in these areas. Cheap housing and materials in general mean you could make a really awesome hacker house or even factory for physical goods.

Of course the real problems are:

1) VCs don't invest here

2) A startup's success is usually based on its ability to sell itself (using networking contacts) to a larger corporation

3) who then REALLY don't want to have an office in Nowhere, Alabama

If they did want to do it, they would have done it already. Lord knows they have the money.

It's cheap housing in the sense of price seen by the consumer due to scarcity. Housing in rural areas actually costs significantly more to produce and maintain in real economic terms.

The solution to high San Francisco housing costs is high density development in exurbs and other cities, and very much not "let's all move to Nebraska".

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