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Comment by mrdodge | Hacker News Reader

What was different about America that small towns thrived?

The economic system is short sighted, and doesn't always have to drive politics - this may be a recent phenomena.

When the US was founded, about 95% of the population was rural, and notably, Thomas Jefferson was famously pro-rural, and viewed cities as corrupt.

You can just search "thomas jefferson agrarian quotes" and get tons of pro-ag, anti-city statements from him, such as:

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. As long, therefore, as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or anything else.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1785.

We've become a nation of employees.

Microserfs

For a very long time in the US (up to 1970's in Alaska) one had the homestead act that allowed people to claim a large amount of land (160 acres) if you lived on it for five years and improved it. There was a huge amount of land available and this "free" land would create a lot of rural population. People from all over the world came to get a chance to own land. Impossible in Europe basically for a person to be able to own land as just a laborer. Most of this land in the lower 48 was gone by 1900 or so and this is what people are referring to when they talk about the closing of the American frontier.

> Most of this land in the lower 48 was gone by 1900 or so and this is what people are referring to when they talk about the closing of the American frontier.

Well, sorta. The feds still own 30-85% of each Western state:

https://assets3.bigthink.com/system/tinymce_assets/944/origi...

Mostly because that land is so inhospitable that nobody wants it.

Lots of national forest land that many people would love to be able to live on. Check out the prices around Aspen which is surrounded by National forests.

I’m really not familiar with the geography, or its history, but the feds only kept 2% of Texas. I’ll assume the rest became private.

To put it as succinctly as possible... Oil.

When the primary economic inputs were land and undifferentiated labor, there was no use playing in a crowded field.

Now the economic inputs are highly skilled workers and the connections between them.

Logistics, essentially, and the advent of globalism caused more and more centralized approaches.

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