Hacking Small Town America
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Proximity to other cities is also a big factor. I line in a city of 28k people, and the closest real city is 2 hours away. This place he's moving to is a mere 40 miles from Ft. Worth, TX, a city of over 700k people.
Ultimately it just sounds like a guy who thinks he's "roughing it" by driving his motor home to campground with electricity and running water.
as to "), but no one seems to have done any analysis of it (disappointing since the town has four colleges)." - what is the benefit of said analysis?
>I expect to spend a great deal of time actively disagreeing with people. ... > The list goes on. Tyler has information that could be freed. Tyler has government that could be opened. ... > Instead I'm going to hack Tyler to be what I need it to be.
Ah yes, the big city kid is going to teach the yokels how to do things.
If Tyler is at all typical, it's about 100x as open as Chicago.
If the author wants Chicago, he should stay there.
Good luck with this. I don't think he realizes how pedestrian unfriendly cities in the Southwest are. He'll quickly realize a trip to pick up groceries will take 2 hours via bus, and he'll be forced to walk without sidewalks in 105 degree heat to the bus stop while everyone else drives by in airconditioned cars looking upon him like he is homeless.
Also at 100k people it isn't exactly "small town America" as the article claims.
I started to wonder about the actual size when he mentioned "reasonably extensive" bus service and then four colleges. And maybe my estimation is skewed from having grown up in the suburbs instead of Chicago itself, but I would expect living in an actual small town to be a lot cheaper than just 30% under.
The other point from anamax about the city slicker teaching the yokels how it should be done is very apt. There is a reason why hackers gravitate towards Silicon Valley: people like to be with other people who are doing the same thing. Tyler is by no means dumb. As the author--who admittedly also posted here that he didn't want to debate the article--points out, there are two universities (University of Texas-affiliated, I might add) and two junior colleges. The area is also home to pipe and robotics companies. It is also very insular, especially when it comes to "being shown how things are done" because the Dallas area has been the older, wiser brother to Tyler for decades.
Oh, and "nothing about local politics?" I guess the reporting from KLTV, the oldest television station in Tyler, doesn't count.[1]
I grew up outside of a town with 5K people; it was the largest town in a 50-mile radius.
Small towns have under 1K people, at least where I come from.
The town I grew up in had a population of ~35k, and it was definitely a 'small town'.
These things are all relative to your local norms, but I think demanding that 'small towns' have at most four people and a lame horse is excessive.
Personally, I'd but the line between "town" and "city" to having some kind of rapid rail transit. (That'd mean, for example, that in the country where I live is just one city.)
My point was that the size of a 'small town' varies by context, and that a town of 1,000 would be tiny even in the context of a place that doesn't have many people.
Also, 'city' in the UK is to do with a special government/crown-granted status, not really the population per se.
Try doing this in north-eastern Montana.
(Or, better yet, don't. You'll die.)
Where is the city centre of Tyler?
I started around where Google placed the "Tyler, Texas" sign but the area looked like some rundown neighbourhoods that you could expect to find at the far edges of a big city.
As it turns out, pretty close to the "tyler, tx" search marker. The marker itself (Broadway and Ferguson) doesn't seem to me like a particularly run-down area.
South Tyler is generally considered to be somewhat nicer than the downtown area (which is further north). For instance, one of the nicer neighborhoods in Tyler is Holytree, which is off of Grande near its intersection with South Broadway. There are also some nice areas around the southern parts of Paluxy, which runs roughly parallel to Broadway. A lot of the nicer areas, though, are not actually within Tyler itself, but in the surrounding suburbs.
I know of the Sunlight Foundation and OpenSecrets -- what else?