July 2, 2008
More on the rural economy
Those who were interested by my column this weekend about the inherent vulnerability of rural economies may enjoy this piece by Charles Wheelan, the Naked Economist:
Surgeons need to be near major medical centers. Graphic designers need to be near advertising firms. Securities lawyers need to be near investment banks. As an economy gets more productive, it also gets more specialized. Each of us gets very good at a highly specific task, but that usually means that we need to be around other workers with complementary skills.
I could probably write this column from the middle of Pennsylvania, but I wouldn’t be able to teach graduate students there, which is my “day job.” Could you do your job in a small town in Kansas? Or, with the rise in the number of dual professional couples, the appropriate question is: Could you and your spouse do your jobs in a small town in Kansas?
The whole thing is here.
Maybe folks who live in cities need to get out more often, and perhaps avoid National Parks and other over clean rural areas.
It’s not just subsidised food that comes from the countryside. Since dumping waste at sea was banned a few years ago nearly all your waste ends up in the countryside, including sewage sludge spread on the pastures. Then there’s all the power generation, oil refining, water treatment, reservoirs, motorways, gas pipelines, airports….. Perhaps if all this infrastructure was owned (or at least taxed) locally there wouldn’t be a need to subsidise the rural economy.
Posted by: Michael Saunby | July 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm | Report this commentInvestment bankers need to be by Wall Street until they get laid off. Wall street is going to go through a multi-year down sizing. Maybe some of these rich people will go to rural areas.
Posted by: Theinvestingspeculator | July 2nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm | Report this commentwww.theinvestingspeculator.com
Very interesting premise. But what about the impact that technology-enhanced collaboration tools might have “eventually” to enable experts to work together across distance?
We can plainly see that outsourcing is working better and better over time and experience, even with white collar functions (e.g. India). Then why not for rural America?
With new technology, it is easy to over-expect (and over-promise) for the near term, and then to completely underestimate the potential for big changes that come in the medium and long term. Technology-aided distance collaboration seems to be one of these.
If the Naked Economist could teach and interact with grad students using some of the really amazing collaboration technology that is slowly evolving in academia (strangely amongst the most conservative of institutions, yet sporting the most liberal constituents) maybe it would be worth it for him to take up residence in bucolic Iowa where in the evenings he could tool around in his big garden and ride his horse to the local market for supper.
Posted by: Dewey Martin | July 3rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm | Report this comment