Drove hundreds of miles through some very rural New England, USA today. Most areas were very nice with well kept homes and cute, small city centers (mostly only a couple of brick, commercial buildings).
What do people do for jobs out in the “middle of nowhere”? As an engineer who works closer to city areas where more jobs exist, I just can’t fathom what people are doing for jobs out there? How is everything paid for?
Edit: I should clarify there’s minimal farm land out in rural New England. So, not very many farmers at all.
A lot of people don’t work (retired, married a bread winner, or students living off mom and dad).
And there are of course telecommuting jobs now.
And even rural areas have doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, gas stations, delivery services, daycare, schools, libraries, churches, post offices, and countless other “invisible” employers that are easy to forget about when you live in a metropolitan city with dozens or hundreds of major corporate employers.
There’s also truckers with over the road/long haul jobs. You and you family can live anywhere when your job is to drive across the country.
Truckers generally are more of a suburb and outskirts thing. Mostly because you still need to get to the distribution centers to pick up cargo.
I could imagine a few truly independent truckers (own their own rig) who live in the middle of nowhere between seasons. But they likely are also smart enough to not want to risk their truck breaking down way the hell away from anything that can help them.
That said, other seasonal workers like people who work on oil rigs or fly out to do basically every Alaska based job that the Discovery Channel lives off of can potentially live in the absolute middle of nowhere. But… most of them likely want a place to spend their cash if you catch my drift.
Some people will do jobs that bring money into the town such as engineers, hospital workers, etc. Others provide a service to these people such as restaurants and they make their money off them. People overestimate how much you need to survive in a rural community. It’s extremely cheap compared to big cities which is why rural tends to be heavily associated with low income communities
There are people that drive 45+ minutes each way for their job.
Our business does electronic assembly and sells the products online and sells web services. We get UPS and FedEx and USPS, and have a serviceable internet connection.
Lots of people i noticed are either commutinf quite a lot, or they work in construction or with carpentry etc. They can often find jobs out in rural areas, but of course, thats in Denmark and nothing is ever really ‘rural’ like in australia or some parts of the US
I live very rural and just travel for work. I know a fair few poeple in my area who do the same thing. Get flown around for work, fun of travel,and then back to our cosy homes in a low cost of living area.
When I was in high school I lived I a small rural town. My mom drove 30 minutes to work each day in a bigger city. I had a friend who’s dad drove 90 minutes to work each day. He put up with it because he wanted to raise his kids in an area like that.
My brother-in-law also lives in the middle of nowhere. He drives about an hour to work each day. He also has a second job a little closer to home. My sister as 2 or 3 gigs, one is work from home, another is at a church down the road.
So it’s mostly putting up with super long commutes. There are of course people who work in town at various shops, restaurants, and service places.
I teach their children how to use math to do physics.
“Blasphemy!!! Keep that voodoo magic out of my small town school!”
-probably someone, somewhere in BFE.
Some of those rural New England towns have colleges. A town like Williamstown or Great Barrington MA has the local college as the largest employer. (With a town population around 7000, that’s not too difficult.)
Some have significant tourist trade, sometimes year-round. (In the fall, the leaf-peepers come up from the city to see the foliage.)
My husband is an engineer that works in plants and factories. The last three places he’s worked at were rural, or at least further from the city center. COL is typically lower in these areas, too, so lot of people get by on lower paying factory or service jobs, and as someone else said, a lot of retirees, too.
There are a lot of teachers and school administrators. Others will work at whatever factory or do welding or machining at a local fab shop. My dad always was driving an hour for work and I did for a while when I moved back out here until I got a remote job in software.
Behavior therapy. Once I move I’ll be completely remote. New England is also weird because little towns get nestled into what you might assume are county roads.
