Hi Aaron, I'm a new subscriber who grew up in Southern Appalachia, near where Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama come together. Thanks to TVA this area is flourishing.
Anyway, it occurs to me that you and some of your readers might be interested in a piece I just published on Joel Kotkin's New Geography website, in which I propose a plan to resettle America in new country towns. Of course there is more to it than that: https://shorturl.at/FMN03
Just a personal anecdote. My son-in-law wanted to move back to northern Kentucky after college here in Houston. They are both accountants and ended up south of Lexington. The Lexington and near-Cincinatti areas of Kentucky are maybe not booming but seem to be doing fine. Nevertheless, I guess the economic situation drops rapidly as you go east.
They have both worked remotely, my daughter full remote with her same Houston job. That situation has worked out very well for her. My son in law switched jobs to a Kentucky manufacturer, but even he doesn't have to go in to the plant more than a day or two per week, normally.
It seems like norms for knowledge workers are really changing. I can't help thinking that with better internet (thanks Elon & Starlink), this trend of folks moving to nicer and more affordable parts of the country will continue to have legs. I suspect state and local governments need to be focusing on how to keep the housing markets affordable, so locals can share in the rising tide.
Aaron - this is not a criticism, more of a question. I say that since I may have ultimately come to the same methodology and recommendations as you. But most of this is geared towards essentially recruiting the professional class to the region as a means toward improving its economic trajectory. Again, I understand that, agree, and think it's smart. But what do we have to say about methods to more directly improve the lot of existing residents? I know you have the one example of essentially training someone there, but what else? I fear in our world of planning/development we frequently lack ideas on how to build up the local economies of working class and rural people without "recruit smart people from elsewhere." Any thoughts on this, especially for a region like Appalachia?
One of the biggest problems is going to be the structural obstacles to anything that improves the lot of working class and blue-collar workers. The moment an economic boom begins, the region in which it happens gets flooded with transitory labor. You see local hyperinflation, everyone's lot gets worse, and then when the boom ends the transitory labor goes home, taking their newly earned money with them. Everything doesn't go back to normal, but it settles at a new, worse normal because prices never go back to where they were.
I just started a new position in the area, and I was talking to my exterminator about a similar issue. Several new colleges opened at the university, bringing in pre-professional and professional programs, which is great. Local kids have a better chance at going to nursing/vet/med school if they can live at home and save rent money. But the housing prices more than doubled. He was saying that folks like me come in with money, pay over-market value for housing, and some folks make out like bandits while others see themselves priced out of their hometown.
There's certainly systemic obstacles to any kind of rising-tide-floats-all-boats strategies. And while I'm not going to go as far as the Dependency Theory folks and say that Appalachia is being kept permanently impoverished to systemically enrich the East Coast, there's some truth to the narrative they describe.
Good question. I don't have a completely answer to that - and neither does anybody else or we wouldn't be here today talking - but part of the remote work, etc. angle is to lure back natives who left. So those are the local boys and girls who made good, but rather than leave for somewhere else, they can now stay or return.
Kevin: the smart people recruited don't necessarily come from "elsewhere". They could be locals who would otherwise feel like they have to leave the region in order to be successful, and Appalachia has produced plenty of those (e.g. Homer Hickam and Chuck Yeager).
Also, agree that it'd be nice to have more than just professional class jobs. Unfortunately, that's a problem nationwide rather than just in Appalachia, so I don't know that there's any regional solution.
Hi Aaron, I'm a new subscriber who grew up in Southern Appalachia, near where Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama come together. Thanks to TVA this area is flourishing.
Anyway, it occurs to me that you and some of your readers might be interested in a piece I just published on Joel Kotkin's New Geography website, in which I propose a plan to resettle America in new country towns. Of course there is more to it than that: https://shorturl.at/FMN03
Just a personal anecdote. My son-in-law wanted to move back to northern Kentucky after college here in Houston. They are both accountants and ended up south of Lexington. The Lexington and near-Cincinatti areas of Kentucky are maybe not booming but seem to be doing fine. Nevertheless, I guess the economic situation drops rapidly as you go east.
They have both worked remotely, my daughter full remote with her same Houston job. That situation has worked out very well for her. My son in law switched jobs to a Kentucky manufacturer, but even he doesn't have to go in to the plant more than a day or two per week, normally.
It seems like norms for knowledge workers are really changing. I can't help thinking that with better internet (thanks Elon & Starlink), this trend of folks moving to nicer and more affordable parts of the country will continue to have legs. I suspect state and local governments need to be focusing on how to keep the housing markets affordable, so locals can share in the rising tide.
Thanks for this report.
Aaron - this is not a criticism, more of a question. I say that since I may have ultimately come to the same methodology and recommendations as you. But most of this is geared towards essentially recruiting the professional class to the region as a means toward improving its economic trajectory. Again, I understand that, agree, and think it's smart. But what do we have to say about methods to more directly improve the lot of existing residents? I know you have the one example of essentially training someone there, but what else? I fear in our world of planning/development we frequently lack ideas on how to build up the local economies of working class and rural people without "recruit smart people from elsewhere." Any thoughts on this, especially for a region like Appalachia?
One of the biggest problems is going to be the structural obstacles to anything that improves the lot of working class and blue-collar workers. The moment an economic boom begins, the region in which it happens gets flooded with transitory labor. You see local hyperinflation, everyone's lot gets worse, and then when the boom ends the transitory labor goes home, taking their newly earned money with them. Everything doesn't go back to normal, but it settles at a new, worse normal because prices never go back to where they were.
I just started a new position in the area, and I was talking to my exterminator about a similar issue. Several new colleges opened at the university, bringing in pre-professional and professional programs, which is great. Local kids have a better chance at going to nursing/vet/med school if they can live at home and save rent money. But the housing prices more than doubled. He was saying that folks like me come in with money, pay over-market value for housing, and some folks make out like bandits while others see themselves priced out of their hometown.
There's certainly systemic obstacles to any kind of rising-tide-floats-all-boats strategies. And while I'm not going to go as far as the Dependency Theory folks and say that Appalachia is being kept permanently impoverished to systemically enrich the East Coast, there's some truth to the narrative they describe.
I must say that there's something odd about the housing market. When cities like Flint and Saginaw see huge price increases, something is off.
Good question. I don't have a completely answer to that - and neither does anybody else or we wouldn't be here today talking - but part of the remote work, etc. angle is to lure back natives who left. So those are the local boys and girls who made good, but rather than leave for somewhere else, they can now stay or return.
Kevin: the smart people recruited don't necessarily come from "elsewhere". They could be locals who would otherwise feel like they have to leave the region in order to be successful, and Appalachia has produced plenty of those (e.g. Homer Hickam and Chuck Yeager).
Also, agree that it'd be nice to have more than just professional class jobs. Unfortunately, that's a problem nationwide rather than just in Appalachia, so I don't know that there's any regional solution.