Will the concept of a metro area become obsolete? (Boston, park, rural)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The internet's tremendous energy use will shut it down, maybe long before the end of cars. Typical working from home arrangements could be craftsmen with home workshops and improvised homes in commercial buildings, like the Japanese office workers who sleep under their desks. The end of cars is also the end of diesel farm machinery and most of the global cargo, so there will be plenty of rural work.
There seems to be a growing sector of young people and now retirement aged folks who are looking to
live as what we once called "Full Time RV'ers". Most of then (but not all) are wanting out of big cities
where they can live in self sufficient rigs in areas such as BLM (Bureau of Land Management/Govt land)
for free. No taxes, no utilities cost, and much less stress in their perception. They register themselves in states that don't have "state income tax" (as their domicile state) and travel from there.
They have Cell plans that include WIFI hot spot, solar panels to recharge batteries, and a mobile SOHO
(Small Office Home Office) as part of their rig. There's some interesting pieces of equipment they use to extend the reach of their Cell Phone service too.
Many travel a few hundred miles north in the summer to be in 70 degree weather and return at summer
end to "snow bird" for the winter in nearly 70 degree weather. Thus little in the way of heating or AC cost. (possibly $150 in fuel cost for each semi annual commute)
Young folks just out of University choose this life to retire student loans within a few years rather than over a long time. They often live in converted Vans and may tow a converted utility trailer behind the Van. Older retirees may do similar or operate from a regular RV of some kind.
But if you visit message boards where these people congregate you can read what they say about getting out and away from the Metro way of life that they felt kept them stuck in a revolving door, living from pay check to pay check while not being able to enjoy what they have.
Once ties to a city perish, casual visits drop like a rock also.
If that city has adequate amenities, sure. People in Aurora aren't going to stop coming to Denver because of covid. Same goes with Katy and Houston, Arlington and Dallas, Bellevue and Seattle, etc.
If anything a metro area will only define places more, as rural America continues its decline and slow death out of existence.
What are you talking about? Rural areas aren't going to disappear or decline much more than has already occurred. Food production, wind farms, mining for metals, wood from forestry, plastics from oil, electricity from natural gas; the need for all these things is not going away, in fact growth in the metros drives demand for more of all that stuff produced in rural areas.
Then there is recreation: camping, mountain climbing, kayaking, skiing, hiking, fishing, snowmobiling; are those going away as well? Rural areas play a crucial role in all human civilizations.
Last edited by AtkinsonDan; 12-14-2020 at 11:12 AM..
Once ties to a city perish, casual visits drop like a rock also.
My personal experience is only anecdotal but it supports your hypothesis. During September 2007 I transitioned from employment in downtown Boston to the suburbs. Since that transition, I have only entered the city of Boston a grand total of 3 times.
Infrastructure.
You don't think about it until it's not there.
I gained a real appreciation for cities when I lived in a rural area for over a decade.
40 minutes from a real grocery or drug store, 7 miles to pick up mail at the P.O. 35 minutes for an ambulance to arrive ( whoops! Too late, she's dead!). An hour to the doctor's office.
I lived in an even more remote area for a few months; at least an hour and a half to any of those things.
Add in lack of entertainment options like concerts, movies, museums, and you can get mighty bored.
A large population is needed to support these things, and they're not going to miraculously bloom in the wilderness just because you've moved there to get away from the city.
So there may be an outflow from the cities, but I think people will trickle back after a few years.
Rural life is fine for some, but not for most. And you can add one other big advantage of city/suburban life: schools.
Kids need social interaction with other kids. Most parents would prefer not having to drive or bus their kids 10, 20, 30 miles a day to a classroom. Moreover, as we’ve seen, the results of online learning have been very mixed — a lot of kids are doing far worse with online set-ups. I think for this reason alone most twenty-somethings will stick to a metro area when they start having kids, even if Mom and Dad work from home.
Honestly...the sooner the better. Large metro areas are nightmares-huge eyesores, crowded, massive issues with delivery of food and other products, wide separation between manufacturing/business areas and places where people work. In the past, there was considerable need for workers to function together, work face to face or side-by-side. People were somewhat "forced" to large urban areas just to make a decent living. But "work from home" has been a growing process for years now-with Covid greatly speeding up the process. People are figuring out that they can work from nice areas, have decent yards, be closer to nature than stuck in the middle of a huge urban jungle or even suburban hell. Companies are figuring out that they don't have to locate their facilities in the most crowded, highest-cost places in the nation. Amazon and other on-line shopping services have fueled the dramatic expansion of companies like UPS and Fed Ex, reducing issues with shipping products from smaller areas, or even from homes.
Lets hope this is a start to the move away from large, densely populated "urban hellholes" to smaller towns with a greater quality of life and ties to nature.
I think as telecommuting becomes more common, we'll see two major changes in how metropolitan areas are designated:
1) 100% remote workers won't be categorized as commuters at all. Only workers that physically commute to another location outside of their home at least 50% of the time will count as commuters for statistical purposes of delineating metropolitan areas, which are simply labor markets. There are still many jobs that require employees to be physically on-site at least most of the time, so the commuting share of the working population will still be a significant statistic with practical utilization.
2) Local travel patterns related to activities other than employment (e.g., education, recreation, worship, familial obligations, etc.) will somehow come to play a role in delineating metropolitan areas.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
