So many articles about depressed rural and semi-rural areas are accompanied by pictures that show them to be absolutely gorgeous. Every time I see this I think there have got to be people who want to work remotely and not live in a major metropolitan area.
T%her are very few jobs where you can work remotely without broadband.
That’s a point.
Anecdotally, we seem to be seeing some people here moving away from the big city permanently - people who have realized they can practically speaking do their jobs remotely most of the time and go into the office occasionally. In Ontario this would be rural places like Prince Edward County which are a few hours away from Toronto by car or car and train. Not sure how much of Appalachia falls into that category vis-a-vis urban centres, but infrastructure would be crucial.
When I was living in Dallas in the early 2000s I used to drive back and forth to Toronto once a year. Western Arkansas is beautiful, though pretty remote of course. They were re-surfacing the I-40 the first time I encountered it - a task that was clearly long overdue based on the state of the sections they hadn’t gotten to yet. (And I assume if the Interstate is bad, local highways are going to be worse...)
@Moo, yes, I was tacking on to what you said. I think with broadband smaller communities could attract remote workers. And now that the pandemic has shown so many companies that they can do well and save money by having people work remotely, this would be the time to put in broadband. Chattanooga, TN reportedly has the best broadband in the country, municipally run, and they've attracted all sort of start-ups as a result, according to Wikipedia.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive. This is a university town, but three years ago there were parts of town that didn't have broadband. Maybe there still are; all I know is that some friends of mine who didn't used to have it now have.
The textile industry (and cotton slavery) created Manchester, and an engineering industry grew up on textile machinery and then diversified. All gone now, but apparently we are more wealthy than ever before. I have no idea whatsoever what all these people do. They sure as hell don't make anything.
In no particular order:
Logistics (mostly centred around Manchester airport).
Education (including higher education and research)
Sport and leisure facilities management.
Local government, civil service, etc.
Retail
Health (mostly NHS)
Many companies have their HQ (or European/UK HQ) in Manchester (e.g. Umbro, Co-Op, Etihad Airways, Kellogg's, Adidas).
Banking and financial services.
Quite a lot of different industries, none of which “make anything” but all of which provide employment.
I suppose (as an engineer) I am particularly sensitive to the decline of 'my' sector. Logistics is also Trafford Park - the first industrial estate in the world, now largely flattened and working as a lorry park. I hope the experts in the last of your bullet points (my wife included) have got the balance of payments under control. I don't understand what keeps our currency afloat.
(My youngest just got some fancy pens for Christmas. They are made in Japan by Mitsubishi. We used to have huge firms like that who made pens, up to ships and power stations. Now we don't, and we are apparently richer. That, for me, is deeply weird.)
‘Depressed’ areas don’t always look depressed, or depressing.
I’ve lived in Cornwall now for 20 years and seen it go from very depressed (one of the poorest regions in Europe) to much stronger but still precarious. Because it’s pretty and rural, and full of tourists and very wealthy second home owners, its poverty is hidden. But the pattern is the same: the loss of traditional industries (mining, farming, fishing); minimum wage, short term contract, seasonal or zero hours jobs; lack of affordable housing, lack of opportunities.
BUT also the evidence of where judicious investment can help. In that 20 years infrastructure has improved - better roads, better broadband, though rail still terrible and the airport permanently hovers on the edge of bankruptcy. Education massively improved at secondary and tertiary levels, keeping more young people here and giving them good qualifications and skills. Fishing and farming supported to produce high end product (currently unexportable, thanks Brexit). Investment in ‘dead’ ex mining towns. The gains have been huge but they remain precarious, and all the more so given that many were supported by EU priority funding. I’m very concerned what will happen now. The county voted Tory last 2 elections so very little motivation to push investment to match what’s been lost.
Would be great but can’t get too excited - there’s been a ‘revival of mining’ story about once a year for as long as I can remember. None of them have come to anything...
@Heavenlyannie What an amazing story.... Thank goodness you bumped into that youth training scheme - and to think how much talent was lost due to the people who didn't get onto this scheme, or have access a similar outlet to encourage development.
Of course there is the irony that Cornwall voted overwhelmingly for Brexit.
As for Manchester, the University of Manchester makes more money than Manchester United and Manchester City combined. The university sector is hugely wealthy, mostly due to overseas students and campuses. Of course, this past year has put a real spanner in the works there.
(My youngest just got some fancy pens for Christmas. They are made in Japan by Mitsubishi. We used to have huge firms like that who made pens, up to ships and power stations. Now we don't, and we are apparently richer. That, for me, is deeply weird.)
The UK still has lots of firms that make things - as I mentioned earlier, two of the largest manufacturers of sportswear on the planet have headquarters in Manchester. It's just that their actual factories are in other countries.
‘Depressed’ areas don’t always look depressed, or depressing.
I’ve lived in Cornwall now for 20 years and seen it go from very depressed (one of the poorest regions in Europe) to much stronger but still precarious. Because it’s pretty and rural, and full of tourists and very wealthy second home owners, its poverty is hidden. But the pattern is the same: the loss of traditional industries (mining, farming, fishing); minimum wage, short term contract, seasonal or zero hours jobs; lack of affordable housing, lack of opportunities.
That sounds like it has some similarities and some differences from the places I tried to describe in the OP.
Tourism has its limitations as a source of income, but it's something. And lack of affordable housing may be to some extent universal, or to some extent something that Cornwall has in common with prosperous areas. But it doesn't seem like a necessary aspect of being a depressed area.
You've heard of broken windows theory ? The idea that an environment of damaged and derelict buildings that nobody seems to care about tends to encourage crime ?
Lack of affordable housing is key. Certainly in combination with lack of social housing. Cornwall has one of the largest disparities between average income and house prices anywhere in the UK. And ‘prettiness’ and tourism actively make that worse by encouraging building and buying for holiday letting and second home ownership, both of which have a dire effect both on local communities and on house prices.
Tourism is of benefit but needs balancing and managing or it become parasitic and destroys what it starts out enjoying. And it needs to respect local communities not consume them.
Am unclear what your comment on broken windows theory has to do with anything I’ve said.
Many of the UK's prime holiday areas, frequently in national parks or AONB, are rural, have limited employment opportunities and frequently wages are way below the average while house prices are above. That is bound to cause problems. However, these are exacerbated by second homes and/or planning constraints imposed by virtue of the place being "scenic".
These areas need long term investment, and it has to be in jobs that are year-round, not more seasonal jobs that condemn people to a hand-to-mouth existence for half the year.
As for Manchester, the University of Manchester makes more money than Manchester United and Manchester City combined. The university sector is hugely wealthy, mostly due to overseas students and campuses. Of course, this past year has put a real spanner in the works there.
The Guardian article that perhaps you saw which recently contained that stat, went on to bemoan the marketised system which has given birth to it! I’ve been around HE for 30 years, and it seems to be bad and getting worse.
Marvin said:
The UK still has lots of firms that make things - as I mentioned earlier, two of the largest manufacturers of sportswear on the planet have headquarters in Manchester. It's just that their actual factories are in other countries.
My industry retained its R&D in the UK for about 10 years after the production went to China (in some instances via eastern Europe). Then the R&D went too. So what we are left with are, I guess, importers of consumer electronics (and, in your example, sportswear). What disturbs me is how we add value in order to pay for it.
I could add that this has happened in Manchester before. Firms like Mather and Platt outlasted the UK cotton industry (certainly, the era when UK firms bought UK machines for UK mills, which largely ended before the war!) by 40 years by exporting machinery, but in the end they folded. This time the collapse has been much quicker. So why is, say, Rochdale (hi Boogie?) Rochdale, and Manchester, Manchester? Both seem located purely on what my geography teacher might have described as ‘inertial factors’.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
You've heard of broken windows theory ? The idea that an environment of damaged and derelict buildings that nobody seems to care about tends to encourage crime ?
Somewhat discredited, the original study can't be replicated and the original data on which it was based has been called into question.
If it's not true, I suggest from my inner-city experience that some confounding factor _is_ true which makes it look a lot like 'broken windows' is a useful way of thinking. Leave things a bit shit, and they get shitter, fast. Stay on top - and you don't have to run so fast. I suspect one has to live somewhere folks assume is just a natural shithole, to experience how fast it can attract shit
(Talking of merde, I am aware that Giuliani advocated these idea in NY a long time ago. Even stopped clocks... etc etc).
I think the theory was first publicised by Bill Bratton and Rudy Giuliani who cited the Wilson and Kelling theory to suppirt their zero-tolerance approach to policung in the more challenging areas of New York.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
The government of Ireland has launched a National Broadband Plan to bring broadband infrastructure to the west of Ireland. Several times... But they don't actually want to pay the money.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
I agree, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. Bigger airports are also needed, but they are very expensive to build. The ground has to be levelled, and extra-long runways are needed because the planes must approach from a higher altitude.
Unfortunately, the government programs waste money training people for jobs while there is no industry to hire them.
You've heard of broken windows theory ? The idea that an environment of damaged and derelict buildings that nobody seems to care about tends to encourage crime ?
Somewhat discredited, the original study can't be replicated and the original data on which it was based has been called into question.
To a point. There have been plenty of studies that confirm that, for example, people are more likely to drop garbage in a graffitied dirty-looking alley than a clean one. So damaged / derelict buildings attracting more of the same is a pretty solid thing.
It's the causal connection between damaged buildings and muggings and the like that's a bit more questionable.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
I agree, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.
Building broadband in the mountains is hideously expensive.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
I agree, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.
Why?
The people in charge of funding don't understand the problem, and they make no effort to learn about it.
Comments
That’s a point.
Anecdotally, we seem to be seeing some people here moving away from the big city permanently - people who have realized they can practically speaking do their jobs remotely most of the time and go into the office occasionally. In Ontario this would be rural places like Prince Edward County which are a few hours away from Toronto by car or car and train. Not sure how much of Appalachia falls into that category vis-a-vis urban centres, but infrastructure would be crucial.
When I was living in Dallas in the early 2000s I used to drive back and forth to Toronto once a year. Western Arkansas is beautiful, though pretty remote of course. They were re-surfacing the I-40 the first time I encountered it - a task that was clearly long overdue based on the state of the sections they hadn’t gotten to yet. (And I assume if the Interstate is bad, local highways are going to be worse...)
I'm pretty lucky for my area: on the other side of the village they're lucky to get 2Mbps.
The upgrading of our local mast to 4G was a game changer for us. We had sub 2 Mbps speeds prior to that and now get above 20 Mbps via 4G.
In no particular order:
Quite a lot of different industries, none of which “make anything” but all of which provide employment.
(My youngest just got some fancy pens for Christmas. They are made in Japan by Mitsubishi. We used to have huge firms like that who made pens, up to ships and power stations. Now we don't, and we are apparently richer. That, for me, is deeply weird.)
I’ve lived in Cornwall now for 20 years and seen it go from very depressed (one of the poorest regions in Europe) to much stronger but still precarious. Because it’s pretty and rural, and full of tourists and very wealthy second home owners, its poverty is hidden. But the pattern is the same: the loss of traditional industries (mining, farming, fishing); minimum wage, short term contract, seasonal or zero hours jobs; lack of affordable housing, lack of opportunities.
BUT also the evidence of where judicious investment can help. In that 20 years infrastructure has improved - better roads, better broadband, though rail still terrible and the airport permanently hovers on the edge of bankruptcy. Education massively improved at secondary and tertiary levels, keeping more young people here and giving them good qualifications and skills. Fishing and farming supported to produce high end product (currently unexportable, thanks Brexit). Investment in ‘dead’ ex mining towns. The gains have been huge but they remain precarious, and all the more so given that many were supported by EU priority funding. I’m very concerned what will happen now. The county voted Tory last 2 elections so very little motivation to push investment to match what’s been lost.
As for Manchester, the University of Manchester makes more money than Manchester United and Manchester City combined. The university sector is hugely wealthy, mostly due to overseas students and campuses. Of course, this past year has put a real spanner in the works there.
The UK still has lots of firms that make things - as I mentioned earlier, two of the largest manufacturers of sportswear on the planet have headquarters in Manchester. It's just that their actual factories are in other countries.
That sounds like it has some similarities and some differences from the places I tried to describe in the OP.
Tourism has its limitations as a source of income, but it's something. And lack of affordable housing may be to some extent universal, or to some extent something that Cornwall has in common with prosperous areas. But it doesn't seem like a necessary aspect of being a depressed area.
You've heard of broken windows theory ? The idea that an environment of damaged and derelict buildings that nobody seems to care about tends to encourage crime ?
Tourism is of benefit but needs balancing and managing or it become parasitic and destroys what it starts out enjoying. And it needs to respect local communities not consume them.
Am unclear what your comment on broken windows theory has to do with anything I’ve said.
These areas need long term investment, and it has to be in jobs that are year-round, not more seasonal jobs that condemn people to a hand-to-mouth existence for half the year.
The Guardian article that perhaps you saw which recently contained that stat, went on to bemoan the marketised system which has given birth to it! I’ve been around HE for 30 years, and it seems to be bad and getting worse.
Marvin said:
My industry retained its R&D in the UK for about 10 years after the production went to China (in some instances via eastern Europe). Then the R&D went too. So what we are left with are, I guess, importers of consumer electronics (and, in your example, sportswear). What disturbs me is how we add value in order to pay for it.
Yeah, but it's a utility, and you have to have it, like you have to have running water and electricity. If it's not going to pay for companies to build it, the government should. Biden's plan is to spend $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure.
Somewhat discredited, the original study can't be replicated and the original data on which it was based has been called into question.
(Talking of merde, I am aware that Giuliani advocated these idea in NY a long time ago. Even stopped clocks... etc etc).
Sometimes called the Broken Windows Theory it was also touched on by Alice Coleman.
The government of Ireland has launched a National Broadband Plan to bring broadband infrastructure to the west of Ireland. Several times... But they don't actually want to pay the money.
I agree, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. Bigger airports are also needed, but they are very expensive to build. The ground has to be levelled, and extra-long runways are needed because the planes must approach from a higher altitude.
Unfortunately, the government programs waste money training people for jobs while there is no industry to hire them.
To a point. There have been plenty of studies that confirm that, for example, people are more likely to drop garbage in a graffitied dirty-looking alley than a clean one. So damaged / derelict buildings attracting more of the same is a pretty solid thing.
It's the causal connection between damaged buildings and muggings and the like that's a bit more questionable.
Why?
The people in charge of funding don't understand the problem, and they make no effort to learn about it.