Ask HN: How many people on Hacker News live in rural areas?

I'm a camp host for the forest service during the summer. I use my e-bike to explore closed logging roads looking for gold. The highway into town is dangerous so I haven't used it to go shopping yet. Maybe next summer. Frankly, I'd love to live in a walkable urban area with a university and a library nearby. I'll never be able to afford that. For the winter, I live in an inexpensive house in a walkable city in Mexico. No university, no library, and no community of similar minded Yankees. It's the best I can do.

next to atlanta airport... wish I was in rural area in another state... although its nice not to have to use a car

I was born and live in Western Australia, a state almost half the land area of Australia, three times larger than Texas, with a population of ~ 2 million most of whom live in and around the one big city in the south west corner.

I grew up in the Kimberley on cattle stations, went to high school in the Pilbarra , and travelled 1,000 km to university (1980s).

I did a lot of STEM courses, built robots, remote signal aquisition instrumentation, pre Google Maps global mapping software (and data processing) travelled the world (two thirds or so of the 190+ countries) zeroing in WGS84 against old mapping systems and doing a bit of exploration geophysics.

I currently mostly live in the wheatbelt district, large farms you can shoot 5,000+ yards across (*), and live a fairly rural lifestyle - with drones, GPS controlled two storey machines, multi spectral crop imaging, etc.

(*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE

We like walking and do a bit of track maintenance (**) and prefer motorbikes over cars (***)

(**) https://www.bibbulmuntrack.org.au/

(***) https://youtu.be/mdx5xttosxY?t=124

I live in a rural area of Oregon. I was born in the Bay Area and once I had my first taste of rural life I had no desire to go back.

Loving life in the woods, 1 acre in the sticks, with gigabit fiber and squirrels. It’s peaceful and productive.

Grew up in a rural area but have lived in many places now including cities and suburbs.

Totally agree with your point though: a large segment of the car hatred movement types strike me as lacking significant perspective.

I spent 53 years in a big city, and finally moved to a rural area. Tired of all the commotion, congestion, pollution and stress, and watch wild blackberries, strawberries, mushrooms grow, trees and flowers blossom, orchard bloom and give fruit, pheasants and deer entering the property and observing natures life cycle. My wife although hesitant is now peaceful with life. And I’m an embedded software developer, do Haiku OS and robotics for fun. My lifestyle is 8 hours professional work (from home), and on average an hour a day looking after the estate. And an hour each evening sitting on the veranda with a glass if wine watching the sunset. And this costs me 50% of a cramped appartment in the city.

And at this moment at the airport waiting for takeoff for a business meeting.

One large aspect common among rural folks is knowing when to keep your head down and not draw attention to yourself against the hive mind.

The rurals are here but you have to be quiet to notice them.

(The majority of the rurals are considered urban by the US census, btw.)

There are more than a few - there just aren't as many opportunities to talk about it in the context of tech news as compared to city or suburban living.

We’re busy keeping the well pumps running, ordering propane when the generator kicks in after power lines fail, cleaning up tree limbs (and trees) that fell in the winter storms.

Other than that, it’s a dilemma. I have a spectacular view, living on a ridge, but except for the gas station/quicky mart, everything “a.k.a. Downtown” is 12 miles away and all the stores not named hardware stores are 50 miles away. So are colleges

DSL internet is the best you can get here. There’s one hospital in town, whose board is just short of fistfights at meetings.

Just have a toolkit handy for when something lets loose in a winter storm, and an evacuation kit ready at all times in case of wildfire. And don’t try to grow roses, because they are candy to deer. You need a 7 foot high fence to keep them out.

Civilization has its advantages.

I don't see why I would bring that up in a post about electric bicycles and walkable cities. No idea how I would "support" it.

Innovations (overall) are created and (very intensely) diffused from cities. I also love in a rural area, but my lifestyle is not different of what I did earlier in a city. Really honest question: how can you keep a rural lifestyle with a nowadays job?

Edit: I am in Europe.

People here seem to love cities; I lived in some of the biggest and smallest ones and I never liked them; noise, pollution, nasty people. Can’t see what the attraction is. So I live rural for most of my life. The easiest plus thing is the talk of people how expensive urban housing and life is ; not here; it’s cheap. If you work in IT you can retire in your 20s/early 30s if you want. Cannot see how the ‘comforts’ of a city can ever beat that freedom.

I used to drive the Case to the Rural King every so often. While it was fun trolling the suburbanites heading to work during rush hour by going 25 mph in a large piece of farm machinery that they couldn't run off the road, I ultimately got a city job, so I gave the rural life up and haven't really looked back.

Miss carding my own wool and spinning my own yarn though. That was nice and meditative.

I think the major reason why you don't see support for rural living as often (or, as you noted, at all) is, well, the people who want walkable cities and bicycle infrastructure are the folks for whom economic opportunity is predicated on being close to the city. As it turns out, that's where the majority of industry happens to be.

It also turns out that cars are annoying when going slow and steady to get someplace (and enjoy the moment all the while) is just as fine.

(Is that truly why I used to abuse my old Case that way? Maybe!)

This really depends on your tolerance for people.

If you are young, cities can be great for social life. I used to live right outside of DC after college and it was great when the important things in life were enjoying social gatherings and meeting girls.

Now that Im much older, I prefer seclusion because I don't really care that much for making new friends, and on the flipside I don't have to deal with idiots who inconvenience people around them because of careless, negligence, or stupidity.

I do - there's a datapoint for ya.

Projects take a bit longer as there's no Fry's or Radio Shack around the corner. You tend to stock more things on hand, and Amazon Prime is a godsend. Cars are still a thing, and you have to drive them yourself! I wave to neighbours when I pass them. Look up at night and there's lots of twinkling lights in the sky which aren't Starlink trains.

Aside from that it's just like city life.

I live rurally in Canterbury, New Zealand, but I'm only 25 minutes away from Christchurch CBD.

I've lived far more rurally in the past, long commutes down metal roads with the occasional ford, septic tanks, private water schemes supplying algae-green water from rivers that rise in the front ranges, Internet via microwave or satellite or... ...dial-up giving 2KiB/s if you're lucky, electric fences often lowered the bit rate on copper.

I'm not sure why you think a rural lifestyle needs supportive comments. It's, after all, a choice we make, because we're privileged enough to be able to.

I guess you can call Dausa, Rajasthan as rural compared to the rest of the first world.

Rural is actually a perspective. I live in a "town" of 23.000 people. I am Dutch and I do not live in a large city. Amsterdam is the nearest city for me and that is 65 Km away. It's one hour by train and 45 minutes by car. Every time someone asks we where I live they never heard of my town as it is insignificant. 4 Km from my town is a slightly smaller town called Enkhuizen and it more known so I always reply that it is near Enkhuizen.

BUT: Even though this sounds big: I do not have access to Greenwheels (car ride sharing service) this is only available in big cities. Specialty shop that promote more green, no plastic and healthy stuff: big cities not in my town.

I live in a small, relatively rural farming community in central Maine. Electric bikes would be great but I wouldn’t trust drivers on country roads to be aware of them. Otherwise, it’s been amazing and I could never go back to the sprawling suburbs or cities.

I live in a suburb of a city in Australia but it is a rural inland city. I can walk to farmland from where I live.

What is the real question here (if there is one). Where one lives, just like everything else has trade offs. And like most (but not all) trade offs the value or the opportunity cost is relative to the individual incurring it. Generally speaking people go where the economic opportunities are because today you need to be a part of the economy to survive. This increases your dependence on things and people. Life in a rural area decreases your dependence on things relatively speaking. Also which stage of your life you are in changes the cost equation. If you have kids you may be someone who doesn’t want their children growing up in a podunk town with few resources. However the opposite could be true for some people where they prefer a smaller idyllic environment compared to a “commoditized” city /urban environment. There is no right or wrong here but where you feel more safe / content. And for most people that is an urban/city or suburban environment. Rural living is definitely on the edges there.

I live in small town India. Was born and brought up here. Population: ~30k. This is made possible by WFH since Covid-19.

Nearest megacity Kolkata (Calcutta) is ~140 km away. ~3.5h by car or train. We visit the city for any serious enough health issues or big shopping events or to catch flights.

My town is historical and extremely old (mentions in literature go back 600 years or more). It is very walkable. Everything is some minutes away. Fresh organic vegetables, fish, and meat available in the market 5 minutes away. The High School I went to was 15 minutes away (using bicycles).

We have a ~100 cc motorbike (50 kmpl or 117 mi/gallon) and bicycles that we ride. For family, we hire fully electric tuktuks [0]. Very cheap and environment friendly.

Very calm town with non-existent crime. Can get reliable broadband up to 250 MBPS. Amazon does 1 and 2 day deliveries. (I cannot imagine living here without ecommerce and internet)

Big fan of this lifestyle. Can comfortably afford a car but we don't own one because we don't need one.

Lived in Kolkata before. Everything was so far away. Had to spend money to get anywhere. Spent too much time in commute to everywhere. And the amount of money you save by living here adds up. My father also lived in the same house, as did my grandfather.

[0]: https://assets.telegraphindia.com/telegraph/02metanup4.jpg

I live in a small rural town in the UK (Charlbury, Oxfordshire: population 3000). It’s incredibly walkable, we have a direct train to the nearest city (and on to London), and I have an electric bike for longer trips not served by the rail line.

These places do exist - you just have to hunt them out.