The new migration from cities to rural areas

 Kevin Cochrane:

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... People aren't escaping the poverty of subsistence agriculture to live in cities; they're doing exactly the opposite.  The giant concrete jungles of the west, the upper mid-west, and the east are witnessing a new mass migration — people are leaving town!  Is it because of crime?  Is it because of liberal politics?  Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  Not so fast!  Guess what's causing it.  Shhhh...it's economics.

Actually, it's a special kind of economics we'll call "Tech-nomics."  During the "Industrial Migration" of the late 1800s, people moved to the cities because technology created jobs.  Interchangeable parts, assembly lines, electricity, even communications created millions of opportunities to earn more money than staying on the farm hoeing chard.  People moved from rural areas to urban centers because they were paid more.

Today the reason for the opposite migration is also simple, only this time it's not about income.  It's about costs.  It's too expensive to live in cities, and technology now affords the opportunity for millions to work anywhere.  The urban areas seeing the greatest exodus are mostly those with the highest costs of living.  And perhaps the only upside to the COVID-19 epidemic is the realization by companies that people don't all have to show up daily in the same physical place to be just as productive.

Large firms like Nationwide Insurance, Hitachi, and Novartis are all embracing the idea of remote work.  These giants, along with scores of other companies big and small, are either moving most or all of their workforce online or encouraging voluntary online moves by their employees.  And the employees love it!  A recent Gallup poll found that over three fifths of all workers forced to move online because of the pandemic would prefer to stay that way forever.  More importantly, once freed from the burden of showing up at the office, these workers and their families are hightailing it out of town — migrating to the countryside.

Let's take a look at an example.  People are fleeing the San Francisco area by the tens of thousands.  Once they no longer need to toil away in nondescript cubicle farms, why would they stay in one of the most expensive places on Earth?  Housing, transportation, taxes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera — why not move your employment online and your family to, say, Boise, an emerging "Zoomtown"?

In 2019, the median household income in San Francisco was about $114,500, and the median home price was around $1.4 million.  That's a ratio of almost 11 to 1.  That same year in Idaho, the median income was $60,000, and, according to the Boise Regional Realtors, the median home price was about $360,000 — a 6 to 1 ratio.  And that assumes you retain your same job and same employer but that your salary gets cut by 50%.  True, you may have to take a small pay reduction, but not by half, and yet your housing costs will be cut by almost 400%!

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I made the move to the country a little over 20 years ago.  I used my 401K to build a house in the country and saved thousands of dollars on just the mortgage payments I had in the city.  While I probably missed out on some earning potential, I made up for it with a lower cost of living and significantly less hassle and wasted time commuting every day.  I was an early adapter to using a computer to deal with business activity.  It has not always been easy but the benefits outweigh the hassles of living in the city.