The End of Telecommuting II
With rural real estate markets so booming, how can I be proposing a coming re-de-population? Well, one answer is that these real estate markets are not booming with new migrants. They're booming with second-home owners. And if/when the bubble bursts, those folks are going to sell.
Now, I could be wrong. I wish I knew how to measure this statistically. But I'm intrigued by the fact that my favorite technologist, Steven Johnson, is thinking along similar lines in this Discover Magazine article. The Internet, he says, first benefited rural areas, because it provided items and services previously available only in cities. But that pendulum is swinging: the real benefit of cities is the concentration of interesting people, and the Internet is starting to enhance that as well.
It makes a lot of sense to me, because it parallels a previous pendulum swing. When the Internet was first invented, it benefited non-corporate types. Remember how it was going to change the world because everyone had access to information, everything was free, there was no way a big corporation would benefit? Well, eventually big corporations found ways to benefit, and the pendulum swung back.
For hundreds of years most (granted: not all, but most) people have preferred organizing themselves into large cities and corporations. I suspect that despite occasional blips in the other direction, that big picture is unlikely to change. Though there will continue to be some people who make their living in urban areas but live in rural areas, in coming years their numbers will dwindle.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
Now, I could be wrong. I wish I knew how to measure this statistically. But I'm intrigued by the fact that my favorite technologist, Steven Johnson, is thinking along similar lines in this Discover Magazine article. The Internet, he says, first benefited rural areas, because it provided items and services previously available only in cities. But that pendulum is swinging: the real benefit of cities is the concentration of interesting people, and the Internet is starting to enhance that as well.
It makes a lot of sense to me, because it parallels a previous pendulum swing. When the Internet was first invented, it benefited non-corporate types. Remember how it was going to change the world because everyone had access to information, everything was free, there was no way a big corporation would benefit? Well, eventually big corporations found ways to benefit, and the pendulum swung back.
For hundreds of years most (granted: not all, but most) people have preferred organizing themselves into large cities and corporations. I suspect that despite occasional blips in the other direction, that big picture is unlikely to change. Though there will continue to be some people who make their living in urban areas but live in rural areas, in coming years their numbers will dwindle.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
