Small Town USA Competing With India

William Hood writes "According to a news article at ABC, companies are sometimes opting to outsource to rural USA rather than foreign countries. Although it still achieves the same result of lowering the value of a job, I think the idea of moving to a larger house that costs less in a town with no traffic is a much better option than flying to Bangalore to train your replacement." From the article: "Sebeka is 14 miles from the closest traffic light, hours from the nearest Starbucks coffee shop and a far cry from the Chicago suburb he left. 'There is no traffic,' said technical consultant Clayton Seal, who also works in Sebeka. 'Anytime, day or night, you can cross Main Street -- almost don't have to look 'cause there's nobody there.' Seal also lost his job to outsourcing."

Comments

Get a clue about what "rural" is - and isn't

[gregwbrooks]

God, I love it when people talk about all the horrors of moving to scary, unconnected "rural" America.

A few data points from Plattsburg, Missouri (pop. 2,375), where I call home... based on what I can tell (and I've lived in Chicago and SoCal, as well as other rural areas) these data points could be duplicated in many areas:

• Wages are lower, but the variance in housing prices and other cost-of-living items far outstrips the wage differential. The wage thing doesn't faze me because I'm self employed and, before that, I drove into Kansas City (higher wages) for work. Still, it shows up in a lot of small ways, like the fact that it's cheaper to get your car fixed or your air conditioning unit installed. Housing, on the other hand, is a shocker for anyone who isn't used to these sorts of prices. I paid $145k for a fully restored Victorian painted lady; there are small-but-cute houses in town for about $80-90k and I think the nicest Victorian on the market right now is about $225k. Compare that with the metro market of your choice.

• "Rural" doesn't mean "no access to a major metro area. I'm 35 miles (and 35 minutes - there is no traffic) from the Kansas City metro area.

• No crime and good schools. 'Nuff said.

• Yes, Virginia, there is connectivity in the boonies. You just have to shop for it. We had to have DSL and we had to have it with a provider that wouldn't get its corporate panties in a twist if we wanted to run mail and web servers. It wasn't that hard to find.

• One downside: The housing market isn't very liquid. A house put on the market in my town will take about six months to sell. That number is trending down as people discover the area, but it's still a far cry from the sell-it-in-a-weekend character of a hot metro market.

• Another downside: Less access to fast food. We don't have any fast food in town -- the closest is about 13 miles (and 13 minutes!) away. On the upside, I've dropped 20 lbs. since I moved there. ;)

Re:Larger house on smaller salary, huh?

[b0s0z0ku]

There's always other friends, and besides, children would probably be better served growing up in a rural area vice a city, with all the problems that they come with.

Not necessarily:
* City magnet schools are some of the best, if your kid is smart and can get in
* Rural areas have their social problems, too, often more so than cities (witness the recent problems with crystal meth in the Midwest and West)
* Kids can actually *walk* in cities with less of a risk of being hit by a car (counterintuitive, but cities have sidewalks and traffic doesn't move that fast). Not to mention that there are interesting places to go to within walking distance. I see a lot more 10-12 y.o. kids out walking on their own in NYC than in any rural area
* Gangs are still a problem in "rural" areas. Look at some parts of New Mexico for an example of this.
* Don't think that rural areas aren't polluted. Pesticide runoff and industrial pollution (like from mining and coal burning powerplants) is more of a problem than one would like to think.

Cheers,
-b.