Are essential services becoming less common in rural areas?

[Cash]

My MIL died recently -- it wasn't unexpected -- and we were talking with some relatives in rural northeastern Nebraska who mentioned that their small town now has only one gas station. The next gas station is 12 miles away. Their last physician retired last summer and sold his practice to a clinic in a small city 30 miles away. Their post office has cut its hours and may merge with the p.o. the next town over.

Their town has lost perhaps 5-8 percent of its population in the past 25 years -- even the nearest "big city," Norfolk, has stopped growing and has seen its population level off in recent years -- but locally-sourced essential services are steadily shrinking or disappearing altogether. They complain that state and county road maintenance has declined, that sheriff's deputies take half an hour or more to respond, and that even cable TV service seems to be down more than anyone can recall.

Have any of you noticed similar trends in your area? Here in Maine, health care and government services have steadily withdrawn into the larger urban areas, requiring rural folk to either drive long distances or move to find the services they need.

[Callieslamb]

It takes customers to make money. Businesses, even doctors, have to make money to stay open. They go where the customers are.

[farmerDale]

It is not a new trend at all. It has been going on since settlement. As farms get bigger, and fewer wish to farm, services get cut, stores close, and we become more like the Aussie outback.

When I was a kid in 1980, our close tiny village had a John Deere dealer, hotel, post office, two grocers, a general store, a school, two banks three grain elevators.

There were sports teams, dance clubs, 4H clubs, curling teams, hockey teams, football teams, baseball teams.

Now the village has a post office. Which is slated to close at some point.

Back when farms were a quarter or three, there were lots of people to sustain a small center.

But now, with farms being 20-30-60 quarters of land, there are hardly enough families to keep the post office open...

I would like to think the trend will stop, but unless more people suddenly start farming and buying out the big guys, I do not see it going away.

It is a shame. A sad, lonely, desperate, and painful shame...The only good thing, is that I love the lack of people, neighbors, and the free space. But I am not a people person really.

[Terri in WV]

I don't see it as a trend, but more as a choice. One can't have "big city" conveniences living a rural lifestyle.

I've just recently moved to a town(and I use that term loosely) that has an interesting history. It was basically a company town, started in the early 1900s. At one time it had a movie house, grocery store, bowling alley, restaurants and the whole shebang, but as the coal dried up, so did the town.

The closest gas station is 11 miles away, grocery store, doctors and everything else is 20+ miles. The post office is right across the street from my house and is opened a whole 2 hours a day. It took me three calls to the phone company to convince them that they serviced this area. It took me several months to find the gas company that provides service(the realtor gave me the wrong co). Trying to find someone to do some needed repairs was a nightmare and trying to get insurance on the place was one also. Not every property is within 5 miles of a fire department.

I'll take the lack of conveniences over being surrounded by lots of people any day of the week.

[where I want to]

This is also change wrought by changing quality of rural life. Rural places always had poor folk who were not successful but also had hard working people producing goods for the cities.

Now rural areas have a much higher proportion of unsuccessful people while the return on the hard work of the productive has been reduced or eliminated.

We used to have a thriving forest products industry with good periphery jobs, a good fishery with related jobs. We produced product. Now we are chock full of people who got their money in the city and moved here with their accumulated wealth, people on welfare who tried to leave the ugliness of their world in the city and moved here to find a cheaper cost of living and government-social service jobs funded by the remaining big city taxpayers.

Not a place for those who still want to earn a living to find it.

[Bellyman]

There is a little town, pretty much in the middle of the sticks, of south central Kentucky. It's a pretty area and dotted with farms but very light population. I have driven through a few dozen times, enough to be fairly familiar with the road running through.

Interestingly, I have never driven down that road (maybe 40 miles or so) when there hasn't been at least 3 or 4 LEO vehicles either parked along the road waiting, following me or passing me going the other way, almost always at least one of them being a state trooper.

I haven't had any issue with any of them, except maybe one of them that tailgated me for a while one day, acting like he was waiting for me to do something stupid or to speed, which I refused to do.

But I found it curious that such a small place on the map with apparently so few people would be crawling with LEO agents. And this isn't an isolated time, it's been over the course of maybe 3 years. And it's every time I drive through.

Curious.

[soulsurvivor]

Bellyman, you're not from around here are you? I say that in humor and with good will toward you so please don't take it the wrong way, but most Ky natives know that if there's an ongoing gathering of LEOs, it's a sure sign that they're staking out suspected drug operations, either pot or meth, or anything else I don't care to know about. I'll leave the LEOs to do what they do best and keep on moving on. Certain areas of Ky rural countryside have long histories of illegal pursuits, such as the county I live in which is also known as home to the Cornbread Mafia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornbread_mafia

[FarmboyBill]

Our only store/station got caught selling drugs out the back door. There slated to close in Feb. Next gas and store is either 14 miles 3 diferent towns.

[Bellyman]

Originally Posted by soulsurvivor

Bellyman, you're not from around here are you? I say that in humor and with good will toward you so please don't take it the wrong way, but most Ky natives know that if there's an ongoing gathering of LEOs, it's a sure sign that they're staking out suspected drug operations, either pot or meth, or anything else I don't care to know about. I'll leave the LEOs to do what they do best and keep on moving on. Certain areas of Ky rural countryside have long histories of illegal pursuits, such as the county I live in which is also known as home to the Cornbread Mafia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornbread_mafia

No offense taken, and no, I'm really not from around there.

The thought did occur to me that there must be a reason why they're out there. Guess that was pretty close.

I have no clue on some stuff. I've had pretty much zero exposure to drugs, even alcohol, have no idea how stuff is grown or made. In a way, I feel a little vulnerable in that regard because I probably don't always know how to steer clear of possible warnings signs that that stuff is nearby. Don't want to be anywhere around in places where I could be mistaken for someone doing something I'm not.

[Jolly]

Don't forget, families are getting smaller.

I agree with the fact that there are less farmers, but the farmers that are left have less kids.

[big rockpile]

Me and my wife was driving through a Hunting Area the other day. A Guy looked like he was lost so we stopped.

He asked where a Town was? We explained he was only about a mile from it, which was only one abandoned building.

He explained he had just bought property in the area and thought there was an actual town.

We now live in a to us pretty good size town. 15,000 people. Thing is we are far enough from major cities that town tries to provide all everyones needs.

Where our Cabin is population in Winter is around 3,000 but during Summer with Tourist it grows by many thousands, the Town try's to keep up with their needs.

big rockpile

[AmericanStand]

There are fewer people and business now need even MORE to make it. Its a bad intersection!

[ET1 SS]

My township has never had cable service.

We have a cellphone repeater tower, but that is because our town straddles the interstate. As you move away from the interstate most towns in this state do not have cellphone towers.

Most parcels of land in my town do not have access to power lines. Our power lines only run along our one paved road, and not all of our road has power line on it.

The sheriff deputy drives through our town once/week. No need for him any more than that. If you have a problem, he can check by next week.


Is it getting 'worse' ? I have no idea.

'Agenda-21' may be at fault if it is.

[unregistered168043]

Personally, there aren't any services that others provide me that are "essential" to my life. I enjoy the internet connection and the convenience it provides me but I wouldn't consider it 'essential'.

As far as some of the other "essential services" listed by OP,

1. Police can never get out to most places fast enough to make a difference, thats why I'm armed and trained. All they can usually ever do is take a report of the incident after the fact ( and collect fines from hardworking motorists ). I say get rid of 70% of them and replace them with a court system that recognizes an individuals right to protect life and property.

2. Post office. Barely useful anymore thanks to fed ex, ups, and email/internet use. They've cut back to 3 days a week here and I barely noticed.

3. Hospitals. Both my wife and I are trained first responders. We are extremely healthy and take no medications.

4. Roads. We drive 4 wheel drive trucks. We dont need no stinking roads!

5. Gas. Our nearest is 18 miles away. Its not a big deal we just fill up and keep backup at home.

[Jlynnp]

We live right in the corner where 3 counties meet, we are in one county and the neighbors to either side of us are in another county. As for the Police well maybe when someone can figure out which county needs to respond someone will but just to be sure you better be prepared to handle it yourself. One of the local Sherriff's told us to remember what happens on the mountain stays on the mountain. The State Trooper told us that if you call the police given enough time all 3 counties and the Sate will show up. As for fire LOL!!! We are within 5 miles of 2 volunteer departments. None of which cover us because we are in a different county, in fact our former homeowners ins refused to insure us because we are so far away from the right fire dept. It will take them about an hour to get here. Many years ago an older man lived in a cabin back down a logging road which comes off our road. His cabin caught fire - none of the fire depts. could or would respond they were all fighting over who was the proper dept to respond. Of course he died in the fire and 3 days later when the decision was finally made the coroner retrieved his body. We do have one top notch hospital about an hour away which is great as long as you do not need an ambulance because it will take them over an hour to get here.

We love living out here but you do need to realize that help is not next door.

[FarmboyBill]

Here you can pay an amount once a year to have the fire wagon come out. Last time I paid it was 3yrs ago and it was $75. IF you don't do this and call them, its $500 for them to come out. I would think you could do that with the departments in your area.

[jbo9]

Rural populations have dropped because of switching from horse to tractor to bigger tractors. Grain elevators and shipping points have done the same thing, as wagons have been replaced with trucks and now semis.

So what's going to happen when no-till farming and GPS systems reduce the number of farmers needed even more? In my area, more and more of the planting and drilling are being done by a few custom farmers. When this area was homesteaded, there was a family on every quarter section. Now there is seldom a family per every two sections. How far will a couple of semis run with reasonable turn-around times during harvest, so that there is no need for a town every 20 or 30 miles?

One of the only things the place I live has going for it is that it is the furthest point on the rail for a unit train. Lots of grain from within a 75 mile radius gets hauled here to get on the train. But the train has to be backed 25 miles down the track at 20 miles an hour empty in order to get here...for how much longer?

[reubenT]

only for as long as grain hauling fees will pay for track maintenance and such. Money rules.

Our little county seat had a ford truck dealer once upon a time, and a general store that carried everything a small community might want. It can't support a hardware store or car parts store now. Both have been attempted and closed. Business has moved out and roads have improved so most of the inhabitants work and shop elsewhere. The old general store gradually transitioned into a modern gas station and convenience store. And recently was sold to an indian (from India) after the owner passed away.

The way everything has gone has created an exceedingly vulnerable society, the least upset in supply or shipping could create a disaster. They say there's only 3 days worth of food between people's houses and the grocery store. Beyond that it's all being shipped. Very little left in the way of local food production and trade in most places in the USA. At least very little compared to the population and their appetite.

[TheMartianChick]

When I was a kid, my small town had already lost the only dentist and funeral director to old age. The post office was located in the home of the postmistress/postmaster. The general store had a couple of gas pumps. There was a local tavern and a mom and pop-type horse farm.

Today, only the tavern and the horse farm remain. The horse farm has grown enormously and now houses a university equestrian team. The tavern has a few steady drinkers to keep it in business.

[kasilofhome]

Seems like since we have gone with out services we are improving in that way.....might even get cell phone, tv someday. We got a road last year that is safe to drive on year round.