[fintstone]

Originally Posted by jyl

Restoring infrastructure is always going to be by priority order. Obviously a major road is going to get repaired before a minor road, and a dirt road that serves a few homes is going to be last.

On the “hollowing out” of that area, and countless other rural areas, what exactly is the solution? What will cause a company to locate a factory, logistics facility, semiconductor fab, data center, etc there?

Unless someone can solve that puzzle, the area had to play the cards it was been dealt. Natural beauty, cute old town, artists, brewers - what’s the best hand you can make from that? Desirable tourist and affluent retirement and college town seem pretty logical.

I don’t know if those are still the cards, or if some of them are gone and not coming back. That’s kind of what I’m trying to ask in this thread.

As noted earlier, hundreds of roads are out, not just dirt roads. We diverged into dirt roads (that serve quite a few homes) because we were discussing your second question (infrastructure). Of course, no one will relocate industry to a place where there is no infrastructure.

It seems to me that each tax-paying citizen in a county/state deserve equal consideration in having the state/county-maintained road to their home/property to be maintained. The dirt roads should have been paved decades ago just as other folks' roads.

You make it sound like the bush country in Africa where wealthy people from the outside come to spend money to see the wildlife and gawk at uncivilized natives in tents. Liberal Arts college students and social security retirees (with the proceeds from their expensive home sold elsewhere) bring nothing but higher prices for locals that do not share in the hotel/restaurant/tourist profits. The competition for goods and services (and particularly homes) simply prices them out further. As noted with the critique earlier, a college that taught something that could be used for a decent salary would go a long way to help...but the city/county/state government lauded here simply do not make choices like that.

The road to the rich guy's house should have no priority over the road to the poor guy's home. It should be a priority for everyone to be able to get to/from their home (as well as fire trucks, police, ambulances, etc.). Not just the monied few. We are not talking major roads/Interstates here. They serve everyone.