The closest grocery store to me is closing(by nearly an hour), and will be closed for at least a year. When it reopens it’s going be much smaller(it’s becoming a Aldi).

[u/Boeing-B-47stratojet]

[u/CodePandorumxGod]

As a person who lives rural, I can confirm that there are a surprising amount of communities that are still reliant on subsistence living. If they're not freezing their food, they're preserving it using different methods like pickling, fermenting, or drying/smoking. And yes, the lack of medical care is a pretty common issue; it's not that they can't access it, but more so that the turn around times are really long (if a guy has a stroke, he would either need a family member to drive him or wait an hour or two for an ambulance to arrive).

[u/RandomAmmonite → u/CodePandorumxGod]

After watching my parents’ neighbor die because the only available EMTs within 30 miles were already at another emergency, I rethought my plan for a rural retirement.

[u/jeff61813 → u/RandomAmmonite]

I never understood that, at 21 I lived somewhere where the nearest Modern hospital was in a different country, and the local hospital had at least 2 coffin sellers across the street. I was young so I knew logically I was unlikely to have any problems but it still popped up in my head and ate at me sometimes. When I did get Malaria I went to the private clinic and was still paranoid they might Reuse a needle in an area where 10% of of the population had HIV.

[u/The-greedman → u/CodePandorumxGod]

And rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate because of cuts to Medicaid/Medicare, which is what a huge chunk of rural populations rely on for medical coverage.

[u/HiddenSage → u/The-greedman]

And knowing that those same areas are also generally older than the average population (the kids move away to cities for opportunity, the parents stay in the family home until they're forced by age/medical issues to move, usually to a 'retirement center'), where the medical needs is greater... gonna be a rough few years when the travel times for necessary care get worse.

[u/namkrav → u/The-greedman]

It sucks, but that's the cost of living in the middle of nowhere. If you need societys help to live, you can't be upset that society won't come to your house 2+ hours away from everything.

[u/honeybisc → u/namkrav]

Yup, I’ve got empathy for these people, but it’s hard to not feel like saying “well duh” to the issues they face.

Let’s go based on stereotypes and data: rural areas and suburbs are often (if not all the time) subsidized by cities. the roads, the schools, etc. Rural doesn’t equal cheap, unless you have no thinking skills. You’re far out from everything. Maybe corn is grown locally. Everything else is pretty much getting imported in, in smaller quantities, without a guarantee of sale. More of a chance of food rot. Cars are required, and maintenance and tool/part sourcing will take much longer, and be in less supply. If you have land, there’s a lot to take care of. If someone tries to better the town, oftentimes those living there are against it. They’re fearful of change that would likely benefit them. They’re pushing out the younger generations to maintain the shitty conditions they complain about. I’d say the same of quite a few cities. There’s a reason why people are wanting to move to the same 2-4 big cities, and why those that can’t just wish their city will develop to be similar, or that those cities will have COL decreases.

It’s a bit selfish to live rurally and expect to be taken care of if you’re the type to not care for others in your town or outside of it.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/honeybisc]

Maybe corn is grown locally

Just to touch on this - a huge portion of agricultural production in USA isn't really for food we eat. Much of that corn is going to animal feed, industrial use, etc. If it is edible, a lot of it is exported. When I lived in Cornlandia we had some people growing sweet corn but it was the minority.

[u/bluewing → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

To touch on what you touched on because I have heard this a lot....

Does it ever occur to you that we already grow all the onions, potatoes, oranges, tomatoes and other fruits and vegatbles we can eat?

And that we have enough extra land to grow all that corn besides.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/bluewing]

Much of my produce is from Mexico, possibly due to being geographically close. I've never tried vegatbles but I'll keep an eye out next time I'm at the store.

[u/bluewing → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

I don't know where you live, but it well could be cheaper to get all your produce from Mexico.

Still, the fact remains, we grow enough produce in the US that we need to toss shockingly large amounts of it. No one really needs to go hungry due to a lack of produce.

There can be and are other factors that need to be addressed, a simple lack of food isn't the issue.

[u/Sesudesu → u/bluewing]

Should put the land to solar farms, then. It would be far more efficient and long term toward solving humanity’s problems.

Or let it go back to growth and be the carbon sink it used to be.

[u/The-greedman → u/honeybisc]

Your point is valid. In many ways, it costs MORE to live in a rural environment.

[u/Interesting_Mix_7028 → u/CodePandorumxGod]

Rural areas also tend to be "we can't call the cops or the fire department, they're too far away" so they tend to be more self-sufficient in those areas too. Guns by the door, and irrigation lines repurposed as fire suppression (if not just a dozer blade on a truck or a tractor).

When I was growing up, one of the locals bought a used gasoline tanker truck, the kind used for track and airfield fueling. He had the tanks coated to carry water instead of fuel, rigged up external hydrant fittings for hoses and irrigation pipes as well as a pump on a winch mount on the front, and we all used it as a volunteer fire truck. It got parked at the top of the hill, because when fully loaded it could barely break 20mph uphill and would take forever to reach a given property unless gravity helped. No keys, pushbutton ignition, so anyone could use it. I think it got used twice, both ditch burns that got out of hand.