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Small towns can succeed

By Becky McCray

I was struck by some smart comments from author Jack Schultz in the Elkhart Truth newspaper.

Boomtowns need leadership and support

“At first, I thought money invested into revitalizing main streets rather than industrial development was like throwing money down a rat hole,” Schultz said. “But now many people are moving out of the big cities to escape the rat race. They want to move to small, charming towns that offer a sense of place.”

Schultz attributes the recent migration of people to the agburbs to cheaper air travel, availability of the Internet and telecommuting, deregulation of transportation, desire for a better quality of life and lower cost of living. “In the past, we thought that a small town needed to be near a highway, within 100 miles of a metropolitan area and have a four-year college to survive,” he said. “Now, successful small towns are in the middle of nowhere.”

Technorati tags: rural, small biz, Jack Schultz, boomtown

 

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
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February 23, 2006 Filed Under: rural

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