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.”
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