Urbanization and CV19

[bravo7]

Like any other tragedy or crisis, people with a strong opinion but weak justification for same are going to look to use the situation to try and bolster their stance. I expect the urban-hates to come out in force on this one, right up until their wife and kids are sick and they have to drive an hour to some borderline turd-world redneck hospital only to find out that their entire operation amounts to a “band-aid station” that only serves as a rest-stop for people with real health problems before moving on to an actual, urban, hospital on any normal day.

Most people have not one fucking clue how their health insurance actually works, what the inside of their nearest hospital actualy looks like, who the people that work their actually are, the quality of those people, etc.

https://apple.news/AhgUkq6gdRvS38aaGIjCClA

https://apple.news/AzJFq7u5AQWiCTd-JrLSiWA

Elitist much....

[Cookie Monster]

I live outside of a town of 1500. The county seat is 3000 and 35 minutes away.

I love the 5 acres and stream running through the property. The neighbors on our dirt road are good and we know most of them well. We got it pretty good.

Downsides off the top of my head:

Medical most others have focused on - limited or no specialists. No pediatricians, only family practice. The rocket scientists of the medical community don’t work here. We have had some issues with treatments and practices recommended to us. Mental health services are almost nonexistent.

Fire response time - the volunteer station/outpost is only 5 minutes away but Ken and Mike the only two dudes that staff that station are I don’t know how far. I estimate response time to be 30 minutes to an hour. I need to step up and help those dudes at some point

Police/Sheriff response time is probably double that depending on where they are during shift. I had one roll up to my house at 0200 with no lights or anything, just a knock on the door. In the 8 years I’ve lived here, no one has ever knocked on my door at night. When I lite up the driveway with my weapon light I saw the sheriff truck. Again probably lower quality service then some areas. But on the plus side, CCW renewal was a 5 minute process with the office producing a brand new card.

If a tree falls on my dirt road, three times in the last 8 years. I am probably the one to cut it out and open the small county road. A neighbor sometimes gets to it before me. The county is on top of the snowplowing and the snowplow brings great joy to my toddlers.

Schools - not really top achieving, surrounding culture doesn’t support education to the degree I would like. We haven’t passed a library or school levy is more than a decade. Outside educational opportunities are limited.

Getting a decent contractor around here is fucking hard. Most repairs and projects I am on my own. I had a plumber replace three toilets (which I picked up). Took me an hour and a half to clean up after him and I had to replace one valve myself after his work. I got lots of stories of negative experiences. I am also compulsive and expect professional work so some of this is on my high standards.

We drive an hour and 15 minutes for swim lessons and will probably do the same for martial arts when the time comes.

There are probably a few more but I need to move on with my day. We got good living and probably as I age will work on moving closer to the city or towns with better services.

[Wondering Beard]

Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

People, specifically, individuals and families, will remember what scared them the most during this time (whether rational or not) and will act to prepare against it in the future.
Once this is over, we can watch the real estate trends and vehicle purchase trends and then figure it out.

[psalms144.1]

I'm in a moderately sized rural county - about 140K population. We're only at 22 confirmed cases here, but I'd be willing to bet we've done less than 100 tests since this began. My concern is I don't think either of the hospitals in the county is anywhere near ready to handle a flood of ICU respiratory cases, and the nearest "big" hospitals are over an hour away in a city that has a MUCH higher rate and raw number of infections. So, while I think we're less likely to get infected, if anyone in the house needs hospital support, I think we're well behind the power curve compared to a major urban area.

I could be completely wrong, though, seeing how things are playing out in NYC.

[TAZ]

Shapiro speculated that LA's infection growth rate seems to be proportionately slower than NY & SF perhaps at least in part due to the automotive commuting. Something along the lines of, "Your PPE is your car." Both of the other cities have high use of train systems to get in and out of the city.

This. The NYC rate of infection and maybe some common sense imply that densely populated areas that are reliant on mass transit will be the hardest hit. If you must get into a bus, train or tram or whatever the flavor of the day is with piles of people simply to get groceries to keep yourself alive during a shelter in pale order, its hard to contain the spread of anything, not just the KungFlu. I wonder what the flu rate is in NYC during a normal flu season. Wager its higher than most. Its just not tracked.

What I am actually hoping for is that a LOT of industry (if you want to cll office dwelling industry) realize that employees can be just as productive working remotely as they are workin gin a cube. Maybe we can ease some of the congestion in our cities and roads and ... by simply allowing for more folks to work remotely. For a lot of folks, this can actually be the norm and appearance at an office is for special occasions. With folks working remotely, traffic around here was almost non existent even before the formal shelter in pace order was given. I'd love to see that continue, not only cause I hate traffic with a burning passion, but think of all the crap we aren't pumping out of those idling car exhausts. Not going to go all MMGW looney tunes, but that stuff just isn't good for anything or anyone.

[ranger]

I see comments about local hospital only has x beds. True. But it seems relative in some ways - if you have a city of multimillion people you better have a lot of beds. I do not think anywhere has enough beds for a pandemic. No one will pay to keep facilities at pandemic size and staffing just like we won’t support a standing military begin enough for a no kidding WW3

[StraitR]

Hmmm... suffer quietly, possibly dying of COVID in rural peace, or the same with 24 million loud people telling me to "fuggetaboutit!".

That is a tough choice. Tough choice, indeed.

[Totem Polar]

Only problem is that it would be to live with the GF's mom, who is a RN. Not excited about the prospect.

Yeah... that’s a little different than having good career option in the medical field there. Your GF’s mom and I probably know some of the sane people.

It would be a cool place to live with a doc’s income, for sure though.

[JHC]

I suspect that many companies will realize they no longer need their palace HQs and predict a negative impact on urban office space.

Boom

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...3f0_story.html

[Borderland]

Boom

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...3f0_story.html

I've seen the migration where I live. I'm 12 miles from a small town and I've been here 25 years. Now because of the virus I suspect a lot of people from the Seattle metro area will be looking to move out. Can't say I wouldn't want to do the same thing.