The only reason I even live within commuting distance of a large city is because that's where the only good-paying tech jobs are. If I had been a, say, banker or a mechanic or a plumber I'd be able to work in any town in the country, but no, dumb me had to become a computer programmer.

If I could participate in this career/industry from a smaller town, you bet your butt I'd do it in a second.

Do you realize that ours is one of the few jobs that can be conducted entirely remotely? Perhaps the remote-work train is destined to derail at some point in the future, but at the moment it's totally possible to find work that lets you live anywhere there's available internet.

Is it really? I see this written on HN all the time, but of everyone I know who tried to find a remote job failed.

The people who ended up working remotely are the ones who worked in the office for many years and gained the trust of their employer. Then when the family moved (usually due to a spouse changing jobs) the employer decided to let them work remotely rather than letting them go, at least in the near term.

> The people who ended up working remotely are the ones who worked in the office for many years and gained the trust of their employer.

Well yes pretty much this. I worked for a year on-premises before switching to remote, and I can imagine it's harder to find remote work from the get-go.

I've had many remote jobs (including current). Another option is to start as a (remote) freelancer / consultant and transition to normal full-time while remaining remote.

Our company works almost entirely remotely.

Yes; but I don't want to work remotely. I want to work in an office with colleagues. I just don't want to have to commute to the center of a large city to do it.

My father was a school board administrator. He was able to make good money, work in an office with colleagues, and still had the ability to live in practically every town in the US. School boards are everywhere. Tech companies are only in the largest cities.

It's really frustrating.

I'd say that cuts both ways, as a latte-sipping godless liberal etc.

Yeah, but we don't control the media. There is not a national news station showing what's important to the middle states.

I noticed that, particularly about the New York Times. Periodically they'll have a piece about something in the South and it's always about the stereotypical slack-jawed yokel who's trying to marry his sister, or is living in a dirt hut but has 5000 guns, or a preacher who preaches black people are the descendants of Cain, or some such. It's like people in New York can't start their day without feeling superior to someone else.

There is a big one, called FOX.

That would be the stereotypical wrong answer.

The people who Fox News caters to the most are suburbanites. Most people way out here are lukewarm on Fox News. They're just... different. They agree with some things that I imagine would be popular in big coastal cities, but disagree with other things that might surprise you, so.

ummm... not really.

Fox News Network, LLC 1211 Avenue Of The Americas New York, NY 10036

That's its location.

The question was whether there's a network "showing what's important to the middle states".

(Which I interpret as "important related to their views on laws, life, politics, ethics, etc", not as "related to regional news").

FOX is targeted at McMansion owners.

And country bumpkins despise townies... so everyone hates everyone! Let's just get that out there :)

Sure, but I'd wager that the rural folk would be fine if all the city dwellers disappeared, and that the opposite is not true.

> Sure, but I'd wager that the rural folk would be fine if all the city dwellers disappeared, and that the opposite is not true.

As much as I like rural folks and like to spend time with them (and despise folks who look down on them), the farmer is just as reliant on the financiers who ensure a steady cash flow for the multinational which delivers him his fertiliser, his fuel, the parts for his tractor, his clothes, his food &c. &c. &c.

We're all interconnected.

Food wise maybe.

But do you think your medicine, qualified doctors, medical equipment, internet, computers you use, movies and tv series you watch, trucks you drive and tons of other things besides grow on trees?

(Not to mention farming subsidies)

Cities really, truly, do not have a monopoly on the production of those things.

Cities really, truly, have historically predominantly invented, produced and designed those things (including designing and paying for the factories seemingly in the country).

Not many medicine schools, pharma corps, research labs, car manufactures, tech companies, tv and movie studios, etc operating out of rural Idaho, or South Dakota, or Alabama, or what have you...

You do understand that cities build up around industry, right?

Historically speaking, they generally do. See forex Jane Jacobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#The_Economy_of_Cit...

Those things are all related to quality of life vs. life itself.

In the United States, if the "city dwellers" all disappeared, the "rural folk" would go from barely getting by despite being heavily subsidized by everyone else to some kind of devolved state that looked like an Amish version of The Road Warrior.

If the opposite happened, urban areas would buy their food somewhere else and eventually save some money thanks to the increased competition in the market and the lack of agricultural subsidies, not to mention all the other ways we subsidize rural America's inefficiencies.

If you want to go back to subsistence farming, sure. The world is filled with places like that. Don't forget that your machinery is largely designed and built in urban environments. Don't forget that your serious medical care comes from urban environments. And, most importantly, don't forget that your customers largely come from urban environments. If the cities went away, so do your clients and your manufacturing and transportation sources. So, back to subsistence living for you...

I grew up in the city and spent summers on my uncle's farm and have seen both sides. Gods, I am tired of this fucking stupid rural vs urban debate. They need each other, and can't exist in a modern world without each other. Move to the countryside and I hear stereotypes about how shit the people in the city are. Move back to the city and hear stereotypes about how shit the people in the country are. Both sets of stereotypes are largely wrong. Likewise, the people whose jobs straddle both urban and rural environments are not the people who use these stereotypes.