Let’s unpack this briefly, as someone who grew up in a town that has a listed population of 700 on its Wikipedia page.

1. Yes, homes and land can be cheap in rural areas. But maintenance is infinitely higher.
2. Farm equipment is very expensive. 1/x https://twitter.com/bethbourdon/status/1300484287330910209

3. Rural areas often still have either septic systems/wells for water, which is also much more complicated than paying a water bill. Especially with livestock.
4. Livestock are not pets. They use up ungodly amounts of water and food. They get sick and die. Vet bills suck.
2/x

5. Oftentimes, there’s no broadband available to rural areas. Satellite internet suuuucks. If you depend on shipping/receiving for your small business, you will probably wait much longer now thanks to the USPS gutting. You often can’t work from home.
3/x

6. The schools in rural areas are a tossup. Your kids could end up in the best elementary school ever (I did.) But there’s oftentimes only one middle school and one high school. Teen dropout and pregnancy rates are high. And there’s no local charter or private options.
4/x

7. Drugs and alcoholism are a serious problem for rural counties. You can see that anywhere from the Native American reservations down to the central Kentucky counties I grew up in and near. My stepfather went to jail for dealing meth when I was in high school. I lived this.
5/x

8. Once your kids make it to high school, that high school is going to be hard-pressed to get them ready for college. My high school offered a fraction of the AP classes that were offered one county over. And my drive to school was already thirty minutes one way.
6/x

9. Farming is an awful way to make a living. You will experience loss. You will invest everything into your stock and you can lose it all. My grandparents had to liquidate their farm to pay medical bills. My papaw worked until very soon before he died at 80 years old.

7/x

10. The racism, homophobia, and general distrust of outsiders is real. I heard stories about sundown towns as a kid in the 1980s and 1990s. That billboard shown in the first episode of Lovecraft Country? That was word for word my lived experience as a child. It was awful.

8/x

I had one of those outdoorsy childhoods that this person wants to romanticize. I had horses and dogs and cats and chickens. I also had hunger and abject poverty nipping at my heels. I had ignorance and sexism and abuse as my companions. My lived experience is valid, too.
9/x

How would it have been different for me if I had grown up in the suburbs or city? I’m not sure. Being from the lower working class is a shared inheritance that feels very bleak and crushing. But giving my kids options is important to me. And a rural life can’t do that.

10/10