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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Not to gatekeep the word rural, but: Problem with some of these replies is they’re pointing out small cities, not rural areas. When I (and maybe OP) think “rural/pastoral” I am thinking villages with less than 500 people. A house on 2 or more acres where you can’t see your neighbor is considered a small property. That’s rural. Not Asheville or Fort Collins. Those are just small cities.

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Every time threads like this come up it humbles me to realize how many people have never actually seen, much less lived in, a rural setting. Yes this is gatekeeping, but it serves a purpose to set a realistic perspective. See below for folks who think 'rural' means a suburb of a major city.

I live in a blue collar neighborhood in Cincinnati where a lot of the people dream of one day living in a rural setting.

The difficulty for me is that I've been to very rural areas, I've stayed in rural areas and I've had friends/family in rural areas. And I do mean actually rural areas away from towns and cities.

I've never lived there though and it is hard to get a feel for what would actually bother you until you've spent a significant amount of time there.

I hit on some of those where I live.

    2 or more acres: Yes
    can't see your neighbor: No
    Less than 500 people: No, just about double that at 1k

I consider where I live pretty rural. In my town there isn't a lot of "tech" people that I know of but 15 min away there is a small "city" with about 15k population that has an active co-working space that is all tech people (its like 20ish person group).

Even in the "city" that is 15 min away, there is never any real traffic, not like what you get in a major city. I never worry about hitting traffic, I can come and go to the co-working space at will without ever a thought of "I better leave before rush hour hits".

"Population thresholds used to differentiate rural and urban communities range from 2,500 up to 50,000, depending on the definition." [1] That page goes on to describe a bunch more details, but the fuzzy idea of what people mean is somewhere with population density below roughly 500 people/square mile and not in commuting distance to an urban center.

[1]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rur...

I'm curious why HN is continually so confused by the word "rural", certain subjects almost always fall apart on this website because of folks confusion over the word.

I'm thinking that its because many HN users live in or close to medium to large sized cities. So they have no perspective when it comes to a place that's truly rural. They just see that some small city has no high rises or large companies and just assume "that must be a rural town."

Its because most here have never really been rural. Rural is a place to drive past or fly over on to something interesting.

It's confusing because the Census Bureau's definition quite doesn't capture the essence or totality of what makes an area "rural". It only operates on numbers and self-reported designations, neither of which encapsulate what OP would expect.

I'd agree with this, and through it would suggest having a tech community, or indeed any interest based community would be unlikely with that few people.

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