Those kinds of communities aren’t created by towns full of telecommuting programmers — they are created by diverse economic activity and people out on the street doing their jobs.
Kind of. I live in a town with a population of 3,000 which has a town playground, kids whizzing around on bikes, a handful of little local shops (plus four pubs), etc... and yet it's full of telecommuting programmers.
The main disadvantage is that property prices are high, largely caused by the real commuters rather than the telecommuters (we have a mainline railway station); and that's meant a slow decline in the number of local shops simply because conversion to residential use is much more lucrative. But we've pretty much stabilised now.
This is in the UK, and it's not rare over here - there's quite a niche for slightly boho, close-knit small towns. Hebden Bridge, Stroud and Frome are the best known (populations 4.5k, 12k, 26k respectively) but there are plenty more.
Hebden Bridge I always got the impression was a bit touristy (as well as being the lesbian capital of the country). A bit further south to Marsden, also on a rail line into Manchester and Leeds, is remarkably cheap
Well assuming those people out on the streets doing their jobs want to "import" goods, the town needs to "export" something. Code is one possible export.
No, but if you’re trying to balance your imports and exports get to g some telecommuters certainly helps.
Part of what kills small towns is all the money draining out. Big box stores accelerated that because nothing but the retail labor and utilities are local.
Hmm nothing says it can't be created by telecommuting programmers. Get 10K people to pitch in 10K a pop and that's 100 mil to buy land and start a town
It’s been in my head for a while - finding an area with good weather and a farm landowner willing to sell. I would love to find a developer with core competencies - we used to build cities because of common interest. Why can’t we do it today?
Historically those towns were most likely built around a common economic interest; intersection of trade routes, mining, logging, etc. The town was created because the people were already there. As far as I know artificial communities don't seem very resilient. I guess 10,000 telecommuting programmers could support a pretty robust economy, but it sounds like a bit of a pipe dream, honestly.
I think a set of programmers seems like a common economic interest. At 10,000, that’s enough that it won't only be telecommuting at some point. You would likely need a fair amount of additional labor.
The alternative is finding a struggling city with good bones that is willing to take a chance, but that can introduce all sorts of hostilities.
