(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.)
Red State Prospects
It seems almost redundant to try to list the benefits and advantages of “red state living.” Red America is vast and offers opportunities for every climate, lifestyle, regional culture, and personal preference or situation.
Red State America includes something of everything of America:
– Mountain West logging and mining towns. Lakeside resort towns. Ranching country. Vast empty spaces. Arizona sunshine.
– Midwest and Plains Americana, from small farming towns to prospering cities. The Great Lakes. America’s historic manufacturing and agricultural heartland.
– Texas, a nation to itself. The economic center of Red America, in the Texas Triangle.
– The Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their many tributaries.
– Eastern mountains and farmland. Appalachia and the “Eastern Redoubt.”
– The South. Florida. The Gulf Coast and Southeastern Coast.
Red State Realities
While the prospects are great, you should consider relocation with a mind towards the realities as well.
Regional Culture and Mindset
Outside of the cosmopolitan metros, local cultures are much more distinct and pronounced. If you’re accustomed to the range of services and the openness found in a major coastal city, life in a smaller town or simply in Red America can come as a shock.
Distrust of Outsiders
In areas where few people have moved in over the last decades are attractive for their intact culture and rural character. But you should realize that these have only stayed this way by maintaining a healthy distrust of outsiders. Many have a strong aversion to newcomers, change, or “progress”.
This can come as a surprise for new arrivals from more cosmopolitan areas. Between coming in with “big city” expectations and local defensiveness, it’s common to see newcomers find themselves shut out from the local community. If you’re moving to a relatively insular community, it’s essential that you approach it sensitively and patiently.
Set your expectations realistically. Don’t be the guy who’s disappointed by his new “backwards and intolerant” neighbors. Be thoughtful and choose an area that’s going to work for you culturally rather than an area that you might come to resent.
Hicklibs and Small-Town Conservatives
Many blue states refugees have become highly attuned to culture war topics. They’ve lived through all the worst of it and are on high alert to the subtle schemes of progressives.
Attitudes in the Red States are often surprising. You’ll find a variety of “conservative” political views, which may or may not be all that conservative.
“Chamber of Commerce conservativism” is typical of most small to midsized communities across the United States. While nominally conservative, local government tends to be run by an insiders’ club made up of local developers, real estate agents, Rotary Club members, or the like.
These communities tend to have little interest in liberty or right-wing politics as such. City or county government may be primarily a route to personal and community success, not an ideological exercise. Political activism tends to be met with skepticism.
Smaller towns and rural communities are more apt to adopt a libertarian-flavored live-and-let-live mindset, generally opposed to any form of civic organization. In a small community made up of Baptist preachers, biker bar owners, hippies, and the occasional big city refugee, there is sometimes little commonality except the desire to be left alone and not be interfered with.
A third variety of community is the wealthy liberal enclave. This is typical of lake and ski towns. These communities are often quite prosperous and well-run, though expensive to live in. However, the local political scene often has a distinctively left-leaning flavor. There is typically a marked difference in outlook and worldview between liberal city residents and the more conservative surrounding suburbs and rural areas.
The most pernicious pattern in rural politics has been nicknamed the “hicklib.” This new mindset arrived with high-speed Internet and cellular phone service. Social media has added progressive sexual and identity issues to existing social dysfunction. This is only exacerbated by the locals who think their community’s roots are backwards, and long to bring big-city “enlightenment” into town.
Rising Cost of Living
The cost of living does vary significantly from place to place, but it is dwarfed by the impact of the cost of housing and real estate. Rental and home prices have a huge range across the US. With increases in home prices and mortgage rates, housing has become the single biggest expense for most Americans.
Take a good look at your own financial situation, the income potential in your target area, and the cost of real estate in the new area.
If you have teenage or young adult children, take a look at the rental and starter home markets as well. If you’re hoping to have them relocate with you or stay in the area in the long term, this needs to be an attainable path as well.
Narrow Local Economies
Smaller communities are particularly vulnerable to economic problems. A smaller population typically means less division of labor and less economic depth. Any town or city is a microcosm of a nation, with flows of goods and money in and out of the community. For long-term prosperity, it must not only be balanced but also create significant value itself.
In small communities, it’s common to see a narrow economic base that is ultimately dependent on just a few economic drivers. These often include:
– A factory town economy relies on one or a few major employers. These payrolls provide the cash inflows to the community, but there may be little local ownership or value creation apart from these sources.
– A tourist town economy depends on dollars spent by visitors from more economically productive areas who visit the community for recreation. This extra cash flow creates many opportunities that wouldn’t typically exist in a community of this size but also makes it vulnerable to economic downturns that hurt discretionary spending.
– A regional hub economy draws cashflows from a wide surrounding area of smaller cities and towns, by virtue of being the most accessible provider of specialized services, healthcare, education, and the like.
– An extraction economy is based on the utilization of natural resources. This can include farming and ranching, forestry, mining, and energy industries.
Be aware of this potential fragility, and look for a community with a sufficiently diverse economy to weather bad economic times.
Brain Drain
Developing, attracting, and keeping high-quality talent is a perpetual problem for smaller and less prominent communities. When the highest pay, opportunities, and prestige are only available in a few top megalopolises, creating or maintaining a solid talent pool is difficult, whether in skilled trades and manufacturing, professions, or corporate and civic leadership.
This dynamic creates a chicken-and-egg situation where businesses and investors are hesitant to move into a more rural area, fearing that it will be difficult to develop a solid workforce. As a consequence, the most capable and ambitious home-grown talent tends to seek greater opportunities in the big city. Thankfully, this pattern is being disrupted as liberal and coastal cities prove unlivable and make relocation to smaller metros or more rural regions desirable.
Lack of Aligned Community
Choosing a smaller or more homogeneous community may also mean it is actually more challenging to find a closely-aligned community. Though many cities tend to be more liberal, they also support the population and diversity needed to form niche communities. Whether your interest is a particular niche cultural, artistic, political, or educational pursuit, you’ll likely find more people with those interests in a typical blue metro than in a small red state community.
Local Dysfunction
Red State communities are in no way immune to dysfunction. They have their own sets of distinct problems and pitfalls. Don’t idealize or overlook the potential for societal problems, crime, drug issues, persistent poverty, and related issues. Modern Red America is still part of modern America, with the same challenges faced everywhere else.
Roadmap for Resurgence
We are living amid significant cultural decay. This has happened for a multitude of reasons, some social, some political, and some cultural. There is no return to 1950s America. But we can work to make 2050s America and beyond a place where our descendants can thrive.
Church & Family
Churches all over the nation, in a wide range of denominations, are returning to a full understanding of Christ’s rule over all the earth. Instead of a watered-down pietistic vision that uses “gospel-centered” as an excuse for caving to culture on every real issue, we see a resurgence of churches that simply believe God’s word and confidently apply it to every part of life.
We need to see these countless seeds multiply and spread across the US. With mainline denominations dying out and much of evangelicalism becoming a hollow shell, there’s a tremendous opportunity and hope for reformation and renewal. Much of this will happen not necessarily in large cities but smaller and mid-sized communities across the United States.
We also need to see a return to a family-oriented mindset that prioritizes building a culture and legacy within the family across generations instead of assuming that each individual can be expected to succeed alone and isolated.
Education
A growing movement of homeschoolers and private schools is working to revive the American educational system. The current system is thoroughly corrupted by statism, secularism, and progressivism, to the point that public schools are untenable in all but the smallest and most culturally healthy communities. Even in the best small towns, the school systems are still flooded with problems from above and within.
The growth of vastly superior alternatives, along with political efforts for school choice, are finally threatening the public education monopoly. Ultimately, we may see red states, cities, and counties begin to disconnect from the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the U.S. Department of Education, set aside claims to neutrality and secularism, and return to their original mission of providing sound education for Americans’ children.
With all these efforts, we look forward to successive generations receiving a more robust education, better character formation, and the ability to change the course of our country’s future.
Business
The renewal of the American economy and industry is daunting but critical for our long-term prosperity. The most encouraging developments are currently occurring in the re-shoring of manufacturing and other vital industries.
As blue states prove unfavorable to business and innovation, an increasing number of highly productive companies are relocating to more favorable political environments. Companies such as Chevron, SpaceX, and Charles Schwab have relocated their headquarters from California and New York to Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. These movements are eroding the economic dominance of the West Coast and Northeast and paving the way for a more decentralized American economy.
Resilience
Red state culture tends to be more closely tuned to the real world. Progressive culture and ideology disconnect people from reality, from consequences for their actions, and from personal responsibility. Ultra-large cities foster an attitude of assuming that everything is “someone else’s” job.
In contrast, red state communities’ closer ties to reality and higher value on responsibility make them more resilient. Although the proportion of actual self-reliant homesteaders is minuscule, these regions have abundant capability in skilled trades, logistics, manufacturing, and agriculture. As we face the social, economic, and cultural effects of decades of bad policy, red states have the cultural strength to handle adversity and continue on with life.
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