Giving Rural Life A Chance

I found the recent article about the family from Miami, Florida lured to rural North Dakota by free land and cash only to find that it wasn’t just the weather in North Dakota giving them a frigid reception interesting. I was raised in a small farming community in Kansas and know for a fact that there are pros and cons to living in a rural community. For the most part everybody knows everybody and their business, and if they don’t, they make it their goal to find out. That sounds like a bad thing but in reality it can work out to be beneficial for most in the community. Neighbors watch out for neighbors. In reading the whole story, the family from Miami didn’t really make an earnest attempt to become “good neighbors” or an active part of the community, other than a failed attempt at a bistro next to the local coffee shop.  By their own admission they kept to themselves and had little to do with the locals. That may be perfectly normal behavior for Miami, but it doesn’t generally go over well in a small rural community. Sadly, they are leaving rural life to move back to a city with high taxes, a high crime rate, and high traffic.