there was a moment in the last 5-6 years where remote work opportunities reshuffled the calculus and brought families into small, struggling villages to take care of elderly family and live slower, but apparently the commercial real estate cartel of highly developed regions has been pulling its strings to get the peons back on the roads and clamoring to get back into their previously designated corrals.

I can only speak to the Am*rikkkan version of this behavior, but it sounds similar. I could write paragraphs on this, but the most interesting thing I’ve noticed recently is that as the empire has crumbled, the only kind of new residential construction being built is multi-family buildings: condos, townhomes, etc. even out in the boonies/exurbs.

Car culture is still pervasive of course, so all these properties still have as many garages and parking spaces as possible, which is not enough to support parking for everyone who needs a car. Not having a car in these places means that you’re effectively stranded.

People are now willing to sacrifice on everything that the suburbs used to afford (your own detached house, your own yard) just so they can keep driving their stupid cars, and then complain when the car is too expensive.

“The real estate at the volcano’s edge is so cheap, how could I afford to live anywhere else?”

Rural dweller here. It sucks. The people who move out to the countryside because they think it’s more affordable typically move or are foreclosed upon within a matter of a few years.

I have my reasons for being where I am (organizing, but won’t say more cause duh), but it really is tough. I also grew up extremely rural, and knew what I was getting myself into when I moved out here.

I have a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that the tradwife/cottage-core/homesteading movements are largely a psyop to force a transfer of land-wealth out of the hands of the remaining small landowners of Amerikkka’s rural areas. Many of the remaining small landholders don’t want to sell their land to megacorp farmers or housing developers and want to see their family farms stay family farms, but their progeny are smart and experienced enough to know the numbers don’t work out, so they sell to these aspiring homesteaders who go bankrupt five years in because they racked up literally all of the debt and subsequently are foreclosed upon and the land is purchased for a fire sale by big ag or housing developers or they sell to a large operator or developer before they’re foreclosed upon. Iunno. I’ve seen it happen enough times now where it’s, at the very least, extremely convenient for the capitalists.

As a minority …yeah im not moving to the countryside

rude of you to make a post about me

The immiserated, exploited labor aristocracy who dream about living like nobles are forced by the dictates of the market to live in these bedroom communities and drive 50km+ for a commute.

These are the majority of people, they’ll never give it up voluntarily because that would be idealism, and the menbership in our communist parties needs to reach 20% of the population of our society before we can push the Revolution button to change it all at once at the federal level.

That’s just how materialism works sweaty

I wish I could afford a hybrid