What do all the people do (for work) in rural area towns and unincorporated areas?

itadakimasu@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 115 points –

Drove hundreds of miles through some very rural New England, USA today. Most areas were very nice with well kept homes and cute, small city centers (mostly only a couple of brick, commercial buildings).

What do people do for jobs out in the "middle of nowhere"? As an engineer who works closer to city areas where more jobs exist, I just can't fathom what people are doing for jobs out there? How is everything paid for?

Edit: I should clarify there's minimal farm land out in rural New England. So, not very many farmers at all.

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Remote work is only widely possibly in the last few years. Most homes I drove past are well kept century homes on 1-10 acre lots

The work is still remote, they just have to drive to the remote location :)

In all seriousness, most people just commute to the nearest town or city.

My grandma used to call her town a "bedroom" community. 600ish people lived in town with most commuting for work. IIRC, there are a couple of nearby towns with around 3k people, the biggest city in the county having 12k people. One of the state's major cities is around an hour away; think 100kish people.

I used to think that would be too far to commute, but from other comments on this post, it sounds common.