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.
Remote work
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.