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On a recent cross country road trip, I stopped in Ord, Nebraska, where I interviewed Caleb T. Pollard, a 29 year old man charged with bringing young professionals, businesses, and even tourists to a rural town hours from the Interstate. The goal is for Ord, population 2,269, to avoid the fate of certain other Midwestern communities: a dearth of young people, a steady population decline, a hollowing of downtown, a flight of the professional and creative classes to the big city.
One idea for achieving that goal: "Insourcing."
The basic insight is that it's quite expensive to perform, for example, legal
services in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC,
or other urban centers where the big firms cluster. The cost of real
estate and the cost of living are many times higher than -- to pick an
example at random -- Ord, Nebraska. What if a lawyer passed the New
York bar, moved to Ord, did work remotely for New York City clients,
and made as much discretionary income despite charging a third as much
for his services. Obviously this wouldn't work for all legal services
-- court room appearances, most obviously -- but it sure would work for
some.
Insourcing isn't without precedent. Some companies have decided that a
call center in Los Angeles isn't worth maintaining when the costs and
benefits are compared to a call center in Mumbai -- but that the
cost-benefit calculus favors a location in Missouri or Kansas over an
enterprise abroad where linguistic and cultural differences affect the
quality of service. But can this same notion be applied to Richard
Florida's "Creative Class"?
Mr. Pollard thinks so.
Interestingly, if you ask him why anyone would want to move from the
city to Ord, as he and his wife did, he'll quote Thomas Jefferson,
waxing poetic about the benefits of rural life. This makes him the only
thinker I know who wants to model his town after a hybrid of the
Jeffersonian Ideal and the Mr. Florida's hyper-mobile urban dwellers.
Perhaps he'll agree to talk about this tension in an interview. Either way, I'll have more to say about Ord in future posts.
Comments (7)
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I believe Mr. Pollard is an evangelist for a swelling epiphany of future economic and social advantage of life in the flyover country of the Midwest. At age 26, I moved to the plains with only 2 or 3 years in mind, thinking I would continue on to bigger and better vistas. 19 years, two kids and a growing small business later, I'm glad I stayed put. The urban jungle is a fine place to visit, but to find one's soul, the quiet of the prairie speaks clearly enough, if one silences the cacophonous noise that shuts it up.
Kevin - thanks for your kind words. I am passionate about rural communities because they've given so much to my life experiences.
I'm in for the exchange, for sure. Reconciling Florida and Jefferson? Sounds fun to me!
I retired (semi) and moved from Houston to Bend, a small central Oregon town. I came here because Oregon is my home state. I do consulting for international oil companies from my home primarily by internet. Since setting up shop here, I have worked on projects in Thailand, Nigeria, Malaysia, Trinidad and of course the US. We have a good regional airport, high speed internet and good neighbors. Life is generally good and uncomplicated (people in Houston drive too fast). The down side is that Oregon has a lot of urban (Portland) greenies who love to limit rural land use, which in turn limits job opportunities. The result is intermittent phases of high unemployment.
Caleb,
Interesting model. Where can I learn more? Living in a large urban center and Ord sounds appealing... I'm seattlego1 AT gmail dot com. thanks.
Geoff.
If you take out Ord, Nebraska and put in Granville, Ohio. This pretty much describes my career path. As a Patent Attorney, I can work from any location. I chose a small college town with a great school district. If I lived in Washington, DC my house would have cost over a million bucks and my commute would be an hour. My commute is now 3-5 minutes depending on how I hit the stoplight.
Shush! Lies, all the above are lies. There is nothing to see here in the Midwest. Go away. You don't want to live here. You especially don't want to come here and bring your darn big city liberalism and evil real estate developers with you!
I've had enough of East Coast imports who want to ban shooting coyotes (who eat my chickens)because they are 'cute' and who want to impose their ideas of proper urban lifestyles on my rural heaven.
Go away. There is nothing to see here. Stay away, live in suburbia instead, don't come to our small town to change it to your ideal.
Unless you want to turn native (as in born to the Midwest). Then, okay, you can come over and pick wild black raspberries and grill some local, incredibly marbled and tasty steaks over the charcoal (not propane and certainly not electric) grill. And we eat meat rare here. We make ice cream with - gulp - RAW eggs! (from our own chickens).
Beth hits on a great point - how do you maintain the values and attributes that makes your community great while managing growth and development?
It reminds me of Colorado rural communities and the Greg Brown song "Boomtown".
"The guy from California moves in and relaxes. The natives have to move - they cannot pay the taxes. Santa Fe has had it. Sedona has, too. Maybe you'll be lucky - maybe your town will be the new... "
A reality we struggle with everyday.