Small Town Benefits

Living in a small rural town is hard. Jobs are often difficult to come by (in the Northwest this is particularly true of towns that have suffered the slow fall of the timber industry.) The county where I grew up, Siskiyou county, currently has an unemployment rate north of 18 percent. And yet, there are small towns where, well you might not have a good job, but you have something else which has tremendous value. Here is the view from near the top of my run this afternoon above Yreka, CA

i-6217e3cd01e7283caabe0c7012e8f6ab-shastayreka.png

The volcano to the right is Mt. Shasta and the one to the left is Goosenest (a great place to camp and see the Perseids.)

More like this

I grew up in the small town of Yreka, CA ("Yreka Bakery" backwards is...) that sits just minutes south of the Oregon-California border on Interstate 5. Yreka, population a little over 7000 brave souls, is the county seat of Siskiyou county. Siskiyou county is "god's country" meaning, yes, (a) it…
Yesterday the New York Times, ran an article Absaroka, a proposed state between Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota which never was. Which reminded me of the state that I grew up in, the great state of Jefferson. What, you've never head of the great State of Jefferson? The state of Jefferson was…
I'm not quite awake enough yet to deal with reviewing copyedits and reformatting figures for the book-in-process, so while I wait for the caffeine to kick in, let's talk something simple and cheerful: rural poverty. This week, Vox and the New York Times both touched on this, the former with a story…
The Dean Dad has some interesting comments regarding this depressing New York Times article about the departure of young adults from Upstate New York: From 1990 to 2004, the number of 25-to-34-year-old residents in the 52 counties north of Rockland and Putnam declined by more than 25 percent. In 13…

What a beautiful place to grow up! I'm from rural(ish) N. Ca as well - Nevada County, not quite as scenic as Shasta. I miss it, though!

By Erin Johnson (not verified) on 17 Aug 2009 #permalink