Inflation is crushing rural America and may even drive people to the cities

From what I can see, the standard new vehicle for the American Man is a lifted 4-door pick up truck, and these can achieve maybe 17-18MPG on a good highway day. But a green light means go and many of these men push the throttle to the floor to see how many people they can wake up with their exhaust.<p>I&#x27;m half joking here, but having a massive lifted vehicle has become a part of masculine identity in the country at a really bad time, and these people could size down just a little to even a Jeep and do better on fuel bills. I&#x27;m not even suggesting to ditch the truck! Just save it for the weekends and the mudding trips.

&gt;&quot;They would love to work and get city wages, but they can&#x27;t commute. It&#x27;s too expensive with the gas prices. And really, the thing that&#x27;s holding them back is the cost of homes.&quot;<p>&gt;&quot;Some people are contemplating moving closer to a city, moving to the suburbs, or moving to a small community 45 minutes from a city. So yeah, it will probably, if it continues, accelerate rural depopulation in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains.&quot;<p>Once again, the heart of the issue is the American commute.<p>This is kind of interesting: at the same time as white collar workers from the city are fleeing out towards the suburbs, you have blue collar workers feeling pressure to move <i>towards</i> the city.

&quot;His analysis found it costs rural households $2,500 more a year to pay for gasoline than it did two years ago.&quot;<p>Two years ago no one was driving anywhere and the oil market was in a death spiral.

I a 10 year old Prius. I knew Gas prices were getting ridiculous when I had to pay $30 last month for gas!

I live in a rural area. I know NOBODY moving closer to the city. Exactly the opposite here. People are fleeing the Bay Area to my area and every single person I&#x27;ve met that has moved here, say it&#x27;s because of crime and the high cost of living.<p>I read some of the other work put out by the author, Ben Abrams, as well as some of the work espoused by the expert referenced in the article, professor Dave Peters. Abrams appears to be a cookie cutter left leaning journalist that doesn&#x27;t appear to have spent much time in rural America. Professor Peters is focused on &quot;rural change&quot;.<p>I don&#x27;t think either of these people really understand rural America and this feels like signaling rather than reporting.