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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Global and national economic conditions are much in the news. This  
being an election year, the American economy will of course
again be rosied up by the party in power in an attempt to hang on to  
that power. One should therefore read economic news as indication, not  
fact. Things may well be worse than we are told. Or they might be  
better.

Rural and urban migration is historically tied to economic conditions.  
Today, additional factors are affecting rural population. The first is  
the baby boomers, the leading edge of which are now considering  
retirement. Many boomers will continue working, using big city wages  
to prepare. Many will buy second homes intended for retirement  
destinations. Many such destinations will be in rural places.

The second factor is the Internet. More workers are now able to earn  
money from homes well away from cities. More consumers can now order  
food, clothing, entertainment and tools online and have UPS make the  
delivery. Rising fuel prices will easily justify this new paradigm.

And then there are the affluent, those near the top of the American  
economic class system, a growing group. These folks are not only  
driving rural prices up; they want more services, which will raise  
taxes and increase bureaucracy. "Affluent retirees and other high- 
income types have descended on these remote areas, creating new demand  
for amenities like interior-design stores, spas and organic markets.  
For many communities, it's the biggest change since the interstate  
highway system came barreling through in the 1960s and 1970s," states  
Conor Dougherty, in an article in The Wall Street Journal: The New  
American Gentry.

This time the urban-to-rural migration may have the wax without the  
later wane. " Millions of soon-to-retire baby boomers, say  
demographers, will propel this trend for years to come." The rural  
land price escalation can be breathtaking. In states across the  
country, developers are positioning themselves for the influx of the  
affluent. Dougherty notes Valley County, Idaho, about a hundred miles  
from Boise. "In recent years, developers have snatched up land for  
$100,000 an acre in some cases, or 40 times what it fetched as  
farmland. Though home prices here are declining as in other parts of  
the nation, houses still cost about 60% more than in 2004."

Be prepared. Make your plan. Buy land while you have urban income to  
pay for it. Don't be one of the many who in ten or twenty years will  
be saying, "why, I could have bought that land for a pittance of what  
it sold for yesterday." Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Live in the present  
but plan for the future. I know these things.

Read the entire article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120069319738001353.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone