Earlier today we visited our small town post office and, while emptying our box, were notified to pick up 2 parcels. This has me thinking about the geographic implications of e-commerce. E-commerce may make cities less important going forward than they have been in decades past.
The DrsC have chosen to live summers in a rural area 90 miles from our nearest shopping city. Our local area has a great supermarket and pharmacy, a hardware store, and 2 gas stations. But for real shopping, we formerly made at least a trip per month to the city. That was an all-day affair: drive 90 miles, buzz around making various stops, have a restaurant supper and drive 90 miles home, total 200 miles - fun, but tiring.
The last few years we have made that trip much less often, because so much we might formerly have gone there to buy is available online from many vendors, the most iconic of which are Amazon and Ebay. We have time to make the trip but a 200 mile drive isn't cost-free. AAA estimates cost for our size vehicle and distance driven per year to be $0.86/mile, or $172 to drive 200 miles.
Even if products might be slightly less at the store than online, it is cheaper and easier to buy online. So we go less often, and don't particularly miss it. This is what stimulated the following thought.
Online shopping is making rural living much easier than formerly, much less of a hassle. Combine this with the work-from-home trend brought on by Covid-19 and we may find a back to the land movement gathering steam.
Covid will probably subside and become another flu. Rural living may continue to grow, at the expense of cities, because it is easier and cheaper than it was before. If this happens, there are investment implications you might consider.
