Honestly, I’d be stoked to own a house like this. Tin roof will last 60+ years with no maintenance. Classic country aesthetic with a nice big front porch. Nice woods to walk around in. Bonus points if it has a wood fire stove - free fuel when I do fire mitigation on the property, and when I’m out of that, pellets are dirt cheap. Obviously the decor could use an update, and some paint would be a nice touch. Though… if the siding is still in good shape, I think maybe a nice summer oak stain would make it look real nice. Then build some bird feeders. Bat boxes. Plant some fruit trees. Solar hot water on the roof. Then lay a big sheet of plywood out in the front yard on some cinderblocks as a table and invite all my friends over for a potluck. Drink wine. Play music. Have a bonfire. Good times…

Let me tell you the story of what you’re looking at. Once upon a time, that area was part of a larger spread with a nice home for its time (not pictured) where the farmer lived. As family sizes lessened and the children moved off to the city or were sent off and didn’t return from their war, the farmer split his property into smaller lots of a few acres, and either gave them to the children that were around now, flush with money in the post war era, or sold them as per a lot of advice from the locals who called him friend. The nice house where he lived was given to the most loved child, who promised to keep the farm running on the side, but only if it was smaller so it could still be done in between the normal day job (where he was probably the owner, using the booming economy as they all did to start businesses that didn’t need to be amazing to succeed).

Eventually, those smaller lots had houses built in the style of simple rustic cabins because the timber was sourced locally, cheaply, and it was the style of the time. The folks moving in were the last of the generation of big families, where small towns were continually expanding. They were still able to get jobs nearby (within an hour or two for most) that paid well enough. They had enough free time and the knowledge (or help from friends with knowledge) to keep the roof up and the wiring neat.

Now we fast forward 30 years. A depression has hit. The kids are grown up, and needing a place to stay. Their jobs don’t pay quite well enough to get a complete house and land. Maybe one or two will move away to a city where the opportunities exist. One of the various lots will have a family with a business that is still successful. Maybe it grows enough that both kids can work in the business and survive. But this house? This house (and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, more in the county) has a different story. The family business was sold. Maybe one of the kids became an addict. The family won’t spread like ‘usual.’ So one will keep living in the house. Off to the side of the picture, about fifty yards, is a doublewide trailer where the other lives. Some of those situations will stabilize. The doublewide will be taken care of, the older house will be refitted with better insulation, appliances, expanded in some areas.

But we can see what will happen the vast majority of the time. It’s 30 years later, again. The nearby factory closed up, the interstate rerouted traffic from the old highway, and the area stagnated. Now, 25 yards out of the picture, is a towed trailer with a bed and sink that the grandkid lives in. A second trailer is tucked under the tree that grew behind the doublewide, where Danny, the other grandchild, and Leslie, his on-again, off-again baby momma, can be heard screaming at each other every night. The house has decayed now, it’s interior slowly filled with bric-a-brac that is refused to be thrown out because it has the nostalgia of when they didn’t worry about money every day. The toilets haven’t been replaced in 45 years; the refrigerator is precariously leaning because the side was hastily patched with plastic and jb weld and the foot can’t be put back or the weak plastic will break. The window curtains rotted, and they put up the garbage bags to keep the sun out, and then realized it also kept the wind from blowing rain inside. Sometimes, the well pump doesn’t like to run, so they collect what water they can just in case.

Meanwhile, that nice farmhouse? It still sits on several dozen acres, or might even be part of a mostly functional ranch now (because ag exemptions mean low taxes!). The few hundred in the county have been mostly sold though, as the rich want to find a place “away from the city” and its ‘crime’ and ‘dirty air.’ The ones that are still lived in are the few remaining businessmen, who now have all the restaurants, remaining stores, and often run the local part of an oil and gas company.

Ninety percent of the local politicians live in those houses. Sometimes a few small positions will come from the weird, not-quite-urban neighborhoods that were built just outside of the county seat’s city limits. And those politicians? They tell the people who live in the house pictured that trump will bring back the factory jobs, and improve their lives, and they sit back and laugh all the way to the bank.

So, yes, this is where humans live. The corruption of the system is built from the ground up. When poverty is the majority the corrupt have a large amount of power, and they love it. And this is the majority. Get off the main highway in any rural county, and it’s just like the picture, but stacked in rows of hundreds. Just look at satellite imagery outside of urban areas.

I’ve seen houses like this in Austin, TX. The craziest part is during the pandemic they could’ve sold that house for $750K.

I know where several houses are, in my rural county, that look just like this with minor variations.

The majority of rural Conservatives live like this.