That will be a lot of buggies

[MaxPC]

One Million Amish By 2050?

Looking even further ahead
A dozen years ago I did a post looking even a bit further into the future. In “Seven Million Amish by 2100?” I related an account of an Amishman, interested in the demographics topic, who once shared with me some back-of-the-envelope figures.
...
To put this in perspective, 7 million Amish would be:

nearly 30 times today’s Amish population
about equal to the current population of Washington state
larger than the present population of Denmark, Paraguay, and about 100 other countries
And to put it another way, a population of seven million would be larger than the current populations of 35 states.

[Josh]

Quite likely, although the largest birth rates are in Swartzentrubers and similar groups like Hoover Mennonites. I expect them to end up accounting for the most explosive exponential growth by 2050 and 2100.

[mike]

In our rural southwest Pennsylvania county, we have Amish moving in for the first time. They have bought up 4 farms, are in the process of buying a couple more, and are looking for 20 farms total within the next five years according to what we hear. A lot of our farmland is hilly and less productive, and many of our farms are basically broken down weed buildings and weed patches with the owners working other jobs and maybe running beef cattle. I expect some of these types of properties to be bought up and improved. The Amish appear to have all kinds of money and it is driving farm prices way up, and probably other real estate as well. They are already setting up shop with retail and wholesale produce and flowers, dairies, commercial dog food, and apparently a butcher shop coming up. Our area does make some sense for the Amish because it's within a couple to three hours' drive of many other Amish areas, and our real estate probably looks like a bargain compared to Lancaster County. We're seeing a few Amish buggies and I worry that with people around here not being used to them that accidents will happen on our hilly and windy back roads. It will take some time for local businesses to figure out what to do about horses hitching up to random posts on their parking lots and leaving piles of road apples. I guess it's time to put in hitching posts.

[MaxPC]

We're seeing a few Amish buggies and I worry that with people around here not being used to them that accidents will happen on our hilly and windy back roads. It will take some time for local businesses to figure out what to do about horses hitching up to random posts on their parking lots and leaving piles of road apples. I guess it's time to put in hitching posts.

I wonder too about the accidents. Will the Amish begin to create 'buggy lanes' on either side of the road? As to the horse apples, I would not mind all that free manure.

Random thought: if Amish were to move to the UK, would they have trouble adjusting to driving on the left side of the road? In my opinion, the UK could do with 200,000 Amish right now.

[mike]

We're seeing a few Amish buggies and I worry that with people around here not being used to them that accidents will happen on our hilly and windy back roads. It will take some time for local businesses to figure out what to do about horses hitching up to random posts on their parking lots and leaving piles of road apples. I guess it's time to put in hitching posts.

I wonder too about the accidents. Will the Amish begin to create 'buggy lanes' on either side of the road? As to the horse apples, I would not mind all that free manure.

Random thought: if Amish were to move to the UK, would they have trouble adjusting to driving on the left side of the road? In my opinion, the UK could do with 200,000 Amish right now.

Many of our country roads are too narrow to even have painted lines, let alone a buggy lane.

[Grace]

In our rural southwest Pennsylvania county, we have Amish moving in for the first time. They have bought up 4 farms, are in the process of buying a couple more, and are looking for 20 farms total within the next five years according to what we hear. A lot of our farmland is hilly and less productive, and many of our farms are basically broken down weed buildings and weed patches with the owners working other jobs and maybe running beef cattle. I expect some of these types of properties to be bought up and improved. The Amish appear to have all kinds of money and it is driving farm prices way up, and probably other real estate as well. They are already setting up shop with retail and wholesale produce and flowers, dairies, commercial dog food, and apparently a butcher shop coming up. Our area does make some sense for the Amish because it's within a couple to three hours' drive of many other Amish areas, and our real estate probably looks like a bargain compared to Lancaster County. We're seeing a few Amish buggies and I worry that with people around here not being used to them that accidents will happen on our hilly and windy back roads. It will take some time for local businesses to figure out what to do about horses hitching up to random posts on their parking lots and leaving piles of road apples. I guess it's time to put in hitching posts.

About 20 or 25 years ago the Amish bought farms in the Sugar Valley PA. They have changed the whole landscape, farms and businesses in the area, for the good. In the little town of Loganton they have a food store, that is akin to the Sharp Shopper's here in Lancaster County. Also a hardware store, a donut shop, with all doing a thriving business, from both the natives and the Amish. A little out of town, they have a produce auction and the local volunteer fire company has numerous Amish volunteers. About 12 or 13 years ago part of the Lock Haven High School was demolished and the heavy equipment operators looked for a local business that could make replacement hydraulic hoses for their machines, when they broke. Something that happens frequently when running machines constantly. They found a local Amish man who did the work. When the Amish found out about the school demolition they asked permission to come in and take any school equipment that was slated to be trashed. From what I understand they took all the blackboards.

There may be some negatives with the Amish moving into a community, but many times the positives outweigh the negatives.

[Ken]

America is constantly changing. That's what makes it interesting.

This is no different than say how Hispanic immigrants are moving into declining small towns and rural all across Texas and the Great Plains and opening up their own businesses and bringing life back to crumbling rural areas.

Change is the only constant.

[Ernie]

America is constantly changing. That's what makes it interesting.

This is no different than say how Hispanic immigrants are moving into declining small towns and rural all across Texas and the Great Plains and opening up their own businesses and bringing life back to crumbling rural areas.

Change is the only constant.

In an economy like ours, the only thing it takes to restore a low-income, run-down rural community is people who are not afraid to work.

[mike]

America is constantly changing. That's what makes it interesting.

This is no different than say how Hispanic immigrants are moving into declining small towns and rural all across Texas and the Great Plains and opening up their own businesses and bringing life back to crumbling rural areas.

Change is the only constant.

Right. I don't see it as strongly negative or positive. It's just interesting. I'm thinking we will see a lot more local produce and plants, which is nice. I truck both of those kinds of products for my store from auctions 1.5 hours away in an area with high concentrations of old order Mennonites and Amish who are very good at growing things. Maybe some retail stands/stores will pop up as competition with my business.

[Ken]

America is constantly changing. That's what makes it interesting.

This is no different than say how Hispanic immigrants are moving into declining small towns and rural all across Texas and the Great Plains and opening up their own businesses and bringing life back to crumbling rural areas.

Change is the only constant.

In an economy like ours, the only thing it takes to restore a low-income, run-down rural community is people who are not afraid to work.

Well, that isn't always the case. Maybe more so in the east where small towns were more agricultural and there are lots of run-down farms that can be restored and made productive, especially if markets are relatively close.

But out here in the west there are endless numbers of small towns that are more or less crumbling or ghost towns because the resource extraction industries that supported them have disappeared or changed. Logging towns, mining towns, etc. Without the local mine or saw mill there is no economic reason for the town to exist. And no amount of sweat equity is going to bring it back. Often there is no water so agriculture is not an option. Sometimes they can pivot to things like tourism if there are local attractions that can be marketed (Moab Utah, Bend Oregon, etc.). But most places don't have those attributes.