Hollywood stars and their lawyers have been buying Montana ranches for decades. Now, with retirement on the horizon, many urban and suburban baby-boomers with less tinsel but plenty of cash are looking for their own piece of paradise in rural America. In a recent story in The Wall Street Journal demographer Peter Nelson suggests that these “new gentry” are transforming the economies of many rural communities, shifting them from resource-extraction to an “asthethic-based” economy focused on place-related amenities.

In the Rocky Mountain West the influx of the new gentry sparks demand for everything from interior design to organic produce, but the biggest impact is on land values and uses as wealthy urbanites buy acres of newly subdivided farms and ranches. The impact of the new gentry on communities in the northern Great Plains is not as dramatic as in the Rocky Mountain West, but it is evident. A map pubilshed by The Wall Street Journal hows significant growth in income associated with retirement in Lawrence and Pennington counties in the Black Hills, as well as in counties along the Missouri River in South and North Dakota.

The retirees or “early grays” cashing out of high-cost economies on the West and East Coasts often get the attention of local realtors and economic development officials. Some of these immigrants take advantage of the Internet and the new communications technologies to continue gainful employment from a far, leveraging their relationships in urban communities to become new homesteaders on the Great Plains. As reporter Conor Dougherty notes that since the Internet allows people to work from anywhere, “the distinction between first and second homes has become blurred. Many people are buying retirement property while they are still employed.”

Demographers will miss a major trend, however, if they ignore the impact of remote work or telecommuting on younger workers as well as early grays, and if they think that only upper income workers can take advantage of the new technologies. Students and service workers, many of them prodigal children and connected agrarians, are living in remote rural communities and competing for flat world jobs. These opportunities may lead some communities to a prosperity that isn’t dependent on a host of land-hungry retirees.

To read Conor Dougherty’s story go to: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120069319738001353.html