The lack of a budget for heating in an article that uses the term "American Siberia" is so hilariously out of touch that it makes the rest of the article farcical.
you could get a wood burning stove heater. as long as you have enough trees to be sustainable, burning firewood is a great way to go. and with the clean burning filters they have now a days, you'll much much better off than from the days when they used to burn fires inside a house with no container/stove/filters or even a chiminey at all! (just a hole in the roof if you were lucky.)
This hasn't been my experience at all. I live in an urban area and I haven't eaten at a chain restaurant outside of road trips in years. I only eat at chains when I'm on a road trip and need a bite in the middle of nowhere. Once I drop into where I'm staying for vacation off the road trip, I'm eating local restaurants or cooking for myself if I'm out in nature. The fantastic food scene in my area is a huge factor in why I live here.
FWIW one can make the same comment about large US suburban home dwellers. Most of them just store stuff they rarely if ever use. Most of their less frequently used things are in varying states of disrepair and many of these folks would probably be better served by using communal amenities kept in good condition rather than storing sports equipment that they use once every 5 years in a dusty, mothball filled storage closet. Most folks in car-oriented US suburbs use their cars as mobile living rooms and do all sorts of illegal things (like makeup or doomscrolling their phone) in their car and only incidentally use them as transportation vehicles. But that doesn't stem the demand for folks who want to live in these homes.
The fact is, aside from job considerations, there are people who choose their density based on their actual preferences. One set of preferences may seem silly coming from a different set but that doesn't make them right or wrong; it just makes them preferences.