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I'm glad there are options, and that technology enables a lot of them. I have no desire to live in some large, loud, crowded city. Even the suburbs are too crowded and fast for me. I want to live in a slower area where I use my third-generation HTC Vive (in 2021 or so) to virtually collaborate with colleagues who may be located all over the country or even outside the country as if we're in the same room or space.
Tell that to the US military, look at the high rates of military enlistment from small towns and masculinist places like the south and the west. These guys and gals grow up hunting,fishing and outdoors and know how to handle a gun. small town and rural america is one of the last bastions of masculinity in america. I just cant imagine america building a military with metrosexual leftie urban hipsters from portland, seattle,Berkeley, brooklyn,college towns all around this country etc who are just so effeminate
But what about all the urban professionals from Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, etc. that actually drive the economy? You can brag about the "real men" all you want, but the smart ones are the ones who really get things done-and they live in the cities.
Read about that, it should clear things up for you.
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I also dont agree that all small towns are dying, many wealthy people and professionals move to smaller places to retire, less traffic and crime, better quality of life etc.
Not all, but according to the latest demographic estimates, definitely most.
You know all of these sad, economically depressed, former mill/mining towns? There's no reason for them to exist. Once upon a time, Americans moved for economic opportunity. They didn't demand that jobs come to them. If the only reason your town existed or group was the presence of some factory or mine, then in the absence of said factory or mine, your town has no reason to exist. We have let people who feel that they are entitled to an unsustainable, small-town lifestyle dictate the political and economic fate of our nation. They'd rather gamble on someone who promises to reopen the factories then re-train or go to the major population centers where the work is.
Employment in the mines peaked 90 years ago.
Employment in steel mills peaked in the 60's. Today, 2 workers can produce as much output as it took 12 workers to do, 50 years ago.
Technology substitution/ industrial robotics are increasingly more productive than the cheapest sources of human labor.
The masses who were / are ready, willing and able engage in economic migration, common throughout global history. No doubt some of those who remained behind are bitter and have a tendency to blame others, government and big bad corporations, instead of taking responsibility for themselves.
wow, I never experienced anything like what you describe.
We are sometimes blind to our own behaviors and failings and that of our neighbors. I lived in a small town for almost 40 years. Folks were busy smiling and saying "howdy neighbor" and then being judgmental if they weren't in church. We practically had to know everyone's family tree before you had a serious conversation to keep from stepping on toes. The judge, sheriff and prosecutor played golf together and that's how "justice" was dispensed...all were elected so "getting tough on crime" was an election year thing. There was a double homicide next door to my daughter so things were not always as they seemed. Diversity was a non issue...there wasn't any. School bond issues never passed. The feedlot smell was "the smell of money" we would say until the pork processor moved up wind of town...that was unacceptable. Of course there was bingo at the VFW. There was a lot of score-keeping and long memories. Second chances were hard to come by unless you were somehow favored. Young people could not get away fast enough. There were few jobs and once they left for college they realized what a dump the place is. I left there just as heroin was starting to turn up. The old Catholic cemetery was where the deals took place and most people knew it. Once you get away and look back you see that there is a thin patina of genteel pleasantness -- a special kind of rural 'Political Correctness' as everybody knows how to act -- but the under-belly is not so nice. We get comfortable with it. Some people make a choice to live that way and others are just stuck with no way out.
"Super Predators" and "Despicable's" everywhere LOL according to Hillary. I think you don't like what I have to say so your first instinct is to attack.
You've gone off the rails. There was no attack. I pointed out that there are bad people in both cities and small towns. That's not an attack.
Are liberals that closed minded that they couldn't see the warnings? They say you live in a bubble, ... obviously.
You got your first warning with the tea party in 2010. You reacted by attacking those people with a vengeance. You lost a lot of seats on that. You lost more seats in the government in 2012, and 2014, you again attack, you lost more seats. And now 2016, you lost the presidency and you still blame everyone else except looking at yourselves and how crazy you are all acting over the Hillary loss.
....
Oh, and they are soooo considerate According to them, "property rights" means having ALL manner of trash and vermin strewn all over: old car parts, tires, cardboard, old appliances, furniture, etc. It doesn't occur to them, that their neighbors are tired of all that crap flying into their yards.
Catapult or tornado country?
We have a few of those yard collectors in our area, but no one bothers them, it is not the majority and we don't want to start policing peoples private property. No ones old stove has flown into our yard though. I've seen bigger problems in my old city neighborhood, if someone put something outside it was right on top of the neighbor or halfway in the street.
The OP is not from LA or Chicago as evident by his narrow conception of a "suburb." I'm well aware what the image conjures up in most Americans minds, which is some of the big houses on large lots one finds in well-to-do areas of Brookfield in Wisconsin.
But suburbs predate those more recent 1950ish suburban sprawls meant only for automotive drivers.
One of the most dangerous towns in the US during the 1990's was the Chicago suburb of Maywood. A town I've briefly been in. It is as human packed as Milwaukee and looks no different than a Milwaukee or a West Allis. Maywood had/has lots of black people though and during the 1990's had a homicide rate Hoover around 80 per 100,000 people. Basically exceeding Rio de Janeiro and being on par with some towns in El Salvador.
Then LA County produced one of the most notorious suburbs in the country: Compton.
A movie called Straight Out of Compton has been made. About the gangsta rapper group NWA.
But racial violence is far more deadly and frequent, like antebellum Mississippi, in LA and its working class (Democrats) suburb of Compton than it is in the safe, peaceful, small town of Wisconsin Dells.
In contrast you have a small town of about 2,000 people called the Wisconsin Dells. It makes money by being a tourist town. A small, mostly white town. During summertime lots of tourist flood into the area. The whole town is basically a tourist/bars/theme park thing.
If I were poor I would much rather live in Wisconsin Dells than in the LA suburb of Compton or the Chicago suburb of Maywood.
If not every city (say like Portland) is like Detroit then what makes urban hillbillies think every small town is like some stinking, trailer park, IV heroin addict tiny town in the Ozarks or in Indiana?
Not only do some of you people not read very much but you haven't been around outside of your bubble much.
I suspect the OP is from some Southern city like Atlanta and totally oblivious to the fact tight, urban, industrial town like Compton is a suburb of LA.
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