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"Today, however, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).
In fact, the total rural population -- accounting for births, deaths and migration -- has declined for five straight years."
"Today, however, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).
In fact, the total rural population -- accounting for births, deaths and migration -- has declined for five straight years."
Neo, the Matrix is everywhere, you are in the Matrix and don't even know it.
Articles like this are to help justify the urban squalor so many find themselves in. If you share a studio apartment in Manhattan with 8 of your closest friends, this article will help you feel life is good.
I was born in the rural Midwest in 1977. I lived there through college, also attending college in a rural Midwestern town in a different state. I returned to my small hometown and worked for the newspaper there till I was 30 before moving on.
None of this is new. Rural America isn't the "new" urban ghetto. Even the article points out numerous times that the social and economic issues contributing to rural poverty have been climbing since the 1980s.
This shouldn't be a shocker to anyone who's lived or traveled through rural towns. Also not a shocker if you think about it. What's someone with education going to do in a rural area? Not much. So unless you're fantastically wealthy you can't afford to live there.
Jobs for the post-secondary educated in my rural hometown area:
- certified staff positions in the schools
-most medical staff in hospital/clinics, dentists, optometrists, mental health providers
-most clergy
-attorneys/legal services
-newspaper staff (mostly)
Terrorists, whether homegrown or foreign, must love having massive human density and infrastructure centers to target. Especially when those populations have become so dependent on living urban/suburban, with everything available with the turn of a lever or push of a button or a quick short drive/bus ride/walk to services, or call to the police.
I don't think the shift from small farms to Big Agribiz is accidental. Big Brother doesn't like tiny outposts of more self-sufficient people that resist being herded into the pen, either.
Some rural areas are getting run down, but nowhere near the scale of the inner cities. One exception I think could be the Indian reservations. The big one I live near has become quite the mess. Mostly drug and alcohol issues. Meth cookers are taking shelter there, staying out of reach of LE and a lot of "product" gets muled out of there. Large areas of the place are dangerous for non Indians to go. The drugs do spill over to the adjacent small towns and give local LE some headaches. But the meth maggots are confined in specific areas, and while there is violence because of drugs it's nothing like you'd see in a city.
They shoot at each other regularly on the rez. All jacked up on meth and alcohol they fight each other if there's nobody else around to fight with. You never hear anything in the news about it, but it happens daily. The reservations are just to remote and closed off for anyone to care, providing incidents even get reported. The BIA cops don't even bother responding to some areas anymore. If they do, they will often call and "invite" aid from the state troopers. But that can only happen with the approval of the Tribal Council, which isn't always given.
But the majority of the violence like that stays on the rez. The latter being the only rural areas I can bring to mind that are at least as dangerous as inner city gangland. But the violence in the inner cities is far more focused and organized. They don't open fire on anyone and everyone they see. The White boys in the Prius are probably paying customers and will get in and out alive. A car full of White boys (Wiboys in local vernacular) driving through certain areas of the rez would be lucky to make it out unscathed.
There's some serious and very violent bitterness and hatred out there. And it's not necessarily along race lines at all. It just happens in the fog of the influence of chemistry.
Agree with functionofx that it's basically more smug urban self-congratulation. They look at
rural America, and say "blah, what do they find to do anyway" while comparing the culture
of one fat city to another. I look at the fat cities and think they are all alike really:freeways, starbucks, parking meters, and stack-a-shacks.
Expect more critical analysis of rural America since DJT was elected. Apparently rubes in the
boonies are mostly responsible. (Along with Russians, misogyny, email leaks, and cheese-whiz
that was past it's sell-by date.)
Most "educated" people will be living in urban areas, yeah, if that is the type of employment
and lifestyle they desire. I went from the "sticks" to an elite private college and graduated
with a degree that was totally worthless from a monetary standpoint when I moved back to
the "sticks" but was worth quite a bit for self-knowledge. I knew what I wanted was not a
professional job in the fat city. What do those educated people who find themselves out in
the boonies do? Well, chase cows for one thing. I have a lifelong friend who went back east
to Princeton, graduated, and returned to the ranch. I can guess what he is doing right now:
moving his water, i.e. riding a fourwheeler with a bunch of orange nylon dams that he sticks
in his ditches to flood the hay pastures. And never once thinks he is missing out on anything.
Also agree with pikabike that the fat city seems to inhibit self-sufficiency and common sense.
Usually about 2-3 times a season, my rodeo buddies and I wind up for a couple days in L.A.
We have a blast. Perpetrate all kinds of hayseed hijinks on the "sophisticated" Angelinos. If
they had more common sense, we couldn't get away with half. So I love to visit L.A. but I
think you have to be a certified nut job to actually live there.
Common sense, where it exists, does not have anything to do with college education, socioeconomic status, or "sophistication". Not one effing bit. And that is a good thing.
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