Where have all the Children Gone? (Johnson: house, rent, jobs)

[puckaroo]

As the earth's population continues to increase, people need places to live. I suppose a state's legislation can keep people away, but that same legislation impacts the people who already live there with the result of many of them having go elsewhere for reasons of affordability, jobs etc. As far as industry, because Vermont is backward in its views, though it considers itself enlightened and progressive, it can not attract any of the clean industry that has come about since its industrial heyday around the time of the Civil War. This clean industry goes to places like Austin, Tx. How many more Vermont families will see their young people graduate from college (Vermont's best and brightest) and move away to distant places affording more opportunity?

[KoZmiC NinJa]

This thread topic could go off on many useful tangents but for the sake of brevity I would opine that these kids who arent offered a lot of stuff to do for good, constructive fun in the first place watch their parents work in some crappy, low-level manufacturing facility for 9 or 10 hours a day and then maybe pull a shift or two at the Quick-Mart to try to bring a little more money into the house for food, oil, etc....Why would they want to stay for that ? The worker environment in VT is very employee unfriendly. The issue of liveable wages and hours needs to be acted upon at an official level. ITs a shame its gotten to this but the ramifications upon VT's youth are many.
Employers should be made to sign a pledge of fair wage and work practices.
Technical entities should be encouraged to move here. A beautiful Johnson & Johnson corporate center providing 1000 $30,000-50,000 average jobs is a much better idea than putting up another WAL*MART expanding the Green Mountain Mall with another chain type retail store providing more 8.00 an hour, no-healthcare wages. I cant see the employment practices of some of the bigger manufacturing facilities in Vermont flying anywhere else in the US except maybe rural Kentucky or West Virginia.

[puckaroo]

O.k., so Vermont has natural beauty and good skiing. Maybe corporations (those of the clean industry type) and those they employ would like to locate here under better circumstances. Unfortunately, as it is, none would even consider it. Vermont doesn't even come up on the radar of these companies. Those in the governmental bureaucracy are o.k. with that, because they have their jobs. I mentioned Austin, Tx as a place where companies of the clean industry type have flocked. It didn't just happen, though. The city fathers realized that they live in a competitive world. They went out and competed with other cities to attract companies such as 3M, AMD, and Motorola back in the 80's. Austin is now widely known as a high-tech center. Meanwhile, back in Vermont, the elected elite are working hard to keep away any change for you. Your children can go to college and then move someplace else. Those who are still here, though, will be billboard free. What a relief....keep those horrible billboards out of here! Homosexuals will have state sanction with their civil unions. That will take care of any problem with population growth. Then, when Vermonters get old or sick, there will be assisted suicide to get rid of them before their medical costs get too high. Yes, the elected elite in Vermont are working hard to take care of your interests. Enlightened? Progressive? Those who think that's the case....keep telling yourself that.