Who Is Killing the Towns of Western Massachusetts?

[pbrower2a]

Rural America has an advantage over Urban America -- a lower cost of living. Infrastructure is cheaper; the two-lane blacktop that feeds towns of 10,000 some twenty miles apart is often wholly adequate for local traffic. A ten-lane expressway may be completely inadequate in northeastern New Jersey. Big cities must pay teachers more because good teachers have the skill set with which to do many other, more lucrative activities. They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.   Bribes from gangsters, basically. If you are in a small town and you have a teacher's license, what else can you do that pays well?  

So why would people live in those zones of high real estate prices (and of course rent) , traffic jams, and crowding? Certain activities, like multi-modal transportation (Chicago), high technology (San Jose), entertainment (Los Angeles and New York), centralized government (greater Washington), and energy (Houston) require the concentration of talented and competent  people. Automobile manufacturing (Detroit) and chemicals (St. Louis) used to be like that... but that is over, and that explains why Detroit and St. Louis are urban wrecks.

So why aren't places like southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky attracting refugees from high-cost, high-tax places like Boston and San Francisco? No attractions other than a low cost of living.  

[pbrower2a]

The coasties have stereotyped flyover country for....well, ever I guess.  A New Yorker doesn't even consider Duluth (or Omaha, Des Moines, Tulsa, Memphis, Madison, etc, etc) as an option, much less rural W.Virginia.  Why would they want to live with those ignorant, inbred racists in Boulder or Toledo?

New Yorkers can be as provincial as people in southeastern Kentucky. New York City creates its own way of life. Nice place to visit, but it would be tough adjusting to it.

I live in flyover country. I know how small-town life works. One has personal ties from childhood, or life is miserable. Cultural life is personal crafts or what happens to be available by electronic media. Considering that college graduates generally don't return except for family reunions or in economic distress...

We do have some contemptible racists. There are people who fly Confederate flags around here. (If I flew flags other than the US flag they would be a Union Jack and the current flag of Germany out of pride in heritage... the current German flag has nothing to do with Nazism except to signal a nation that has exorcised the most monstrous demons that any country has ever had). I'd burn a Confederate flag with a Nazi flag, a North Korean flag, a Soviet flag, and the flag of Saddam Hussein's Iraq together if I got a chance.

[pbrower2a]

They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.    

As if that's exclusively an urban problem.  I'm taking a tax prep course being taught by an IRS officer and as he does so, he lives up the course with examples from his work experience.  The topic that night was about what counts as income.  The IRS isn't the morals police, just the tax police, so they are required by law to keep private about the sources of income. So long as you reported the income and pay the tax on it, it doesn't matter if it was earned legally or not.

Anyway, back to my point. One of the stories he told involved an auditor who went out to audit what he thought was a construction company. It turned out it was a rural bordello. The madam had actually done a fairly good job of complying with the tax law. The depreciation on equipment in the playroom was allowed, she'd reported her income honestly, and issued 1099's to her subcontractors for the services they had done for the customers. However, the deduction as a business expense of the bribes given to the deputy sheriffs to stay away was denied, even tho she'd kept the otherwise necessary records to show to whom and when she paid them.

"Informal income" includes bribes and pay-offs which are taxable income. The mobster who gives the cop $5000 to look the other way when drugs are coming in or to ignore his numbers racket is supplying informal and highly-taxable income. The fellow who puts a Franklin behind his driver's license when asked to show his license when stopped for speeding or running a red light is supplying some informal and highly-taxable income.   

Bribes are not legitimate, deductible expenses. Of course illegal activities have legitimate expenses. A numbers racket might have legitimate, deductible costs of wages, transportation, office supplies... paying off the cops is not a deductible expense