Funding College Graduates to Come Home

[JA]

Something I really don't get is how some people attach a sense of justice to the population growth of an area. Because the fact is that rural areas aren't disproportionately poor, and they aren't getting poorer at a significant pace. They're just declining in population because there isn't a solid economic reason . And for some reason this seems to offend people so much that they want a welfare program to make people move back there. This remains inexplicable to me.

If West Virginia, 50 years from now, has 200,000 people instead of 2 million, then so what? If those 1.8 million people move somewhere jobs exist instead of demanding that they be handed one without any effort, how are they not better off? Why is someone living in poverty in their grandparent's home a more desirable outcome then them moving to you?  Is your sense of nostalgia so strong that you will insist on fighting the future to bring back a terrible past?

Thanks for the commentary, Ayn Rand.

What’s wrong with his post? The likely result of such a program that the thread is talking about would be a bunch of gentrifying yuppy communities in the middle of places like McDowell County West Virginia. It doesn’t exactly sound like something that’ll uplift the downtrodden who already live in these areas.

And the actual best welfare program for poor people in economically depressed areas is moving somewhere jobs actually exist. The government should be encouraging this, instead of fighting it through zoning laws or bullsh**t ideas like this.

People shouldn’t have to chase capital in order to live a dignified life. Our society is currently capable of significant decentralization and greater subsidiaries rather than continued concentration of opportunity in centralized, urbanized areas. To claim anything else is a lie; one that folks like you are happy to embrace because then you get to look down upon those “yokels” and wag your finger, giving patronizing, dehumanizing language just like the rightwing does to folks in impoverished urban areas.

But you do you and keep licking that capitalist boot.

Why should no one ever have to move? Why do you harbor this bullsh**t sense of nostalgia for small town America?

Why should someone have to relocate? Most people simply prefer to remain where they grew up; the overwhelming majority of human beings think this way. Why should a man made economic system force people away from their homes at the threat of impoverishment if they fail to comply?

How I feel about small towns is irrelevant. What matters is that I care about what’s good for ordinary people, not what’s good for technocrats, capitalists, and their sycophants like you. It’s a testament to how rightwing the Democratic Party has shifted that little elitists like you can comfortably call the party home. It’s sad.

People are not plants. We are not meant to remain rooted in the same sh**tty little town for our entire lives, never leaving or moving. And if you want to claim the mantle of fighting for common people, then fight for something that won't impoverish them instead of demanding the world change to appease your nostalgia.

Folks like you who feel comfortable being rootless and moving around are a small minority of the human population. If that’s what you want to do with your life, then go for it. But endorsing a system that damns the majority of the population for not having the same mindset as you and demanding that they comply through the coercive means of impoverishment is a pretty sh**tty thing to do. I don’t demand anything change to “appease my nostalgia;” I want the capitalist system of coercion and destructive financialized globalization to end so that humans can live with dignity, rather than as constantly screwed over wage slaves doing whatever daddy capital demands just to keep a roof over their head.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Thank you Jacobin for fighting the futile fight against thick headed people incapable of finding joy in the important things gifted to us in life. It's completely illogical and heartless to willingly leave your family behind. The thing that completely set me over the edge of hating my hometown was the amount of migrants belitting their roots in Ohio or Iowa to be better than those ignorant church going folks they grew up with. Their idea of what it means to be a New Yorker is the most vile of ideals - my back has been turned on my home until such time they choose to vacate. I'll merely stay in close proximity to family - like every single other member of the family rightfully does.

[BundouYMB]

Something I really don't get is how some people attach a sense of justice to the population growth of an area. Because the fact is that rural areas aren't disproportionately poor, and they aren't getting poorer at a significant pace. They're just declining in population because there isn't a solid economic reason . And for some reason this seems to offend people so much that they want a welfare program to make people move back there. This remains inexplicable to me.

If West Virginia, 50 years from now, has 200,000 people instead of 2 million, then so what? If those 1.8 million people move somewhere jobs exist instead of demanding that they be handed one without any effort, how are they not better off? Why is someone living in poverty in their grandparent's home a more desirable outcome then them moving to you?  Is your sense of nostalgia so strong that you will insist on fighting the future to bring back a terrible past?

Thanks for the commentary, Ayn Rand.

What’s wrong with his post? The likely result of such a program that the thread is talking about would be a bunch of gentrifying yuppy communities in the middle of places like McDowell County West Virginia. It doesn’t exactly sound like something that’ll uplift the downtrodden who already live in these areas.

And the actual best welfare program for poor people in economically depressed areas is moving somewhere jobs actually exist. The government should be encouraging this, instead of fighting it through zoning laws or bullsh**t ideas like this.

People shouldn’t have to chase capital in order to live a dignified life. Our society is currently capable of significant decentralization and greater subsidiaries rather than continued concentration of opportunity in centralized, urbanized areas. To claim anything else is a lie; one that folks like you are happy to embrace because then you get to look down upon those “yokels” and wag your finger, giving patronizing, dehumanizing language just like the rightwing does to folks in impoverished urban areas.

But you do you and keep licking that capitalist boot.

Why should no one ever have to move? Why do you harbor this bullsh**t sense of nostalgia for small town America?

Why should someone have to relocate? Most people simply prefer to remain where they grew up; the overwhelming majority of human beings think this way. Why should a man made economic system force people away from their homes at the threat of impoverishment if they fail to comply?

How I feel about small towns is irrelevant. What matters is that I care about what’s good for ordinary people, not what’s good for technocrats, capitalists, and their sycophants like you. It’s a testament to how rightwing the Democratic Party has shifted that little elitists like you can comfortably call the party home. It’s sad.

People are not plants. We are not meant to remain rooted in the same sh**tty little town for our entire lives, never leaving or moving. And if you want to claim the mantle of fighting for common people, then fight for something that won't impoverish them instead of demanding the world change to appease your nostalgia.

Folks like you who feel comfortable being rootless and moving around are a small minority of the human population. If that’s what you want to do with your life, then go for it. But endorsing a system that damns the majority of the population for not having the same mindset as you and demanding that they comply through the coercive means of impoverishment is a pretty sh**tty thing to do. I don’t demand anything change to “appease my nostalgia;” I want the capitalist system of coercion and destructive financialized globalization to end so that humans can live with dignity, rather than as constantly screwed over wage slaves doing whatever daddy capital demands just to keep a roof over their head.

Except most wage slaves are trapped where they live and don't have a college degree. People who get a degree and move to take a high paying job somewhere else are, for the most part. a much more fortunate group of people and predominantly come from wealthier backgrounds. Why should we be funding a welfare program to support them instead of people who are, you know, poor?

[pbrower2a]

These places need jobs, and not more people badly over-educated for the communities in which they are bribed to live. They need stamping plants and not a bunch of people who know how to conjugate Italian verbs.   

Bringing in educated people as teachers, librarians, and medical professionals? That is different -- very different. But don't expect them to bring prosperity. If there is no local bookstore they will be buying stuff on line from Amazon.com.     

[Former President tack50]

Yes/ Maybe

Those programs are generally a good idea, and I think several countries with brain drain problems often have such programs.

Whether they actually work or not I don't know though

[Badger]

I'm going to repeat a question I had earlier, which perhaps I didn't pose a question, but I think it really really needs answered. Assuming, again assuming, that we are doing this on an income-based need rather than just some geographical lean toward rural areas because reasons, then if we are willing to fund college graduates to teach, practice law or medicine, Etc in inner-city or native reservation areas where there is a crying need for such professionals oh, why can't we do the same thing for struggling rural areas that just happen to be predominantly white?

After all, if we truly believed in this if there are no jobs where you live and grew up and just move argument oh, and why wouldn't we apply it to inner-city Residents as well as rural native and Hispanic areas? The answer for the latter question is that enough people here are realistic enough to know that the Invisible Hand of the market isn't all that invisible or, dating, and that people who are economically suffering particularly need the extended social network of family and lifelong friends to survive. Someone moving from East st. Louis to Austin doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to have an affordable couch to crash on for them and their kids when they get their just because they're able to get a job at Chick-fil-A paying 1150 an hour.

So, if we don't expect inner city and Rural Hispanic and Native populations to just get up and move 2 booming silicon Sunbelt unities because the free market and all that, why do we hold the same for white rural poor communities?

[Person Man]

1.maybe/don't care
2.no

The more small towns we return to nature the better.  If people want to live there, fine and if the people that live there want to subsidize bringing college grads back, that's fine too, as long as they aren't asking the rest of us to pay for it.  It's a bad idea when people that live in expensive urban places ask for it and it's a bad idea when rural people ask for it.

tl; dr. Pretty much.

[Panda Express]

Why don't these dying rural towns just merge together and form a super rural town that could challenge a city?