# What is a more realistic solution for rural folk: Bringing them jobs or moving them elsewhere? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780 "2017-04-04T23:35:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/21 "2017-04-05T08:31:49Z")
The excess of rural populations have been moving to cities for millennia. One child inherited the land and the others had to seek a livelihood elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/22 "2017-04-05T08:51:56Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > define “rural.” I can drive/ride 30 minutes north of Detroit and be in what might be considered “rural” areas. This. How rural is rural? Cities \<50000, 20000? 5000?30 miles between gas stations? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/23 "2017-04-05T11:00:18Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > There is no solution, because there are no jobs for them to work. > > Automation is going to decimate jobs all across the economy. Blue collar workers (especially in manufacturing) were canaries in the coal mine. Manufacturing has lost 1/3 of their employees (from 18 million down to 12 million now) in the last 15 years while manufacturing capacity has gone up. We have 15 million more jobs now than we had 15 years ago. Manufacturing as a share of nonfarm payroll has been decreasing steadily since the 1950s. Maybe something new and horrible is happening but you haven’t identified it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/24 "2017-04-05T11:26:28Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > We have 15 million more jobs now than we had 15 years ago. Sure. And we also have something like 39 million more people in this country than 15 years ago. That’s not even considering the sort of “new” jobs that we gained in those years. Things are not OK. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/25 "2017-04-05T12:00:26Z")
I have lived in the small city of Chillicothe, Ohio for 16 years. The population in the city is about 22,000. Chillicothe is fortunate in that it has a handful of major employers: a factory that builds Kenworth trucks, a paper mill, a regional medical center, a VA hospital, and two state prisons. About 25 miles south, there is a plant that used to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants. The process of shutting down that operation is literally taking decades, and it is a source of high paying jobs. Forty miles north is the city of Columbus. Many people in Chillicothe, including me three days a week, commute to jobs in Columbus. Many high earners, like the doctors at the medical center and the VA, commute from Columbus to Chillcothe. They don’t feel that Chillicothe has enough social and cultural amenities to suit them. There are jobs in Chillicothe for most of the people here. The biggest problem our town faces is opportunities for our children. Most peoples’ kids who go to college do not settle where they grew up. That is a minor problem compared to cities and towns further south. Fifteen miles south of Chillicothe is Waverly. The single large employer there, a cabinet factory, closed a few years ago. The town government is broke, efforts to lure a manufacturer to the cabinet factory site are not going well, and the prospects aren’t good. Sixty miles south of Chillicothe is Portsmouth, Ohio, on the Ohio River. The population of Portsmouth peaked in the thirties, at around 40,000. By 2010, it had declined to around 20,000. People who have the ambition, resources and courage to leave the place where generations of their families have lived have already done so. Those that remain don’t seem to be able to envision living away from familiar places and people. Chillicothe, Waverly and Portsmouth have tremendous drug problems. Heroin overdoses are depressingly common. My son is an EMT who goes out on at least one OD call a day. I have been thinking about the future of my town and the surrounding area since I moved here. I don’t think that attracting factories is a viable answer. For my city, an answer may be training people for jobs in Columbus and improving the amenities in our town to make it more attractive as a place to live. For the little towns of one to three thousand people that dot the surrounding area, I don’t think there is an answer. Everything, even farming, has become so mechanized and automated that there will probably be no economic growth in those towns in the future. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/26 "2017-04-05T12:15:17Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The current plan is actually pretty practical; let these tiny rural towns dry up of their own accord and die a natural death. It’s not like anyone is moving _to_ these places, so their existence is unsustainable. They’ll get to the point where their population is too old and they’ll wither away to nothing. But in the meantime the inhabitants there are get frustrated and feel wronged, and our electoral system tends to overcount rural regions. So their plight’s effect on the rest of us is amplified. As mentioned before it is \*not \*the first time in history that there is a bust cycle for the rural sectors, or for once dominant industries, or for company towns, and as always there’s the fact that we cannot really predict what will come next to replace or transform (never to restore what once was, _that’s_ an illusion) so there is a high feeling of uncertainty. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/27 "2017-04-05T12:40:36Z")
Jobs being obsoleted by the progress of technology is not new. And technology often produce new jobs, sometimes in greater numbers. However, these jobs are mostly not for the people who were obsoleted. The new jobs tend to be one tick up on the skills scale, and mostly for the next generation. What is new, is that the turnover rate is increasing. But human generation time stays the same. And the people getting obsoleted are normally in the shallow end of the skill pool. The people with the least ability to acquire new and marketable skills. I don’t have a solution to that. It is an observation. The rate of change is increasing, while human adaptability is not. > [@Shagnasty](#): > > I should add that depopulating areas are generally bad news. My own tiny home town only exists because it was once a railroad stop for a train that doesn’t stop at all anymore. Once people start leaving, especially young people, property values plunge and the remaining businesses go into a death spiral. The people that remain tend to be the least mobile and educated so you end up with a mini-Detroit effect. I don’t think it is a good idea to encourage thousands of those sprinkled all over the map any more than already happens. > > It may be wishful thinking but it would be better to promote broad and diverse opportunities evenly rather than just try to shove everyone into the larger metro areas. It is much easier said than done but it may be possible with technology. An important point. What happens to these towns one generation down, though? ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/28 "2017-04-05T14:12:32Z")
I live rural mountain. I drive 25 miles to a ‘city’ (population about 5000, the entire county is about 30,000). I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love living in the sticks. No traffic, no noise, lots of space, no neighbors. I make nearly 6 figures, my wife does too. I could (barely) afford to live in the town where my job is, but I really don’t want to give up two acres and a 1800 square foot home. Ya see, ‘town’ or the city is a ski resort area, and real estate is unfucking unbelievably expensive. A house in town that is similar to my modest sized home (2 bed 2 bath) would cost about 5-10 times as much. And I’d be giving up my 2 acres for a small yard. No thanks. Now, internet does suck. I can stream, but it’s slow. I am giving up on my satellite dish and going with a mobile hot spot. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/29 "2017-04-05T14:30:01Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > As someone with a whole group of relatives who live in rural areas (as in, the largest town in the entire county has \<4,000 people) the problem isn’t so much where they live, as what they can do. ^This, completely this. I can do my job from anywhere there is an internet connection or cell service. More and more people have jobs where commuting is a thing of the past. Investing in educating/training rural blue collar workers to become rural white collar workers will have a much greater ROI than moving more poor people into a city to compete for ever more limited resources. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/30 "2017-04-05T14:39:46Z")
Here [jacobs.html](http://www.zompist.com/jacobs.html) is a good Essay discussing a book that traces why cities are wealthier and more productive than the countryside. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/31 "2017-04-05T14:49:27Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Trump supporters seem hopeful that jobs can be brought back to the “real” America. Manufacturing jobs, coal mining jobs, good blue-collar jobs that anyone with a high school diploma can do. Like the olden days. Give em jobs and they’ll get er done. > > This seems very idealistic to me. I can’t see a whole bunch of big corporations flocking to Bumfuck. I especially can’t see a whole bunch of big corporations flocking to Bumfuck to hire low-skill locals and simultaneously paying wages that would harken back to the “good ole days”. The first step would be to have qualified manufacturing Jobs. Instead of clinging to mining coal, look into urban mining (digging up old landfills for materials that were trash or non-recycable then, but are of value today). Instead of “just” steel, produce high-Quality steel and Team up to make wind wheels. That would require an element that seems to be missing in the US, though: vocational Schools. Not expensive Colleges, but practical Schools that are coupled with a Company. An apprentice is hired by the Company, learns the practical aspects there and goes to vocational School to learn theory and meets others. [Dual education system - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system) > [@](#): > > So I guess that’s why I’m feeling like the rural poor need to get the hell out of Dodge. Poverty sucks no matter where you live, but it seems like it would be a million times worse out in the sticks. Seems like the lack of public transportation alone would do a poor person in. But then you’ve got the social isolation on top of that. The Problem is when the poor are too poor to afford a move. You Need to pay for the move, or at least gas Money to drive hundreds of miles, and then … find a Job, and an affordable Apartment. The latter are non-existent unless the City / state pays for Special affordable housing. And what about old People? Most dying towns and villages here already are mostly old People, because the Young People have moved to the City to start an apprenticeship/ get a Job. The old People can’t afford cities on their small Pension, or don’t want to be uprooted. It’s a logistic challenge to provide necessary infrastructure (doctors, Shops, Internet) in an area wide-spread-out but sparsley populated and with low income. > [@](#): > > I don’t know. Maybe this is also idealistic. But it seems more practical than the current plan. What plan? The current plan is lying to workers and companies who are so desperate to believe that they don’t get off their butts and look into the future for their industry. There was just a Report, a Journalist traveling into “Trump heartland = Rust belt” and talking with not only workers at steel factory, but also factory owner. All are “yeah, back to coal, steel will rise again”. Nobody talked about Quality steel, about how much Renewable Energy is currently growing and how many opportunites for skilled workers and good companies are there. No, it’s “we want to hope, because we can’t think of anything else”. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/32 "2017-04-05T14:54:50Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > What we can do immediately is raise taxes on the robot owners and give the money to the poor. Of course, we can only do that if more of the rural poor–especially the white ones–start voting their own economic interests instead of those of the robot owners. That’s what visionaries here are talking about (and the Finns trying it out): universal income. Every Person gets a Basic income they can live off. No forms or bureaucracy to qualify and sort out the “deserving” from the “undeserving”. If a Company wants to hire workers, they Need to pay more or offer other incentives, like interesting work. If somebody wants to do community Theater or develop Software to help People, they can do without going bankrupt. Tax capital (and Robot owners), and abolish the big Overhead of the current System, and it would work. You would Need a lot of social workers to help People who have looked at dumb Mcjobs all their life to figure out where their personal skills are and what interests them, so they don’t lie on the Couch all day and don’t know what to with themselves. I don’t think it will ever happen in the US because of the strong revulsion to “an undeserving Person” (often black or Brown [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2017/04/04/cant-nice-things/](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2017/04/04/cant-nice-things/)) getting something, even if you shaft 99 deserving persons that way. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/33 "2017-04-05T17:19:30Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > That would require an element that seems to be missing in the US, though: vocational Schools. Not expensive Colleges, but practical Schools that are coupled with a Company. An apprentice is hired by the Company, learns the practical aspects there and goes to vocational School to learn theory and meets others. [Dual education system - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system) Monroe City, Missouri had a huge castings foundry that needed a steady supply of tool-and-diemakers, so they set up a training partnership with the local vocational school. The plant paid good wages for rural Missouri, thanks to the vocational training it had a continuing supply of skilled help, and all went well. Only problem was, the foundry makes auto parts. Auto sales went down, the foundry got sold, laid off workers, got sold again, went through bankruptcy, laid off a few more workers, etc. Now the town has a surplus of skilled and semiskilled workers wondering where the hell their jobs went. Right now, the town is hanging in there. The population has been pretty stable over the years, although it’s trending a little older. The foundry is running, although nowhere near full capacity. It’s the same way with a lot of small towns. They had one good employer, and like any single company, it’s going to have boom and bust cycles. People who had good jobs stay there, hoping the factory will recall them. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/34 "2017-04-05T17:33:50Z")
People need to move where the jobs are. If there was a way to move jobs to people then no place would ever lack jobs. Right now disability is allowing lots of people to stay unemployed in poverty stricken places. There are places 25% of working age adults are on disability. What happens is a person claims a hurt back and get disability. They then go on painkillers and get addicted. After a while they can’t get painkillers and turn to heroin. They mix that with a xanax and it kills them. Here is a report on the scale of the [problem](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/). Several years ago Johnny Knoxville did a sequel to Dancing Outlaw called the Wild, Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. It depicts a family of people who get disabilities, fight, do drugs, and cause trouble. There was only one of the whole family what had a decent life with a steady job, home, and family. It was the one who left their hometown and moved away. Both my parents came from small cities in Appalachia. Both of them and every one of my uncles and aunts moved away. Every one of my aunts, uncles, and cousins are thriving as a result. Moving vans are an underappreciated solution to poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/35 "2017-04-05T21:01:03Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Several years ago Johnny Knoxville did a sequel to Dancing Outlaw called the Wild, Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. It depicts a family of people who get disabilities, fight, do drugs, and cause trouble. There was only one of the whole family what had a decent life with a steady job, home, and family. It was the one who left their hometown and moved away. Let me clarify that a bit, as those folks are my husband’s cousins (somewhat removed - they’re more strictly speaking his mother’s cousins). They’ve been con artists and scammers for _generations_, not just recently. My husband had stories back to the 1930’s of their antics, and I’m certain those problems didn’t start with that generation. And it wasn’t just one family member who moved away, it’s been numerous ones, it’s just that not all of them were interviewed for the documentary. In other words, that particular family isn’t a good bit of supporting data for the notion that job loss leads to social decay, that branch of the family tree went rotten a long time ago. They kept on nagging my husband for decades about moving down there (to be with your kin! Blood is thicker than water! Etc!), getting on disability, and they’d take care of everything else. If you’ve seen the documentary you can probably understand why that wasn’t appealing to someone who was college educated and employed. He cut off all contact with them years ago, and good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/36 "2017-04-05T22:07:22Z")
Here is a thread on almost same topic from just after the election. Some good thoughts in there. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=811391](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=811391) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/37 "2017-04-05T22:18:48Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > People need to move where the jobs are. If there was a way to move jobs to people then no place would ever lack jobs. > Right now disability is allowing lots of people to stay unemployed in poverty stricken places. There are places 25% of working age adults are on disability. What happens is a person claims a hurt back and get disability. They then go on painkillers and get addicted. After a while they can’t get painkillers and turn to heroin. They mix that with a xanax and it kills them. Here is a report on the scale of the [problem](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/). > > Several years ago Johnny Knoxville did a sequel to Dancing Outlaw called the Wild, Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. It depicts a family of people who get disabilities, fight, do drugs, and cause trouble. There was only one of the whole family what had a decent life with a steady job, home, and family. It was the one who left their hometown and moved away. > > Both my parents came from small cities in Appalachia. Both of them and every one of my uncles and aunts moved away. Every one of my aunts, uncles, and cousins are thriving as a result. Moving vans are an underappreciated solution to poverty. Would you rather have those people as employees or co-workers, not showing up for work, or showing up hung over or drugged, and then leaving you to do all their work for them,or do their work over again that’s done wrong, or who disrupt the workplace? The economy is netter of and stronger if we just pay them to stay home, and get productivity out of those who work. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/38 "2017-04-05T22:25:03Z")
“better off” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/39 "2017-04-05T22:53:10Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > But in the meantime the inhabitants there are get frustrated and feel wronged, and our electoral system tends to overcount rural regions. So their plight’s effect on the rest of us is amplified. I agree that the situation sucks, but so far there don’t seem to be any better proposals. Subsidizing the rural areas with fake jobs just delays the inevitable. Paying people to move to cities only works when combined with education, and is probably too late for anyone older than 50. Family support networks are too difficult to move wholesale; you might catch a handful of youth but for the most part people will be resistant to giving up the people they know. And personally, the whole thing has the slight stench of “we know what’s best for you.” Letting things play out naturally seems like the least worst option. Providing a few services like internet and health care is probably the decent thing to do, but beyond that it doesn’t seem like any active efforts are likely to be productive. Not to mention that any kind of honesty about the situation makes you unelectable–Hillary certainly got slammed when she said that coal jobs were going away. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780/40 "2017-04-06T00:01:51Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Let me clarify that a bit, as those folks are my husband’s cousins (somewhat removed - they’re more strictly speaking his mother’s cousins). > > They’ve been con artists and scammers for _generations_, not just recently. My husband had stories back to the 1930’s of their antics, and I’m certain those problems didn’t start with that generation. And it wasn’t just one family member who moved away, it’s been numerous ones, it’s just that not all of them were interviewed for the documentary. > > In other words, that particular family isn’t a good bit of supporting data for the notion that job loss leads to social decay, that branch of the family tree went rotten a long time ago. > > They kept on nagging my husband for decades about moving down there (to be with your kin! Blood is thicker than water! Etc!), getting on disability, and they’d take care of everything else. If you’ve seen the documentary you can probably understand why that wasn’t appealing to someone who was college educated and employed. He cut off all contact with them years ago, and good riddance. Glad to see you back Broomstick and my condolences. I would think that there are companies that might be attracted to cheap real estate, housing, etc. But they will usually need a better educated work-force and decent infrastructure. I recall an incident a number of years ago in which Apple wanted to build a factory in some small town in Texas and the town refused to give them a permit. The reason was they gave equal benefits to same-sex couples and the town didn’t want any such employer. They can just fade away and I won’t mourn. And then NC which has put out the Not Welcome mat for the whole state. The hell with them. I wonder if there are similar reasons that other rural areas have made themselves unattractive. But infrastructure is primordial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-more-realistic-solution-for-rural-folk-bringing-them-jobs-or-moving-them-elsewhere/783780.md?page=3)