SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Research has shown that, while people in their 20s often leave rural communities, a higher percentage of young adults in their 30s choose rural communities, Schmitt-Wilson said. Still, most of the research on migration of young adults to rural communities focuses on "returners," or those choosing to move home to the community they were raised in, she added.
[...] The researchers found that while study participants were candid about challenges associated with life in rural areas of Montana—such as a lack of amenities and geographic and social isolation—they also highlighted a number of benefits.
"Those benefits included the quality of life they experience in their rural communities, including family-centered environments, low cost of living, unconditional support provided by community members, intergenerational friendships, increased sociability and unique opportunities for personal and professional growth available for young adults in rural communities," Schmitt-Wilson said.
If urban centers are in lockdown and their amenities are gone, would young people still choose city life or would places like rural Montana do?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:09PM (6 children)
The older people are definitely the ones that are sliding the definitions. There are 2 main reasons for that:
1. Older people control most of the institutions that set cultural definitions.
2. Younger people have to a large degree been unable to achieve the things older people see as signs of middle adulthood, like marriage, children, and home ownership.
The second part of this, even among people pushing past 40, is why a lot of older people view younger people as "irresponsible". Never mind that most older people didn't experience 6 major problems that have affected younger people quite a bit:
1. It requires extreme levels of skill and luck to find a decent job without post-high-school education. That means that what older people did at age 18, younger people have to wait until 20 or 22 to do.
2. It's requires extreme levels of skill and luck to get a post-high-school education without taking on debt. That means that lots of younger people have to do the equivalent of paying off a home loan before they're even at $0.
3. Real wages are at best flat in most professions, while fixed unavoidable expenses like rent and health insurance have gone way up. So younger people doing the same things older people did when they were young are in a much worse position, even if you don't factor in points 1 and 2.
4. The dot-com crash. That screwed over workers from approximately 2001-2003.
5. The 2008 crash. That screwed over workers from approximately 2008-2018.
6. The current Covid-19 crash, which will screw over workers from a few months ago until probably 2030 or so.
And yes, some older people experienced economic problems like the 1970's stagflation or the 1987 crash, but the last 2 crashes I mentioned in particular are both on the same kind of scale as the Great Depression, and not even the people who lived through the 1930's got the same kind of 1-2 economic punch nor experienced the complete indifference of government to their situation.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 28 2020, @11:01PM (5 children)
RIP America's Golden Age 1948-1973.
One problem is that older people's expectations are out of step with reality. It's not Happy Days any more. Hasn't been since the early 1970s, maybe late 1960s. Old farts who assume employment prospects haven't changed, and therefore that it's entirely their own fault that kids don't have jobs, that they're lazy, entitled, selfish, etc., well, that's been going on for generations. Nothing new in that. But they don't account for current circumstances. America is still coming off the high of the Golden Age they enjoyed after WWII.
If that was the only problem, it wouldn't be a big deal. But America took a few wrong turns. The greedy have been allowed to loot the public treasury, divert most of the nations' wealth to them, rig the game to keep it that way, and persuade lots of people that it's fair.
Next, fearmongering has been far too successful. It's just incredible that the largest, most powerful military ever, by an order of magnitude even-- when they say superpower, that's what they mean-- is still seen as not enough. The US military budget could be cut in half, more than half, without increasing the dangers from other nations. But America has become afraid, very afraid. It is stunningly hypocritical for budget hawks to cry that we must cut Social Security and education and science, while ignoring the war elephant in the room. Big Bird still has to go. you know, so we can afford one more fighter plane. One F-35 costs about the same as 6 seasons of Sesame Street.
While we overspend on the military to ward off totally overblown if not wholly imaginary threats, we underspend on real threats that the military is ill suited to handle, problems such as Global Warming.
And now, the wrong turn has become a death spiral. The Republicans have gone mad. In their pivot to the Southern Strategy, they embraced the worst among the voters, and now they're stuck, those voters have pulled the whole party down to their level. They thought to use those voters, and it backfired. Now they can't stop the propaganda dance they started. They gathered these wacko voters into a coherent unit, making them far more influential than they would ever have become otherwise. Their biggest supporters spit on science and fact, insisting that none of it matters, it's all just made up stuff intended to get topsides on them in the eternal internecine competition for resources and room, it's all Wag the Dog. It's like we were playing a football game on a leaking cruise ship, and upon hearing the warning to bail water or bail out, Team Republican refuses to leave the field, insisting the warning is a lie intended to trick them into forfeiting the game, and further, they actually block the exits so no one else can leave either, interfere with all efforts to organize a bucket brigade or take any other measure to save the ship, and mock everyone else for being scaredy cats, snowflakes, quitters, and Chicken Littles.
With all that, is it still great good fortune to be born in the USA?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @04:21AM (4 children)
Thing is, the invented "problems such as Global Warming" are just the "persuade lots of people that it's fair" step of the "loot the public treasury, divert most of the nations' wealth to them, rig the game to keep it that way, and persuade lots of people that it's fair". If your brain is too stuck to the party line to notice it still, you are part of the problem. It is you, not R, who are gone mad.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EEMac on Friday May 29 2020, @12:46PM
I think both parties have gone mad. One is further along than the other, but which it is depends 100% on who you ask.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Friday May 29 2020, @12:55PM (2 children)
Congratulations on proving his point and demonstrating the obstructionist tendency.
Now tell us the one about how tragic it would be if we make sure people working full time can afford food, clothing, shelter and health care the job givers might have to hold off buying a new winter yacht.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @07:24PM (1 child)
Is it still not strong enough to openly call your opponent a fascist for the high crime of badmouthing your Infallible Leaders, or had you simply forgotten the word in your outrage?
If only we had a way to burn the straw the Dems use making their strawmen. The world would never need any other energy source.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:08AM
You are the only person in this thread to drop the other F bomb.