I don't think it's just us, though it probably disproportionately is. What wealth small and medium towns had has moved to cities, you just won't have a good job unless you move to the city.
Something about it all seems so sinister. Not everyone can be an engineer or a doctor. If society is to function people need to be able to live a reasonable life just being mildly productive.
Can't sympathize with their political views but I do sympathize with wanting to blow the system up and try something different. Things are going to go south real fast if/when the same trend of disappearing jobs starts happening in cities too.
You shouldn't. They have the choice to pack up and find better jobs and opportunities. Not all city jobs are doctors and engineers; in fact the fastest growing job is wind turbine technicians.
America has been through this before; the industrial revolution and then the Service sector industry led to mass migration from rural to Urban areas. And most younger Americans from smaller towns do end up doing just that.
I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that can condone; nigh constantly encourage the kind of cruelty that we see today from the GOP.
Believe me, this is why I can't speak with some family/friends from back home.
But packing up and moving doesn't boil down to will, cards are stacked against you when you live in a rural area with few opportunities (same is true for high crime neighborhoods in cities).
It took me years to escape and it boiled down to getting lucky that I knew someone who left for a medium-sized city and was able to hitch a ride as a temporary roommate, got started waiting tables and taught myself programming at night/on weekends.
It's incredibly difficuly to move to a city: unless you are something amazing, employers want local candidates. Landlords want you to have a job before giving you a lease. It's an awful chicken/egg problem that is insurmountable to most.
I'm not discounting the difficulties and very real hardships faced by these people. But I do want to point out that the United States offers a lot of opportunities for economic growth and well being, much more than you can find in most other countries. To not make use of that just sounds too stupid to me.
You really can't just keep waiting in your small town and expect things to magically improve. Either find a way to make things work or move on. Or vote for constructive policies. Don't fucking put a sex offender in the Oval Office.
I have friends in New York's service industry (bartenders, waiters, et cetera). Breaking in was tough. But once they established themselves, they began doing quite well.
Economised with roommates; diligently saved; kept a tight budget and continuously applied to the affordable housing lotteries.
One of my criticisms of neoliberal economics/politics is it doesn't consider stable meaningful jobs that your can support a family on as a necessary output of the economic system.
Very likely this is what stakeholder-profits-at-all-costs leads to.
I am definitely in that group. If i can have a decent living on social welfare programs then i definitely would not work. Working sucks. I just hate the idea of working or satisfying customer's needs because it represents a master/slave type relationship.