Posted on 03/16/2012 7:48:14 AM PDT by C19fan
Here's what we know about moving in America: We're not doing it like we used to. The share of single people and families moving between states is the lowest in half a century.
But why? We cannot hope to know why 150 million households -- or 300 million Americans -- choose to move or not move across the country to find a new job or to make a new start. There are too many variables to name. But we can start to count them: Jobs play a role. Income plays a role. Affordable housing, and good schools, and cost-of-living, and urban culture, and space -- all these play a role.
When we wrote about this "go-nowhere" trend in our article Generation Stuck, we received hundreds of responses from movers and non-movers across the country. Our first batch focused on the the movers. This collection of reader testimonials focuses on the non-movers, but listens to the movers, too. Keep writing.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
In all fairness to GenY, they’ve been completely screwed over by their greedy, gimme-gimme parents, who’ve put the US in an unsolvable debt crisis and chased millions of jobs out of the country.
It was easy for me to pack up and leave CA for Seattle in 1990 because I knew I’d find a job.
Would I do it today? I don’t think so. Not with what’s been done to the economy.
I'd like a Viking 70 but I can't afford it.
I, too, am an Xer who has more than once purged his belongings and hit the road for a brighter future. I have been fortunate that these choices (coast to coast, two round trips) have been worthwhile.
But I wouldn’t exclude our generation from a fair share of those sticking to the safety of their hometowns. When I return “home” to where my father lives, I am struck by the number of former friends and classmates who haven’t moved more than 5 miles from where they lived as teenagers. And I’m not talking about rural America, but a rather large and prosperous suburb of a mid-size metropolitan area.
I was one who got the diploma and sought to explore new worlds (seek out new life...) But I believe the large majority of our generation (if my experience is representative) opted to stay close to home. To each his own, I guess.
I don’t see why one would just “want to move,” without a reason - such as a job offer - to go a certain place. We moved often when I was growing up because my father was in the Navy. Then my husband, children, and I moved six time in eight years. (Migrant IT work.)
However, nearly my parents nor my husband and I ever said, “Hey, let’s move to Cleveland! I hear it’s great!” and went. We moved because it was required. It seems to me that the time for a move far away from parents’ home is when you choose a college. That way, you’re in place when you apply for jobs after graduation. My parents lived in Virginia Beach, and I went to college in San Antonio, and then lived and worked there for six years after graduation.
I heard on the radio just this morning, that 30 percent, yes; 3 out of 10, of people 24-35 years of age, live at home with parents. Unbelievable.
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That means 70 percent do not. figure 5 to 10 percent is disabled or mentally ill, and it knocks figures down to 20%.
I think young people have things backwards by expecting opportunity in large urban areas, and they have not been well served by their educators as we know.
I have learned that small towns and rural areas do have jobs for competent people, and competency is at a premium in small rural towns. The people are much nicer than in the big cities, and the living is less expensive.
Exurbs, young people. That’s your future.
I guess the Donner Party ran out of oxen...........
I am a baby boomer and was never pampered. I served my country in time of war, went to college on the GI Bill, worked in the oil and gas industry and relocated all over the country, paid my taxes, voted and obeyed the law. I lived within my means and saved enough money to retire early and comfortably. So you can take your attitude and shove it.
As soon as she graduated from university my hard-driving, go-getter, conquer-the-world daughter spent a summer at home working 70-hour weeks at her former summer job and saving the money. Then she took what she called a “big girl” job with a company which is about 3 hours away if the weather is good, and forever if it’s not. She loves her job, but the whole family is all regretting the distance and we all wish she had been able to find a job closer to home. Slogging back and forth to see each other is very expensive and difficult. Mailing stuff is a pain in the neck. We don’t have each other’s help and hands-on support when needed.
This is why I discourage people from going to college too far away from home. It breaks up the traditional family system on which this country was built.
Gen Y's a lot more pampered than the boomers or my own Gen-X.
Hmmm. Maybe the government should pay for it. It could be an add on payment to the contraception subsidy.
They are gone to automation and insane productivity gains. China does make things at a lower cost, to be sure, but the days of "high wage manufacturing jobs" are pretty much gone. Making stuff is just too easy. And yes, there are exceptions, but not generation-supporting exceptions.
“They are gone to automation and insane productivity gains. China does make things at a lower cost, to be sure, but the days of “high wage manufacturing jobs” are pretty much gone. Making stuff is just too easy. And yes, there are exceptions, but not generation-supporting exceptions.”
The 3D printers are going to add dramatically to the automation of manufacturing. You are correct in your assertion that the high wage manufacturing jobs are gone.
My word. Can anyone even imagine what the pioneers would have said about this kind of infantile dependency? sheesh.
There is a huge natural gas boom less than a day's drive away in Pennsylvania and Ohio. What are you waiting for?
Well what good are your "old networks" doing for you now? "scraping by?" Good luck on that 60K guaranteed job. Hope you don't freeze in the dark waiting for it to appear.
I wonder how many of these amazing doodlebugs ever considered the military...
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