Fly-over country has many nice large homes for $200K with 1/4 acre or larger yards. And there are tech jobs, though obviously not as concentrated as the coasts. And the 15-30 minute commute is very typical. It all depends on priorities.
The perception today is that, sure, it's hard to make it on the coast, but there are no jobs and there's no culture in the Midwest, so that's out of the question.
What this is, more than anything else, is ignorant. I think I understand how it happened. The inner cores of the Midwestern cities that give large metros their names really have been gutted. They were literally ripped through by highways, intentionally segregated, their manufacturing base decimated.
They're crumbling.
And boy oh boy does this story have legs. It's sort of fun to flip through the destruction porn. Pictures of brick piles where houses once stood titillate.
So, it must sound as though entire regions are falling apart. But it's just not so.
If you were to do a quick search for information about St. Louis, MO, you'd learn that the city has a paltry median income of about $30k, a dwindling population of about 300k, and a pathetic land area of only 66 miles squared.
But the City of St. Louis refers to a very small part of a much larger region, an area myopically bound by voters who in 1876 couldn't imagine much happening in the farmlands beyond those lines.
The region today -- much of it on those old farmlands -- has 2.5 million people and a metro-wide median household income of around $55k.
This is the true picture of the region, though most descriptions of it are drawn from only its worst parts.
The fact is that, for many people, the opportunity in places like California lags far behind the increased cost of living. Lots and lots of regular folks would be far better off relocating to places they've long-ago dismissed without a serious look.
Yes, we have winters. And no ocean. But, yes, there's actually culture (of the kind generated everywhere that two and a half million humans live). And good housing. And, most important: you can actually afford it.
If someone is looking the broad area between the coasts, they see:
1. Crumbling ghettos (as you describe)
2. Crumbling non-ghetto rust-belt that's still not pretty
3. Rural areas beset by meth and herion.
4. Vast-scale suburbs with indeed little to no culture and fairly thin on jobs.
5. Areas like the coasts but costing close to the price of the coast -
But I'm sure there's good stuff between that.
Also, the City Of St. Louis is certainly the limit of the broad St. Louis ghetto, as the Ferguson events clearly shows. The metropolitan area is basically the 2nd or third most dangerous city in the US (behind Detroit and sometimes New Orleans).
The metropolitan area is basically the 2nd or third most dangerous city in the US (behind Detroit and sometimes New Orleans).
This is not only incorrect, it's perhaps the most notorious example of the problems caused by comparing cities at a level smaller than the MSA. The St. Louis MSA is, in fact, about middle of the pack on crime. See here:
The division between St. Louis City and St. Louis County creates a lot of issues for this region, but the fact that you could make your comment with such confidence demonstrates that the area's primary challenge is image marketing.
The problems actually go even deeper than this. It's pretty difficult to make reasonable comparisons using crime data, even when looking across entire regions.
To illustrate this, imagine one region where the baseline crime rate is not extreme, but above average all across the region. Now, think of another place where most of the region is pretty safe, but one pocket of the area has an extremely high rate.
These two regions might have identical crime rates. But which one would you rather live in?
This is why the FBI recommends against using its own numbers to make comparisons like the grandparent's:
"Each year when Crime in the United States is published, many entities—news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our Nation—use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other jurisdiction. Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents."
Boy, no kidding! About 12 years ago I moved from the west coast to the midwest to a place I never thought I'd live. I can't believe the quality of life and work-life balance out here. My friends wondered if I'd have access to the Internet :) It's really perception more than anything else.
Texas, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan account for 9 of the 25 best school districts in America, according to at least one ranking [1]. There are good and bad schools everywhere, and it's up to families to suss them out; living in the middle of the country does not necessarily mean living in an anti-intellectual backwater.
You can't possibly believe your own words. Am I to believe that you think every school in the Midwest teaches creationism? The ignorance and myopia in this thread is staggering.
Sorry, never heard of creationism being taught in schools around here. Although we do have a replica of Lucy in the towns science museum, and I do have a autographed copy of Dawkin's latest book when he came to talk last fall.
