Man. That article hit a lot of notes. Retail jobs being second jobs for a lot of people with families. People taking temp jobs in hopes of them leading to something more permanent. The closing of anchor stores in malls leading to the closing of smaller, specialized stores. The community effects of dropping property values. Pretty bleak, all around. Once again, makes me think about this comment I made earlier this morning. That said, I don't know how much diversity you can really get out of a town with only 16,000 people.When they talk about the "retail apocalypse" they're not just talking about the death of stores and the jobs that go with them... they're talking about the infrastructure that supports them. I honestly have no idea how a town of 16,000 people rates three anchor department stores in the first place, but if your town could support them once, and now your town can't, y'all are fucked.
Humans have been moving from the hinterlands to the cities for hundreds of years. It's the natural flow of civilization. That said, what's the Brodeur quote? "Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped off?" It's not like everybody woke up one day, sold their holdings at fair market value and hitched a Trailways to prosperity. There's a lot of new ghost towns in the desert Southwest. You drive through them and think about the intentions reflected in the detritus you see, the dreams that died, the plans that changed, the lives that were never the same. I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of living in big cities. There's a lot of stress that comes with the crowding. That says, when it comes to comparing cities to towns, there's a lot to be said about more abundant resources from schools and hospitals to job options to places to eat and shop and live, provided cost of living is kept in check. Natural movement to the cities strike me overall as healthy for society, though I'll acknowledge there are probably a bunch of caveats that come with dense living but technology slowly and surely seems to be helping in that area. Medicine and hygiene, architecture, etc. I think eventually, it might be better for the environment over all, only because I imagine that the less space we use up in the natural world, the less we conflict with it. I wonder if we as a country put more focus in job re-training and relocation programs, we'd have an easier transition. A lot of the unfilled jobs that are out there are skilled work jobs, such as plumbers and electricians, construction workers, arborists, lock smiths, you name it. The two big problems that I seem to see, at least from my perspective, is that A) a lot of these jobs have financial barriers to entry, even if there are apprentice tracks to get into them and B) a lot of places just don't seem to want to entertain the idea of hiring people past a certain age. Barbara, from the article is already in retirement, but I bet someone half her age wouldn't get a lot of employers giving them a serious look.Humans have been moving from the hinterlands to the cities for hundreds of years.
I'm not either. However, I grew up in the goddamn sticks and the lack of cultural opportunity cut like a knife from about the age of 7 until I got the fuck out. Once I was weaned and independent, the allure of fuck'n'gone hinterlands wasn't lost on me. But the cultural implications of a cosmopolitan area can't be overstated. What do you do on Saturday with your kid when you live in Seattle? You go to the Children's Museum. What do you do on Saturday with your kid when you live in Espanola? You skip rocks on the river. At least, if it hasn't run dry. I'm dragging my ass through this report right now. Retraining is pretty much the crux of their issue. They figure 30% of jobs are fucked by 2030. They also figure if we can retrain everyone within 12 months, we catch a wave of opportunity. If we fail to do so, welcome to Elizabethan squalor. It is not a pretty report but if your job currently consists of gathering information, entering information, processing information or doing repetitive physical tasks, best retrain yourself now.Personally, I'm not a huge fan of living in big cities.