8 ms·

The large parts of America left behind by today's economy

53 points by rndmize 9y ago

jbob2000 9y ago
>This isn't a Republican or Democratic problem. At every level of government, both parties represent distressed areas. But the economic fortunes of the haves and have-nots have only helped to widen the political chasm between them, and it has yet to be addressed by substantial policy proposals on either side of the aisle. I don't understand how the article can claim this when their own graphic at the top of the page shows that the majority of distressed communities are in Republican-dominant areas.
- snarfy 9y ago
  For comparison, here is a 2016 election map by county: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presidential_county_map_shaded_by_vote_share.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presid...
- Terr_ 9y ago
  > their own graphic at the top of the page shows that the majority of distressed communities That kind of map conveys acres of unfeeling land, rather than a quantity of distressed humans. So that particular graphic is simply not very useful -- whichever way folks want to argue things.
- Clubber 9y ago
  This is an honest question and not intended to be snarky, but what have Democrats done to improve job scarcity in middle America? I'm not insinuating that the GOP has done anything either.
  - jbob2000 9y ago
    You don't do one thing to fix something like job scarcity, you need a roundup of changes over decades to fix it. You need programs that push people into higher education so the communities have something to offer. And people can't study at college or university if they have children from unintended pregnancies, so you need to have good social programs to help people from when they enter high school to when they leave grad school. You need healthcare to prevent health issues before they happen and to get people back to work as soon as possible when they do fall ill. You need welfare programs so if shit happens (And it does) you don't have your life completely destroyed and you and your family put on the street. Are any of those policies ones that the Republican party stands for? Sex education, socialized healthcare and education, and welfare are on the GOP hit-list. Democrat states have had these things for decades now, which is why they are the prosperous ones.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      So all those things are great, I don't see how any of them will solve the employment problem plaguing most of the country, either directly or indirectly. The closest thing you listed is pushing people to college degrees. Once they get their degree, they'd have to move to a prosperous city to get employment. The non-prosperous city hasn't improved at all. So I think what you aren't understanding about the problem, is that in all these non-prosperous towns, there are few jobs and most of them pay shit. They had jobs, but they all left. The problem is to get the jobs back. What have the Dems done to get the jobs back? Again, I'm not saying the GOP has done anything either, but see my issue? Nothing is being done by either party, and that's a huge issue affecting millions of families. I mean it's not even really discussed. Warren is the only one even on the trail of some solutions, but she is an outsider (by her own admission). I mean if you go to these areas, it's the Great Depression. The towns are all boarded up and the people are hurting and have been for 4 decades. It's a huge failure of government that this is happening, and has been happening for so long.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        "What have the Dems done to get the jobs back?" They're not coming back. And if you look, you'll see that Democrats did propose plans in the last election. But without the approval of Congress, there's not much that can be done.
        Clubber 9y ago
        >They're not coming back. So should we continue to just tell a good chunk of the country to go to hell? What plans would the Dems enact if they sweep the 2020 election? I mean this is the most pressing issue for a huge voting block. Without a good plan, I don't think the Dems can take back the house or senate, much less the presidency. It's long over due, and the GOP don't have any good ideas either. >And if you look, you'll see that Democrats did propose plans in the last election. Like what?
        s73ver_ 9y ago
  - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
    You can't force change on people who distrust you and all your ideas.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Agree, but what are the Dem's ideas?
    - krapp 9y ago
      Arguably, that is exactly what governments are for.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    The problem is that GOP get elected by saying Government is broken then proceed to fulfill the prediction by breaking it further (look at Kansas). The Dems need to go back to the 50 state strategy and just "show up" at a number of uncontested races preparing to lose but win the 2nd or 3rd time - the problem is that the establishment wing of the Democratic party cock-blocks that and actively advances "their person" into such races and proceeds to lose them (blaming the grassroots candidate in the process), while ignoring large swathes of winnable races.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      >GGOP get elected by saying Government is broken Honestly, with this issue, and it's a huge issue, it seems the government is broken. I don't know how the Dems plan on solving this either, so I'm not sure replacing every GOP politician with a Dem politician will solve anything.
      - r00fus 9y ago
        You haven't been listening to platforms. There are solutions that the traditional media ignore because their funders/advertisers don't like them. Example: medicare for all, financial transaction tax, Gore's lockbox for SS funds, repealing parts of patriot act, etc.
        Clubber 9y ago
        I like all of those ideas, especially medicare for all. I think that is one that will help middle America. One of the main reasons people don't just quit and start their own businesses is because they can't afford to lose health insurance. I think blocking all these M&A would go a long way too. No one can compete in an industry with just one or two giants who enact huge barriers to entry, etc. Who proposed that? Bernie?
        r00fus 9y ago
        Bernie proposed Medicare for All, but I haven't really heard anything about blocking mergers. Sounds more like effective DOJ/antitrust, though. Keep in mind that Obama (widely seen as a sellout from Dems and the antichrist on the GOP side) was effective in reducing mobile subscription costs by blocking the AT&T / TMobile merger in 2014 - that was the FCC.
  - damnstraight 9y ago
    Arguably Obamacare has been great for adding jobs to the healthcare industry. That said, I'm not entirely sure what the executive branch can be expected to do here aside from tweaking interest rates and actively hiring people directly.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Democrats have long had plans for retraining programs for those affected by economic change. On most trade agreements, Democrats are the ones pushing for retraining programs for those who's jobs would be displaced by the agreement. Hell, Secretary Clinton had a whole plan written up on retraining programs for those in economically distressed areas. They actually had ideas and plans beyond "Let's bring back coal."
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Yes, I remember Bill gave a good speech about retraining workers, but without businesses in these towns to hire people, I don't see how it would do much for actual employment. It's not only manufacturing that left, agriculture scaled so high that you need 1000+ acres to make it in most crops. 1000 acres costs millions of dollars, leaving even more people behind. I don't know your age, but there were a bunch of Farm Aid concerts in the 80s. Didn't seem to do much though.
- busterarm 9y ago
  A majority of areas are Republican-dominant areas. If your metric is land mass, dividing on party lines is only going to get you one result.
- zebrafish 9y ago
  If you actually zoom in to the map, you'll see that yes, a lot of these are republican territories, but there are also a lot of democratic territories with a majority of black and latino voters. It cuts both ways.
pm90 9y ago
I don't really see how this can be remedied, besides there being a revival of traditional industries (unlikely) or current workers retraining in massive numbers (again, unlikely). It almost seems like this is a post-industrial great migration, where people from distressed areas would need to move to the few areas that are thriving. It doesn't help that the republican dominated political parties in many of the distressed states are more concerned with cutting taxes on the rich (Kansas) or trying to pass ridiculous and unnecessary laws (bathroom bills in NC, Texas etc). This has got to stop. Accepting Medicaid expansion, as I see it, is probably one way to immediately kickstart many of these distressed states. The federal money that comes in might just help create jobs in the healthcare sector (or fund existing ones better) that might somewhat mitigate the affects of economic duress. Not to mention better healthcare for the people.
- jasonmaydie 9y ago
  I think their metric is suspect. It only uses where new companies are being created as a major metric to categorize "distressed" economies. Pooling of resources around major urban areas is very typical of how economies grow. You can't expect companies to just rise up in the middle of nowhere
  - killjoywashere 9y ago
    Maybe you should get out more. I'm pretty sure a cross-country trucker would agree the towns off the main interstates are crumbling. I just visited my mom's hometown, Lamar, Colorado. They clearly surf the same internet you do, they are trying to mimic the same patterns of behavior, but the town is falling apart.
    - jasonmaydie 9y ago
      hrm. I'm not denying small towns are dying. I'm saying it's not unusual that they will die out as the economy moves towards increased efficiency.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  I think this reality has to be frankly talked about. If liberal tax policies are so destructive to business and innovation, why are the most successful counties often times (as shown in this map) run by more liberal / progressive / dare I say socialistic governments? People often criticize this line of inquiry and call it divisive or inappropriate or callous, but I cannot see how it is unrelated nonetheless. Tax breaks, gender discriminative bathroom laws, climate protection deregulation, and "appeals to traditional values" do not seem to be improving the lives of these people very much.
jroseattle 9y ago
This is nothing new, and it didn't happen overnight. The prosperous-vs-declining areas have been moving in that direction for at least a generation. Perhaps more magnified/pronounced in one area vs another, but on the whole this has been the trend for as long as I can recall. Nonetheless, a couple of observations: - Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska: regional chunks of comfortable/prosperous areas compared to the rhetoric espoused during the 2016 election campaign. I expected these to look much worse. - The map looks a lot like the federal distribution of taxes per dollar contributed: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJqk/EQXnfNLOqT0/s1600/fed_spending_dollar.JPG https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJ... - "A large portion of the country..." is actually "a large geo-graphic portion of the country"
- uoaei 9y ago
  Dismissing it offhand as "nothing new" is a little disingenuous. There may have always been this momentum but it didn't hit critical levels until lately, and that combined with the rise of globalism (whether that really is the culprit or not) has left a lot of people feeling down, literally, in the dumps. This information adds another facet to our understanding of today's political stage and it's worth paying attention to so we can better resolve it.
  - jroseattle 9y ago
    > "Lately" I'm originally from Missouri and would say it hit critical level over 10 years ago. The state has been in decline in terms of personal income, GDP growth, and a host of other economic indicators since 2009. This includes the metro areas of KC and STL, who represent the lion's share of the upside of growth numbers. Take those away, and the rural areas are disastrous -- just as the chart shows. Stark differences when viewed on a county basis, but it's been on this trend for a long time. I can't speak to the rest of the country, though. As always, your mileage may vary.
treebeard901 9y ago
As someone who has lived in the southern United States for over 30 years I can say with confidence that America did not leave these people behind... They left themselves behind.
- jshaqaw 9y ago
  Can you expand on that?
  - damnstraight 9y ago
    Southern, lower-middle to lower class, white southerners have voted against their own interests since the moment the Civil War ended.
- schreiaj 9y ago
  I can assure you that the children living in these communities didn't. I'd even be willing to bet that a good chunk of the policies keeping these places behind were inked and dried before their parents could vote. So, as much fun as it is to blame these people for their own woes it is neither productive nor accurate.
  - trendia 9y ago
    Could you be more specific? (what policies were implemented, who implemented them, and how did they affect the polulation?)
    - schreiaj 9y ago
      No I cannot. Not being an economist I can't point to exactly what is causing this to happen. I can, however, talk about my theory on what causes it. More or less it boils down to education. In a lot of rural communities the school systems are one step above garbage and have been for generations. This feeds back into declining tax revenues (because education tends to lead to higher paying jobs) which feeds back into worse schools. But that's just gut feeling.
  - 9y ago
no_wizard 9y ago
Yet again, Minnesota bucks the trend. Wonder why they keep doing so well while the rest of the middle states flounder. By bucking the trend I mean that compared to most other states it appears to be very comfortable and prosperous across the state in most but not all counties at least according to this map. I’ve seen similar findings in New Yorker and in the NYT too. Edit: is there something MN is doing that we could all learn from? They weren’t apart of the North Dakota oil boom really so I don’t think it’s that.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  They also have a long-tradition of left-wing politics, rooted in a sense of “Midwestern decency.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Minnesota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Minnesota
  - no_wizard 9y ago
    It appears they have one of the highest education rates in the country too "Education in Minnesota" on @Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Minnesota?wprov=sfti1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Minnesota?wprov...
- orangejewce 9y ago
  Minnesota has a lot of very unique things going for it. An above average number (17) of Fortune 500s in the Twin Cities area. One of the nations best private hospitals (Mayo Clinic), which drives its 3rd largest city's economy. A low cost of living due to opinions on its climate.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  They're an old money'ish place, lead by many large companies including Cargill, the quiet behemoth that continues to chug along.
  - no_wizard 9y ago
    I feel this advantage should also extend to states like New York then? This map at least seems to show that it can’t be the only factor?
bhewes 9y ago
In Oklahoma the Internet has shown up in the rural areas. Oklahoma is 30% rural which amounts to 1.3M people who don't live in any kind of town. Rural Oklahoma is rapidly changing so fast many of the people are having a hard time understanding the changes. It is not that it is falling behind, but generations old ways of order became obsolete or massively challenged overnight. This community is being asked to catch up on multiple decades of urban cultural in a few years. So they vote to slow it down. The Urban-Rural divide is real. Massive investments in Rural Oklahoma and Rural America are needed. Something I hope to promote if and when I enter the Oklahoma State House.
bglazer 9y ago
From the article: "It's not likely to fix itself," said EIG co-founder Steve Glickman. "Entrepreneurs are everywhere, but capital flows are really isolated and captured in a handful of places." From YC's FAQ section: Location Can we do it without moving to where you are? -Sorry, no. We tried this once, and by Demo Day that startup was way behind the rest. What we do, we have to do in person. We would not be doing a startup a favor by not making them move. I've said this before, but the conservatism of YC regarding location is astounding when considering the diversity that YC accepts in virtually all other facets of its operation. They'll invest in a file sharing app and a nuclear reactor company in the same batch, but apparently investing outside the Bay Area is just too hard.
- emerged 9y ago
  Sorry, if you don't move to SF, attend burning man regularly (and use the Experience to completely define yourself from then on) and disavow any right-leaning views, you have no right to participate in the startup world. Well, that's how it feels as someone living in the midwest who has tried to be a part of startups. I lived in California for over a decade and the entire startup thing was almost too easy to participate in. Money thrown all over the place, easy to find new startups or participate in your own. But god help you if you don't feel like living in California.

53 points by rndmize 9y ago

jbob2000 9y ago

>This isn't a Republican or Democratic problem. At every level of government, both parties represent distressed areas. But the economic fortunes of the haves and have-nots have only helped to widen the political chasm between them, and it has yet to be addressed by substantial policy proposals on either side of the aisle. I don't understand how the article can claim this when their own graphic at the top of the page shows that the majority of distressed communities are in Republican-dominant areas.

snarfy 9y ago
For comparison, here is a 2016 election map by county: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presidential_county_map_shaded_by_vote_share.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presid...
Terr_ 9y ago
> their own graphic at the top of the page shows that the majority of distressed communities That kind of map conveys acres of unfeeling land, rather than a quantity of distressed humans. So that particular graphic is simply not very useful -- whichever way folks want to argue things.
Clubber 9y ago
This is an honest question and not intended to be snarky, but what have Democrats done to improve job scarcity in middle America? I'm not insinuating that the GOP has done anything either.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  You don't do one thing to fix something like job scarcity, you need a roundup of changes over decades to fix it. You need programs that push people into higher education so the communities have something to offer. And people can't study at college or university if they have children from unintended pregnancies, so you need to have good social programs to help people from when they enter high school to when they leave grad school. You need healthcare to prevent health issues before they happen and to get people back to work as soon as possible when they do fall ill. You need welfare programs so if shit happens (And it does) you don't have your life completely destroyed and you and your family put on the street. Are any of those policies ones that the Republican party stands for? Sex education, socialized healthcare and education, and welfare are on the GOP hit-list. Democrat states have had these things for decades now, which is why they are the prosperous ones.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    So all those things are great, I don't see how any of them will solve the employment problem plaguing most of the country, either directly or indirectly. The closest thing you listed is pushing people to college degrees. Once they get their degree, they'd have to move to a prosperous city to get employment. The non-prosperous city hasn't improved at all. So I think what you aren't understanding about the problem, is that in all these non-prosperous towns, there are few jobs and most of them pay shit. They had jobs, but they all left. The problem is to get the jobs back. What have the Dems done to get the jobs back? Again, I'm not saying the GOP has done anything either, but see my issue? Nothing is being done by either party, and that's a huge issue affecting millions of families. I mean it's not even really discussed. Warren is the only one even on the trail of some solutions, but she is an outsider (by her own admission). I mean if you go to these areas, it's the Great Depression. The towns are all boarded up and the people are hurting and have been for 4 decades. It's a huge failure of government that this is happening, and has been happening for so long.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      "What have the Dems done to get the jobs back?" They're not coming back. And if you look, you'll see that Democrats did propose plans in the last election. But without the approval of Congress, there's not much that can be done.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        >They're not coming back. So should we continue to just tell a good chunk of the country to go to hell? What plans would the Dems enact if they sweep the 2020 election? I mean this is the most pressing issue for a huge voting block. Without a good plan, I don't think the Dems can take back the house or senate, much less the presidency. It's long over due, and the GOP don't have any good ideas either. >And if you look, you'll see that Democrats did propose plans in the last election. Like what?
        s73ver_ 9y ago
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  You can't force change on people who distrust you and all your ideas.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Agree, but what are the Dem's ideas?
  - krapp 9y ago
    Arguably, that is exactly what governments are for.
- r00fus 9y ago
  The problem is that GOP get elected by saying Government is broken then proceed to fulfill the prediction by breaking it further (look at Kansas). The Dems need to go back to the 50 state strategy and just "show up" at a number of uncontested races preparing to lose but win the 2nd or 3rd time - the problem is that the establishment wing of the Democratic party cock-blocks that and actively advances "their person" into such races and proceeds to lose them (blaming the grassroots candidate in the process), while ignoring large swathes of winnable races.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >GGOP get elected by saying Government is broken Honestly, with this issue, and it's a huge issue, it seems the government is broken. I don't know how the Dems plan on solving this either, so I'm not sure replacing every GOP politician with a Dem politician will solve anything.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      You haven't been listening to platforms. There are solutions that the traditional media ignore because their funders/advertisers don't like them. Example: medicare for all, financial transaction tax, Gore's lockbox for SS funds, repealing parts of patriot act, etc.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        I like all of those ideas, especially medicare for all. I think that is one that will help middle America. One of the main reasons people don't just quit and start their own businesses is because they can't afford to lose health insurance. I think blocking all these M&A would go a long way too. No one can compete in an industry with just one or two giants who enact huge barriers to entry, etc. Who proposed that? Bernie?
        r00fus 9y ago
        Bernie proposed Medicare for All, but I haven't really heard anything about blocking mergers. Sounds more like effective DOJ/antitrust, though. Keep in mind that Obama (widely seen as a sellout from Dems and the antichrist on the GOP side) was effective in reducing mobile subscription costs by blocking the AT&T / TMobile merger in 2014 - that was the FCC.
- damnstraight 9y ago
  Arguably Obamacare has been great for adding jobs to the healthcare industry. That said, I'm not entirely sure what the executive branch can be expected to do here aside from tweaking interest rates and actively hiring people directly.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Democrats have long had plans for retraining programs for those affected by economic change. On most trade agreements, Democrats are the ones pushing for retraining programs for those who's jobs would be displaced by the agreement. Hell, Secretary Clinton had a whole plan written up on retraining programs for those in economically distressed areas. They actually had ideas and plans beyond "Let's bring back coal."
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Yes, I remember Bill gave a good speech about retraining workers, but without businesses in these towns to hire people, I don't see how it would do much for actual employment. It's not only manufacturing that left, agriculture scaled so high that you need 1000+ acres to make it in most crops. 1000 acres costs millions of dollars, leaving even more people behind. I don't know your age, but there were a bunch of Farm Aid concerts in the 80s. Didn't seem to do much though.
busterarm 9y ago
A majority of areas are Republican-dominant areas. If your metric is land mass, dividing on party lines is only going to get you one result.
zebrafish 9y ago
If you actually zoom in to the map, you'll see that yes, a lot of these are republican territories, but there are also a lot of democratic territories with a majority of black and latino voters. It cuts both ways.

pm90 9y ago

I don't really see how this can be remedied, besides there being a revival of traditional industries (unlikely) or current workers retraining in massive numbers (again, unlikely). It almost seems like this is a post-industrial great migration, where people from distressed areas would need to move to the few areas that are thriving. It doesn't help that the republican dominated political parties in many of the distressed states are more concerned with cutting taxes on the rich (Kansas) or trying to pass ridiculous and unnecessary laws (bathroom bills in NC, Texas etc). This has got to stop. Accepting Medicaid expansion, as I see it, is probably one way to immediately kickstart many of these distressed states. The federal money that comes in might just help create jobs in the healthcare sector (or fund existing ones better) that might somewhat mitigate the affects of economic duress. Not to mention better healthcare for the people.

jasonmaydie 9y ago
I think their metric is suspect. It only uses where new companies are being created as a major metric to categorize "distressed" economies. Pooling of resources around major urban areas is very typical of how economies grow. You can't expect companies to just rise up in the middle of nowhere
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  Maybe you should get out more. I'm pretty sure a cross-country trucker would agree the towns off the main interstates are crumbling. I just visited my mom's hometown, Lamar, Colorado. They clearly surf the same internet you do, they are trying to mimic the same patterns of behavior, but the town is falling apart.
  - jasonmaydie 9y ago
    hrm. I'm not denying small towns are dying. I'm saying it's not unusual that they will die out as the economy moves towards increased efficiency.
deusofnull 9y ago
I think this reality has to be frankly talked about. If liberal tax policies are so destructive to business and innovation, why are the most successful counties often times (as shown in this map) run by more liberal / progressive / dare I say socialistic governments? People often criticize this line of inquiry and call it divisive or inappropriate or callous, but I cannot see how it is unrelated nonetheless. Tax breaks, gender discriminative bathroom laws, climate protection deregulation, and "appeals to traditional values" do not seem to be improving the lives of these people very much.

jroseattle 9y ago

This is nothing new, and it didn't happen overnight. The prosperous-vs-declining areas have been moving in that direction for at least a generation. Perhaps more magnified/pronounced in one area vs another, but on the whole this has been the trend for as long as I can recall. Nonetheless, a couple of observations: - Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska: regional chunks of comfortable/prosperous areas compared to the rhetoric espoused during the 2016 election campaign. I expected these to look much worse. - The map looks a lot like the federal distribution of taxes per dollar contributed: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJqk/EQXnfNLOqT0/s1600/fed_spending_dollar.JPG https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJ... - "A large portion of the country..." is actually "a large geo-graphic portion of the country"

uoaei 9y ago
Dismissing it offhand as "nothing new" is a little disingenuous. There may have always been this momentum but it didn't hit critical levels until lately, and that combined with the rise of globalism (whether that really is the culprit or not) has left a lot of people feeling down, literally, in the dumps. This information adds another facet to our understanding of today's political stage and it's worth paying attention to so we can better resolve it.
- jroseattle 9y ago
  > "Lately" I'm originally from Missouri and would say it hit critical level over 10 years ago. The state has been in decline in terms of personal income, GDP growth, and a host of other economic indicators since 2009. This includes the metro areas of KC and STL, who represent the lion's share of the upside of growth numbers. Take those away, and the rural areas are disastrous -- just as the chart shows. Stark differences when viewed on a county basis, but it's been on this trend for a long time. I can't speak to the rest of the country, though. As always, your mileage may vary.

treebeard901 9y ago

As someone who has lived in the southern United States for over 30 years I can say with confidence that America did not leave these people behind... They left themselves behind.

jshaqaw 9y ago
Can you expand on that?
- damnstraight 9y ago
  Southern, lower-middle to lower class, white southerners have voted against their own interests since the moment the Civil War ended.
schreiaj 9y ago
I can assure you that the children living in these communities didn't. I'd even be willing to bet that a good chunk of the policies keeping these places behind were inked and dried before their parents could vote. So, as much fun as it is to blame these people for their own woes it is neither productive nor accurate.
- trendia 9y ago
  Could you be more specific? (what policies were implemented, who implemented them, and how did they affect the polulation?)
  - schreiaj 9y ago
    No I cannot. Not being an economist I can't point to exactly what is causing this to happen. I can, however, talk about my theory on what causes it. More or less it boils down to education. In a lot of rural communities the school systems are one step above garbage and have been for generations. This feeds back into declining tax revenues (because education tends to lead to higher paying jobs) which feeds back into worse schools. But that's just gut feeling.
- 9y ago

no_wizard 9y ago

Yet again, Minnesota bucks the trend. Wonder why they keep doing so well while the rest of the middle states flounder. By bucking the trend I mean that compared to most other states it appears to be very comfortable and prosperous across the state in most but not all counties at least according to this map. I’ve seen similar findings in New Yorker and in the NYT too. Edit: is there something MN is doing that we could all learn from? They weren’t apart of the North Dakota oil boom really so I don’t think it’s that.

alphonsegaston 9y ago
They also have a long-tradition of left-wing politics, rooted in a sense of “Midwestern decency.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Minnesota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Minnesota
- no_wizard 9y ago
  It appears they have one of the highest education rates in the country too "Education in Minnesota" on @Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Minnesota?wprov=sfti1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Minnesota?wprov...
orangejewce 9y ago
Minnesota has a lot of very unique things going for it. An above average number (17) of Fortune 500s in the Twin Cities area. One of the nations best private hospitals (Mayo Clinic), which drives its 3rd largest city's economy. A low cost of living due to opinions on its climate.
hkmurakami 9y ago
They're an old money'ish place, lead by many large companies including Cargill, the quiet behemoth that continues to chug along.
- no_wizard 9y ago
  I feel this advantage should also extend to states like New York then? This map at least seems to show that it can’t be the only factor?

bhewes 9y ago

In Oklahoma the Internet has shown up in the rural areas. Oklahoma is 30% rural which amounts to 1.3M people who don't live in any kind of town. Rural Oklahoma is rapidly changing so fast many of the people are having a hard time understanding the changes. It is not that it is falling behind, but generations old ways of order became obsolete or massively challenged overnight. This community is being asked to catch up on multiple decades of urban cultural in a few years. So they vote to slow it down. The Urban-Rural divide is real. Massive investments in Rural Oklahoma and Rural America are needed. Something I hope to promote if and when I enter the Oklahoma State House.

bglazer 9y ago

From the article: "It's not likely to fix itself," said EIG co-founder Steve Glickman. "Entrepreneurs are everywhere, but capital flows are really isolated and captured in a handful of places." From YC's FAQ section: Location Can we do it without moving to where you are? -Sorry, no. We tried this once, and by Demo Day that startup was way behind the rest. What we do, we have to do in person. We would not be doing a startup a favor by not making them move. I've said this before, but the conservatism of YC regarding location is astounding when considering the diversity that YC accepts in virtually all other facets of its operation. They'll invest in a file sharing app and a nuclear reactor company in the same batch, but apparently investing outside the Bay Area is just too hard.

emerged 9y ago
Sorry, if you don't move to SF, attend burning man regularly (and use the Experience to completely define yourself from then on) and disavow any right-leaning views, you have no right to participate in the startup world. Well, that's how it feels as someone living in the midwest who has tried to be a part of startups. I lived in California for over a decade and the entire startup thing was almost too easy to participate in. Money thrown all over the place, easy to find new startups or participate in your own. But god help you if you don't feel like living in California.