This comment from the above link is worth highlighting: >Last thing: I visited the first location of the California gold rush. It was a tourist town filled wit

This comment from the above link is worth highlighting: >Last thing: I visited the first location of the California gold rush. It was a tourist town filled with vacation homes set aside a picturesque lake. You know what you did not find there? Any of the families of the old gold miners now trapped in despair or drug addiction or boarded up homes. Once the gold dried up, those settlers moved. Unpleasant to be sure, but they did. And I have to think they also liked living there and found it a difficult choice to move. Just as the migrants from mid west moved during the dust bowl. But they did it. What has changed? I have to think government policies that have subsidized the pain of economic competition have made the tradeoff between moving and not moving easier. Is that the world we want?