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This story is, in a nutshell, why me and my family have a plan to leave the US permanently within 2 years. We have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, and the possi

This story is, in a nutshell, why me and my family have a plan to leave the US permanently within 2 years. We have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, and the possible futures we can see for ourselves and our children as they grow up are all dystopian to us. We can have freedom for them to play outside, if we only live in a rural area where my wife and kids will be the only non-white people around, where we will be bound to use a car for every errand, and where the politics of everyone nearby will be opposite our own. We can have a walkable neighborhood if we sacrifice safety and health (density in US cities is built on the busiest, most polluting roadways), or all of our savings to live in one of the very very few walkable, safe urban communities in the US. These things don't appear to be improving. We have half the country engaged in absolutely insane conspiracy mongering including human trafficking stories that spark the behavior seen in the article (when the woman calls the police on the child walking alone outside). We have cities and states that prioritize the car over every other means of transportation, which creates unhealthy air, unsafe urban environments, and fractures communities as highways get wider and wider. We have defacto segregation in schooling and housing, coupled with rising nativism, that means if you are non-white, your options for where to live without sacrificing your basic dignity are severely constrained. I'm not anti-US in a general sense, but I do think the above factors make it a sub-optimal place to choose to permanently settle at this point. The only reason I can see at this point to live in the US is the higher salaries, but once you've got enough where you can choose to forego that, I can't see good reasons to stay.

elzbardico 4y ago
"We can have freedom for them to play outside if we only live in a rural area (...) where the politics of everyone nearby will be opposite our own." Have you ever considered the remote possibility of your politics being the reason behind the dystopian future you see arising around you?
- zhivota 4y ago
  I have considered that the political party most aligned with my beliefs has made mistakes which have exacerbated the issues in some cases. However, I believe the other party would make things worse in important ways. As far as my personal politics, no, the things I believe in do not drive us towards this dystopia. I believe in urbanism (including public transit, cycling and other micromobility, higher density, and other related policies), less power in the hands of local police and district attorneys in favor of public safety being managed at a higher level like the state level (including things like putting traffic enforcement in the purview of an unarmed and mostly automated traffic enforcement service), better social safety nets in the form of public health care and better employment protection and welfare benefits, and a few other things. Many of these problems derive from the structure of our political system. For instance, urbanism is largely impossible in much of the US due to the structure of who determines land use policies, which is largely individual municipalities, where voters are voting in their own self interest (which tends towards keeping their own property values high). Similarly for the public safety issues I mentioned, much of the abuse we see around the country is due to the people with the most power in this space being largely unaccountable to anyone. These things have nothing to do with party, and everything to do with structure.
  - elzbardico 4y ago
    Thanks for your civil and intelligent response. It gave me food for thought.

elzbardico 4y ago

"We can have freedom for them to play outside if we only live in a rural area (...) where the politics of everyone nearby will be opposite our own." Have you ever considered the remote possibility of your politics being the reason behind the dystopian future you see arising around you?

zhivota 4y ago
I have considered that the political party most aligned with my beliefs has made mistakes which have exacerbated the issues in some cases. However, I believe the other party would make things worse in important ways. As far as my personal politics, no, the things I believe in do not drive us towards this dystopia. I believe in urbanism (including public transit, cycling and other micromobility, higher density, and other related policies), less power in the hands of local police and district attorneys in favor of public safety being managed at a higher level like the state level (including things like putting traffic enforcement in the purview of an unarmed and mostly automated traffic enforcement service), better social safety nets in the form of public health care and better employment protection and welfare benefits, and a few other things. Many of these problems derive from the structure of our political system. For instance, urbanism is largely impossible in much of the US due to the structure of who determines land use policies, which is largely individual municipalities, where voters are voting in their own self interest (which tends towards keeping their own property values high). Similarly for the public safety issues I mentioned, much of the abuse we see around the country is due to the people with the most power in this space being largely unaccountable to anyone. These things have nothing to do with party, and everything to do with structure.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  Thanks for your civil and intelligent response. It gave me food for thought.