Early in the Industrial Revolution people voluntarily moved from the countryside to the cities despite all that, so apparently a lot of them thought it was an i

Early in the Industrial Revolution people voluntarily moved from the countryside to the cities despite all that, so apparently a lot of them thought it was an improvement. Some of the cities were proud of the soot, since it showed that they were participating in Progress. You can see some of this repeating in China. Migrant workers move to the cities because, while what they can earn is low, it is a lot higher than subsistence farming in the countryside. "The Last Train Home" (documentary) follows such a family, although to understand the tragedy in the documentary you need to understand that Mao created the hukou system to prevent exactly this, which means that their children can only receive state education in the countryside.