[tinkerdol]

>Mobility and a willingness to learn new skills seems to prevail. It's what other generations have done, millions of immigrants (my parents included).

For an individual this might be a solution (even for me! I've moved around lots too)

But for a whole society it's not. Especially when we seem to be hearing similar stories across thousands of towns and cities. Is everyone supposed to move to the bay area, NYC, Boston, Seatle? What is the housing going to look like? Does the rest of the country just empty itself?

[PeterisP]

The answer to your last paragraph, for the majority of people, is yes. That's how urbanization looks like. That's what the other generations have done. That's how it worked a hundred years ago, with a huge portion of people leaving countryside to relocate in urban centers, that's how it transformed China recently (uncountable millions of people moving from inland farming to their east coast manufacturing), that's how it's ongoing now, and that's how it's going to happen in the future.

The current world increasingly favors centralization and economies of scale, so the "optimal" spread of people gets more and more centralized. Living on the fringe, unless there's a specific economic need (we'll still need some (1%? less in the long term) people living as on site farmers) is increasingly becoming an expensive "hobby"/lifestyle choice, since you're going to get less services at a much higher cost and with less opportunities for income.

[mcguire]

"That's how it worked a hundred years ago, with a huge portion of people leaving countryside to relocate in urban centers, that's how it transformed China recently (uncountable millions of people moving from inland farming to their east coast manufacturing),..."

There is the minor difference of moving from one location to take up relatively lucrative, but largely unskilled, jobs and moving from one location with a low-skilled job to try to find a high-skilled job. Or even from one high-skilled job to a completely different high-skilled job.

[nitrogen]

...less services at a much higher cost...

While the "less services" part is sometimes true, in semi-rural/sparse suburban areas it's often possible to get quite a bit more for a lot less. Car maintenance, food, land, recreation, all much cheaper outside of the major urban areas and high-cost states. This is yet another obstacle people face when trying to move to a big city. They can't afford to pay twice the price for half the food.

[PeterisP]

This may depend on the location, but for me the pattern is that services are much cheaper in the rural areas (including e.g. eating out) but goods are more expensive, including food - e.g. bread and butter will be noticeably more expensive in the rural small store than in a large town megastore. So if you're wealthy and consume lots of services of others, then that's a nice place to live; but if you're poor and would rather do everything yourself, then the basic necessities (except rent) are more expensive. Getting your oil changed is cheaper than in the big city, but buying oil to change yourself is more expensive. Getting dinner made by someone else is cheaper than in the big city, making dinner yourself is more expensive.

So (in my situation) if you're living in a rural community, you're spending less on your own community (and getting less from them), and spending extra to the other communities. Which is not that nice for the economic health of your community.

[bluedino]

You don't have to move to NYC or SF - you just can't stay stuck in Cleveland for 20 years after the factory jobs disappeared.

There's opportunity to be had in Texas, the southeast, the northwest.