Why Don’t Unhappy Hillbillies move?

They need to learn how to code.

Some people grow up in absolutely beautiful places which they have been taught to love.

Also, bored people tend to be bored in general. As my grandmother always said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

It's not like anyone who moves to the city will automatically get a great job. Besides, aren't our cities crowded enough?

Yep, they just hand out jobs when you come to the city, no skills necessary.

Too much covid in cities?

There are no 48-year-old grandmas there to watch the three kids.

I mean the ones who are addicts and can’t find any work. It would be better to get a job at McDonald’s make some money and have some new surroundings.

Because they're lazy and have no ambition. And, deep, deep down, they're terrified to leave, because they know they won't measure up.

But they'll never admit it.

Many want to live near their friends and family. That's what stops a lot of people from moving

Actually, OP, the SMART ONES do. They go to a real college somewhere away from the sticks and never look back.

Which only leaves the dregs of the gene pool behind to procreate with other deplorables, further widening the intelligence gap between Appalachia and civilized society.

Honestly they’re probably scared they won’t find Mountain Dew in the cities.

"Those DREADFUL hillbillies!"

Let them eat cake!

Some of them are hot too. It’s a shame knowing how rapidly their looks will deteriorate once the hard living and drug use really kick in.

Why would someone move to a strange city just to work at a McDonalds?

You can find a minimum wage job anywhere, and you may have a place to stay with family if you stay at home.

Not so much if you move to a city.

Uh......They do.

Where do you think the people in cities come from? It's not made up of just people born there, it's a lot of people who moved there from somewhere else.

[quote] Why don’t the young people in rural areas who are so miserable and bored just move?

wow. You're so smart. No one has ever thought of that

you're a piece of shit. Get out of here

It's not just hillbillies. I can't imagine being young and not living in a big city. There are millions stuck in small towns with no job prospects.

It's depressing.

Just get a job?

I grew up in a rust-belt town that wasn't exactly Appalachia, but we weren't THAT far away, either - in actual miles, or metaphorically speaking.

So many of the people I knew, my aunts and uncles and grandparents, had barely traveled from where they were planted. They had never been outside of the pickle jar, so to speak, so that had no idea how bitter and sour it was where they were.

I think a lot of the "unhappy hillbillies" don't know much about other places, don't understand those places, or are just far too afraid to move. There's also a message that is (metaphorically) played on a loop if a parent/sibling/friend hears you're interested in somewhere else or you want to move: Why? Why would you want X when we've got Y right over here? You're subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) encouraged to stay where you are.

Post 2000, the young hillbillies have their phones and might have some exposure to that bigger world now. But still no way to GET to it, or live IN it.

It also takes money to move, folks, and if there's no job in Cooter Holler, not sure how those folks could save up to move elsewhere - or how they'd get there.

When you can't move back or forward, and everyone around you is stuck in the mud with you.....then it's just as good an idea as any to get hooked on hillbilly heroin and OD.

If you grew up in a small, quiet town, I could see how a big, noisy, loud, chaotic city might seem overwhelming/unappealing..

I just mean if all the people you know are on drugs and you have nowhere to go and nothing to do and any job is difficult to get why not leave? Things can’t get much worse. I come from an economically depressed small town myself and always wonder this about the people who seem so hopeless.

In all those old movies it's so easy for a girl to just take the bus to the big city with her one suitcase, find a safe clean boarding house and find a job the next day.

R23, or get 'discovered' at a restaurant.

"In all those old movies it's so easy for a girl to just take the bus to the big city with her one suitcase, find a safe clean boarding house and find a job the next day."

Just like me!

I used to say this to Ennis all the time.

They do move - to Cincinnati, Baltimore, and to the main cities too of course. But they also have the highest rates of return.

Everybody's Talking at Me

This city desert makes you feel so cold

Years ago I was toiling on a vegetable farm, trying to make enough money to get out of Podunk, move to the big city and away from that hillbilly hellhole. I told a co-worker named Brenda my plans and she looked gravely at me and said, "Niggers, man".

I think that's the answer: they're afraid of different people, and cowed at their lack of sophistication. And immersed in their tiny trailer park dramas that go on for decades.

,,,,,,

Of course that giant "blame the liberals for everything" screed was written by Taibbi. It's all over the Conservative/Republican/Nazi subs on Reddit. Apparently the problem is that we weren't nice to deplorables ... yeah, I'm sure that's it.

Progressives also blame the neoliberals.

As a serious answer, OP, I'm one those hillbillies who got out so I feel the need to explain.

Liberal cities are too expensive and have too few jobs for young people to just up and move to them. You can't move somewhere like NYC or Cali without a salaried job already waiting for you. I just up and moved to a liberal city when I was younger, because I wanted to get out, and I worked minimum wage and could barely feed myself. I got fired on a technicality for what I suspect were really homophobic reasons, and ended up homeless. I didn't find any stability until I left and moved to a purple area where the job market is much healthier.

That's what's killing gay neighborhoods, in my mind. Unless you're able to whore yourself out, or sleep on couches, you just can't get to them.

R34 too few jobs for young people to just up and move to them. You can't move somewhere like NYC or Cali

You could till the 1980s. There's no room to fail or experiment in these cities now.

R34, enterprising young men can always move to Palm Springs and become a houseboy!

There are lots of well paying jobs in cities for those who are qualified for them.

And more importantly, every city is not New York.

Places like Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh have been growing a lot because they represent more affordable alternatives.

Maybe because it isn’t exactly easy to just pick up and move to somewhere with a incredibly high cost of living. This isn’t the 1970’s anymore where you just get on a greyhound bus and go to “the big city” and are able to get an apartment for $300 a month.

R37 If you have a bachelor's degree.

Ain't that the truth r38. Young people need to do that but the 1% v 99% economy has destroyed that. It's one big reason why cities like NYC have become boring.

Let's be honest though, we're really only interested in the hot hillbillies moving to our neighborhood.

How stupid is OP and some of the other people on this thread?

"why don't unhappy hillbillies grab a suitcase and $10 and head to the big city"?

Why? Tell me why don't they do that? Why haven't these silly hillbillies ever thought of leaving?

R42 OP:

Why don't Eskimos leave the tundra, the Bedouin the Sahara, the idiots, Florida?

It costs a lot to move to a new city.

My family has people that stayed behind in the holler because it’s “gods country.” They are the country mice. I’m a city mouse.

I know of one family of hillbillies that moved...

Why don't these hillbillies just sell some stock and head to the big city? They can buy a building, convert it into apartments and rent em out. That building will pay for itself

A general lack of affordable housing for low skilled or formally educated young people is part of the obstacle. For the US, the cost of tuition is prohibitive, unless someone qualifies for a full scholarship. Even then, cost of living is still much higher than rural towns. I think many cou try or working class young people fall into such a category. They don't necessarily have to be "hillbillies".

So many posters on this thread seem delusional, and without any grace. People of my generation, and especially those older than fifty often "fell upwards". Life was much easier as regards geographical and upward mobility. Older people often seem to lose sight of those facts.

^ uneducated

"People of my generation, and especially those older than fifty often 'fell upwards'."

R49, I believe the word you wanted was "men."

R51 With all due respect, many American women I know feel exactly the same. It's actually an American female professor who introduced me to that reality. I happen to be British, but I believe to a somewhat lesser extent, the same goes for the UK as well.

The metrics of the smaller percentage of university graduates, and the cost of tuition is still true for older generations, regardless of sex. Easier access to higher education, and less competition. Cost of living was easier regardless of sex as well.

In America, I would argue more women actually had better or more options, considering the tradition of American Teacher's colleges, and Nursing programmes. Many more British women of similar age were never destined to higher education.

Do you simply enjoy being at odds with male posters? No one denies women have endured struggle, yet I think your remarks are not necessarily applicable to my post about things being easier, especially insofar as competitive large cities are involved, concerning "hillbillies" moving anywhere.

Non-sequitur really.

R51 It's still harder for women today, based on those metrics.

R49 Thank you. Middle aged people can't seem to get how harsh the world is on young people now. I think it's why millennials cling to childhood so fiercely. Being in your 20s is painful and lonely.

R54 You're welcome. It once was indeed possible to support oneself with a part-time gig, and afford tuition... and in some places, even afford rent. When one even adjusts for inflation, both tuition and rents have exploded exponentially. It is not a viable status quo going forward in my opinion.

Things are much different (and more bleak) for young people, unless they hapoen to be born rich. I wish you all the best, and sorry you're feeling lonely. Very tough times indeed. Especially with COVID, and social distancing.

I've long thought it ironic that a lot of the people who seem to complain the loudest--about how rural, red-state America has been left behind by the "liberal elites" in big cities--are largely descended from settlers who faced a dead-end in their European homelands (or even in the original colonies of the eastern seaboard) and got the fuck out. Which meant things like leaving their homes and families forever, crossing the Atlantic on a ship that seemed almost as likely to sink as to sail, trekking through unknown territory in a covered wagon if not on foot, and carving a new life out of absolutely nothing in some godforsaken mountain hollow or on a windswept prairie in the middle of nowhere. Seems like that's the American spirit they should celebrate and revive (minus the genocide perpetrated on the Native Americans, of course) instead of blaming their plight on their more successful fellow citizens. No longer voting for the Republicans who prey on their fears and insecurities while doing absolutely nothing for them would be a tremendous first step in their journey....

Clearly they have no bootstraps