Forced to Choose Between a Job — and a Community
“The reluctance to move is all the more confounding given how wide the opportunity gap has grown between the country’s most dynamic urban areas and its struggling small cities and towns, a divide driven by a mix of factors that include technology, globalization and economic concentration. According to a new Brookings Institution report, the largest metro areas — those of 1 million or more people — have experienced 16.7 percent employment growth since 2010, and areas with 250,000 to 1 million have seen growth of 11.6 percent, while areas with fewer than 250,000 residents have lagged far, far behind, with only 0.4 percent growth. The question has taken on a stark political dimension, too, given how much Trump outperformed past Republican candidates in those left-behind places.”