But I'd at least like to see some people in the cities say 'we honestly don't care about rural people and they need to adapt'. That would sit better with me.
Not necessarily. It might be possible and even desirable to slow some aspects of it down, but not wind the clock in reverse.
> But I'd at least like to see some people in the cities say 'we honestly don't care about rural people and they need to adapt'.
It's not a matter of not caring about rural people (or urban people who have been surviving off industries that are on the way out, or that once survived off industries that are gone that they wish would come back); caring about the people demands dealing with them honestly and doing the things that can mitigate harms to them from the transition, not trying to pretend that the world is going to rewind to some past state for them.
I hung out with plenty of 1%er conservatives (rural Connecticut hedge fund) and plenty of progressives (in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.) I rarely saw any empathy amongst wealthy, elite sub-urbanite hedge fund crowds.
As for quick-fixes, the only quick fix I've seen so far is one that will come at a huge cost -- deregulating environmental controls. I agree this will seriously increase rural job opportunities, but it will come at a long-term cost as those factories dump chemicals into local areas. Now that the EPA is being gutted, I can see that happening.
Being highly educated does not matter if you can't get a job. Also, a balanced economy shouldn't require everyone to be highly educated.
Nope, Nope, Nope.
See: 1970's, burning rivers, toxic smog, many "Superfund sites" that STILL haven't been cleaned up.
http://americandecadesboyle.wikispaces.com/Environmentalism+...
Not sure if fracking is an environmental issue, but a study says it is.
http://www.newsweek.com/fracking-wells-tainting-drinking-wat...
What a willful misunderstanding of the other position.
If someone said to you, while commiserating over some kind of economic hardship you were experiencing, that you ought to move into their town or even live on their street, would that seem to you equivalent to their saying that they "honestly don't care about" you?