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sonnyblarney

By that logic, we should all be aspiring to live in Upper E. side Manhatten, because, 'why stay anywhere else'.

Education is only one factor, there are many others.

FYI - 'Worker mobility' in the US is actually declining, and has been for some time.

This could possibly mean that regular workers are moving around less, relative to educated one's.

It also could mean as communications and transportation become easier, the 'big city' advantages are just compounding.

So the major metro areas are just sucking up everything around them.

Texas, Colorado, Illinois have a sea of purple around them.

View on HN

I was surprised to see Illinois still look like it's attracting people from the graph (I'm not entirely sure, it's a little hard to understand which direction it's going from their visual and labeling choices). Illinois has more people leaving the state than coming into the state since at least 2014, and our tax burden is the highest in the country.

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/population-loss-in-illi...

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/study-illinois-home-to-highes...

Not to mention the pension bomb waiting to go off. That's one big thing that'll help reverse brain drain in most blue states at some point.

Source: grew up in NJ and lives in MA

So why should kids with the opportunity to leave choose to stay?

family? friends? sense of belonging?

I'm not saying that applies to everyone. I was "brain-drained" despite those things. But I know others who couldn't just pick up their lives for a job on the other side of the country.

I'm a little shocked at the proposition.

The notion that 'you could feasibly make more money elsewhere, and therefore should leave' is not obvious to me, or I think to most people.

Chicago may have more opportunity than Michigan overall, but that doesn't mean there are not great opportunities in Michigan. But that's within the context of your imperative.

The real answer is that for most people, their job is not the defining artifact of their life, it's a means to support their families, and maybe give them an opportunity to engage with their communities, have hobbies, friends.

I think for young people, in their 20's the notion is a little big different, because moving is exploring and liberating in some ways, but that's only one phase of life.

> but that doesn't mean there are not great opportunities in Michigan.

Just because there are some great opportunities in Michigan does not mean there are enough great opportunities in Michigan for everyone who could find one in Chicago, SF, or Seattle, or NYC.

Again, for most people, life is not about some 'job opportunity'.

Michigan is awful for a LGBT person and the state isn't approaching modern lifestyle for the young since I've last been there; it's more of just a catering state for the age-group approaching retiring or already retired. The outdoor activities "the only thing it has going for the state" become tiring and when any decent city in a non-brain drain state has YMCAs that are built to facilitate fun social/active activities. The winters are awful as well.

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