OP-ED | To the Young Yankee Far Away: Come Home
by Susan Bigelow | May 25, 2012 12:16pm
(6) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
I haven’t been home in years. And when I say “home” I don’t mean Connecticut, for once, but the place my parents call home: the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. Back during the days when I went regularly to visit family I always had the sense of driving west into the past. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe that deserted western end of I-84 leads to some version of our future instead.
The latest statewide apocalypse is shuffling slowly toward us, leaning on its walker. This time, it’s demographics that are going to get us, according to a new economic report from the University of Connecticut. “If the state does not change its demographic trajectory,” the report warns, “it faces a bleak future.” Translation: We’re about to be flooded with old people, and too many old people are bad for the economy. Services are stretched, the pool of workers shrinks, and the economy stagnates.
Out in northeastern Pennsylvania, they have this problem too — only about 30 years more advanced. The population is largely older, because anyone who had any sense when they were young left to find work and excitement somewhere else. Jobs have been scarce since the collapse of the coal industry 40 years ago. The percentage of people over age 65 in Luzerne County, Pa. is nearly 18 percent, higher than the national average of 13 percent and Hartford County’s 14.6 percent. We’re not at that point yet, but we could be getting there.
Hartford County isn’t Luzerne County in many important ways, and Hartford isn’t Wilkes-Barre, either. But there is something to this report — we have an aging population and what have been our core industries aren’t creating jobs like they did previously. It’s not just us, of course. The whole Northeast is aging. There are fewer high school graduates in New England now than there were a decade or two ago, and the number is expected to continue to decline. People here are having fewer children, or they’ve left for the boom towns of the south and southwest. There was a time when Connecticut was a good place for young families to relocate, as my parents did from Pennsylvania 30 years ago. Now those kinds of young families are more likely to look elsewhere.
This drift away from the old industrial Northeast is a big, long-term trend, but the solution that the UConn economists offer, targeted tax credits, seems like tossing pebbles into the tide in hopes of damming it. Tax credits are nice, but they don’t necessarily transform Connecticut into an attractive state for young people. They don’t make this place fun and interesting.
That’s one of the big problems, isn’t it? We clearly don’t have a lot of what young, smart professionals want. If you have a choice between a job in Boston or a job here, which would you take? How about San Diego? Portland? Raleigh? These are cosmopolitan places with lots going on: vibrant club, arts, and music scenes, plenty of outdoor recreational opportunities, functional mass transit, lively urban centers, and a regionwide commitment to improving quality of life. We don’t have a lot of that here. That’s the No. 1 complaint I hear about Connecticut from people who are on their way somewhere else: there’s nothing to do here.
It’s changed some over the years, of course. We’re slowly moving in the right direction. There are plenty of wonderful art and music events happening, if you know where to look. The Hartford-New Britain Busway, renamed the rather odd CTFastrak (doesn’t that sort of sound like a train?), broke ground this week despite the naysayers, and commuter rail isn’t far behind. The Farmington Valley has some of the best bike trails I’ve ever found, and people continue to try to make the region more bike-friendly. The usual things stand in the way: money, time, lack of regional cooperation, and the persistent belief from leaders and opinion-makers down to ordinary people that nothing will ever improve.
Tax credits may help spur job growth, and that’s always a plus. But we need to focus on more than just business if we want to create the kind of vibrant region where young people move to, instead of away from. The “education session” was typically neglectful of the arts, for example, and government seems happy to ignore culture in general. Transit and better urban design need to be priorities as well. The first challenge, and quite possibly the most difficult one, will be for us to accept the fact that things are going to change here. If we continue to meet any new idea with cynicism we’ll just grump our way into a permanent demographic and economic rut. We must take a chance on the kind of change we want to see.
The mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania are beautiful. Taxes are lower than here, and housing is cheaper. And yet, the jobs don’t come and young people continue to leave, just as my own parents left decades ago for a state that, at the time, seemed like it was going places. There’s something very American about packing up and looking for your fortune far away, in another part of the country. But here’s the thing — last year they moved back there.
People originally from Connecticut live all over the country now. I run into them everywhere. Someday I want them to hear a clear call from us that says, in no uncertain terms, that things are changing. We’re on the move again, there’s opportunity and culture and life here again, so come home, come home, come home.
Susan Bigelow, an award winning columnist, was the founder of CT Local Politics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and cats.
Tags: connecticut, economy, demographics, aging, culture, Susan Bigelow, UConn, dh
(6) Comments
posted by: Danielle | May 26, 2012 2:34pm
Increasingly, when regions are hit by this, they refuse to do anything to help their lot. I grew-up in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, which happens to be where the mentioned terminus of I-84 is actually located and has 19.50% of its population aged 65 and older. I lived there for over 30 years. This issue is exactly part of why I consider the city where I have now lived for over three years, Durham, North Carolina, to be home and not that part of Pennsylvania. In Lackawanna, the high elderly population brought with it a “get off my lawn” mentality. Many elderly residents vocally opposed projects that would have helped the region’s economy. I’ve said they’d rather culm dumps - vast piles of black slate that is a waste product of anthracite coal mining - than a business park on the site, which isn’t hyperbole; such a plan for a parcel of land containing a culm dump was prevented in that way in Jessup, PA. As a reporter for WNEP-TV once brilliantly observed after interviewing a mayor in the area, “everyone is looking to the past; nobody is looking th the future.” Until that changes, nostalgia will be all the area had, and youth will see no tie to the region because they never experienced any of it. In Durham I have found a city that took the collapse of its main industry, tobacco, and architect a future for itself.
One slight correction; coal died half a century ago there. It had been on the decline for years when the roof literally caved in (1959 Knox Mine Disaster) and deep mining in the region had effectively ended within a couple years following that.
posted by: Matt W. | May 27, 2012 12:39pm
You touched on a very important point. I’m originally from Clarks Summit and I, like most of my friends, left PA to get away and find work. However, now that we’ve grown, I’m about the only one who has not returned. Northeast PA does lose a lot of young (college-age kids) but a huge number return as professionals or with work experience b/c the cost of living is dirt cheap, the tax burden is tied to the cheaper goods and housing and it’s just a great place to raise a family. The crime in Scranton/Wilkes Barre is nothing compared to Hartford.
posted by: Reasonable | May 27, 2012 7:57pm
No apology for the old people from this writer. Our old people ALL WORKED FOR A LIVING, earned their keep, and if they lived long enough to retire, they earned their retirement—with their modest pension, and social security checks that they paid for. Unlike many free-loaders of this era, who are milking our social benefit system—and never worked long enough—- to provide for the future. The old people—you say that there are too many of, is very crude and rude for you to relate in your blog. You say too many old people are bad or the ecomomy—but today’s old people are good for our economy as their purchasing power comes from their EARNED MONEY—not the money that our social benefits crowd spends as a result of social benefit giveaways that have contributed to our once great country being over 16 trillion dollars in debt.
posted by: DirtyJobsGUy | May 28, 2012 8:47am
New England used to be dynamic (from 1650-1950). Quaker whaling barons sent ships to the farthest reaches of the world. CT gunmakers invented mass production. The image of a sharp eyed New England business tycoon was known throughout the world. What happened was we overdrew our account. The old expression rags to riches to rags in three generations is true even for a region. I travel all over the US and world on business and I find the worse mistake CT residents make (like your story) is that they think the quality of life here makes up for enormous shortcomings. I’ll let you in on a secret, there are lots of nice places in this country to live. All of them have internet, FedEx and good shopping. Real estate is cheaper, taxes are lighter and people are friendlier.
We need to go back to what made New England rich in the first place.
posted by: ALD | May 28, 2012 8:17pm
“We clearly don’t have a lot of what young, smart professionals want. If you have a choice between a job in Boston or a job here, which would you take”?
Why is it so hard to understand that the what you first need are jobs for people to work at to pay their bills. After that if you have money left over you can spend it for enjoyment any way you want.
Susan, the first thing young smart professionals are looking for are jobs with a future. Those jobs simply are not being created here in CT. Sure a vibrant social scene is cool…...... But real jobs with a real futures are far more important!!!!!! Here in CT unfortunately we have done our best to make sure they are sent out of state which sadly is where our young people are going to chase them.
Now for sure if your lucky enough to not need a job like Paris Hilton then the number of night clubs per city can be your first priority.
posted by: DirtyJobsGUy | May 29, 2012 1:14pm
Recent article in the WSJ on recruiting of US workers for Western Australian oil and mine work. The salaries noted are US Dollars per year. Now there are no big mines or oil fields in CT but Perth is a nice city.
What equivalent high value jobs are in CT these days? We used to have high paid finance guys, but since we treat them like dirt they may end up in Florida or Texas (or even Washington State where there is no personal income tax).
“Australia chose Houston for its inaugural US fair because “it has a labour market of 130,000 workers in sectors like construction, oil and gas,” said Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
He notes that Australia and Texas have some things in common. “We speak English, we have McDonald’s, (and) just a slightly different form of footie,” he said, picking the Australian slang for football.
Unions in Australia say companies should train Australians instead of recruiting Americans. “Australian workers across the nation deserve the opportunity to benefit from the resources boom,” said Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Firms counter that they don’t have time. “The companies can’t afford to wait four or five years to get workers trained,” said Lindsay O’Sullivan, representing the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia. He was in Houston recruiting for companies looking for 25 workers and willing to pay between $US100,000 and $US500,000, the latter sum for an engineer on an oil rig.”