Of course, the ad was not real. It was a lethal trap. At least three of the men who apparently answered it are now dead, their bodies buried in graves on the "farm" – which turned out to be land owned by a coal mine. Or hidden near the blighted city of Akron, deep in the heart of Ohio's Rust Belt – itself a grim icon of tough times and lost American glories.
Emphasis added. If I'm reaching for a grim icon of urban blight and faded glory, Akron doesn't spring to my mind. The above prose is artistic license, not journalism. It's a stock cliché, a conventional geographic stereotype. Sea serpents are swimming around in Flyover Country. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Ruin porn is powerful. Ann Arbor becomes a grim icon of tough times and lost American glories. Vibrant startups can't attract talent.
Politicians love ruin porn. If you want to get elected, then tell voters how you will plug the brain drain. Or, make wild claims about how fracking saved the Rust Belt and put the lid back on Hell.
Meanwhile, back in the land of eggheads, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) reports an unemployment rate of 6.3%. The region is outperforming the likes of Denver, Minneapolis, and Charlotte. It's on par in terms of job growth with Boston. No matter, deep in the heart of Pennsylvania's Rust Belt is a cauldron of serial killers. Times are so desperate that the unemployed are moving to Pittsburgh:
But, seriously, you might think, who would pack up all their bags to live in an isolated trailer for a few hundred dollars a week? The answer, in the America of 2011, is depressingly simple: lots of people. Desperate people, jobless people, poor people, people with little to lose, single people, people with struggling families to support, people willing to ignore the warning signs and take a gamble.
How else do you explain it?
2 comments:
Has that person ever visited Akron? Akron is actually a moderately healthy and quite attractive community. I spend some time driving around there and it's not a bad place at all.
good stuff jim.
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