Saturday, December 2, 2017

Weekend reading- why Millennials don't want to live in Wisconsin

I've already reacted this week to Scott Walker's absurd plan to spend $6.8 million in taxpayer money to "bring more bodies" to Wisconsin in an attempt to solve the state's aging demographics. But I wanted to forward an article that put it even better than I could.

It's written by Emma Roller, who has covered political news for the New York Times, Huffington Post, and other more mainstream media before becoming the senior political reporter for the online publication Splinter News. Roller grew up in Milwaukee's subrubs and 2011 graduate of UW-Madison, and she replied to Gov Dropout- "Hey, Scott Walker: I Have a Few Ideas Why Millennials Don't Want to Live in Wisconsin."

Among the ideas on Roller's list.
We want to live in a state that provides a check against the Trump administration, rather than handing the administration a blueprint for rolling back economic and social reforms...

We want to live in a state that invests in public transportation, rather than eliminating the regional transit authority in the state’s largest city, thus cutting off (nonwhite) Milwaukee residents’ access to jobs in the city’s (overwhelmingly white) suburbs.

We want to live in a state that prioritizes affordable housing and works to desegregate its cities, rather than trapping people of color in an economic desert from which they cannot escape.

We want to live in a state that champions environmental protections and safeguards public lands, rather than gutting environmental protections to build an iron mine that threatens the well-being of Native Americans in the state.
And the final kicker.
Mostly, we want to live in a state that we can be proud to call home, not a state whose government only promises to ratfuck us and our peers at every turn.

Instead of taunting Millennials for leaving Wisconsin, maybe Governor Walker and his administration could try investigating why they left in the first place. You just might find that the answer lies with you and your shitty administration.
Read Roller's whole column here, which has the full list of "ideas." It's great, and it's right on the money as to why this state is demographically and economically in trouble these days.

4 comments:

  1. One point that most people aren't making is that there is a battle over job seekers in the general region. The areas that can afford to pay the best that also have the most to offer are most likely to win this ugly battle and at the state level, some states will win and some will lose. The end result will ultimately depend on which state wins and by how much. Many states in the upper midwest aren't used to fighting over workers the way things are at the moment and may not realize how fierce the battle will become. The battle will pit nearby areas against each other for workers and residents on the IL and WI, WI and IA and MN and WI borders. It appears the battle along MN borders with all surrounding states will be extremely brutal this time around with most markets at or near record low unemployment levels. Who will fight hardest for the Millenials this article talks about? Here's an article about MN's metro unemployment rates from citypages: http://www.citypages.com/news/statistics-minneapolis-st-paul-literally-pot-of-gold-at-end-of-rainbow/461259343

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    1. And which places will offer the things that Millenials want? Hint- it's not low wages, race-baiting, denigrating the UW and allowing polluters to destroy the environment.

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  2. I was with some millennial friends this morning (I'm a boomer) who said there is no way their friends in Chicago would consider moving here. They blame us for Trump. Same attitude from my daughter in Colorado and her friends. Walker's transformation of the state into "Wississippi" means few millennials - unless they live in Madison and work for Epic - will be coming here until Walker & Co are gone. That's just the way it is. A marketing campaign is a complete waste of money.

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    1. And just like with New Coke or The Noid or the movie Gigli, there is no amount of marketing and spin that will work if people know it is a bad product and/or if your claim is known to be BS.

      And if young people see Wisconsin as a backwards "Wississippi" that they don't want to locate to, no marketing campaign will fix it. As you mention, the only thing that fixes it is firing Walker and the rest of the regressive WisGOPs in 2018.

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