This is true and is hardly limited to the Old South. Rural Upstate New York is effectively in the same boat.
Frankly I think trying to develop rural America to be economically competitive to urban America is a bad idea wrapped in the cloak of a well-meaning idea. Infrastructure and services and much (like 2-5x) more expensive over a wide area. And you need a LOT of infrastrucute to reasonably support a professional class economy (just think how many specialist lawyers and doctors you would need before you could justify leaving a metro area).
Instead, we should focus our attention on lowering the cost of living in cities and enact policies that make it easy for people in rural, poorer areas to move to cities, such as a government-paid waiver on the first few months of rent, or a state-subsidized relocation package. There are a lot of people who would like to move but cannot save up enough to pay for relocation, security deposit, and things like that while they look for metro work.
Last time we seriously developed rural America it was in the 1930s, when the needs of an industrial economy were different and primarily the benefit was cheap rural manufacturing labor over costly metro manufacturing labor. But now far cheaper labor and supply chains are in China, so the New Deal framework is moot in this circumstance.
Make it easier for rural folks to come to cities, instead of trying to smear cities across the countryside. I can't see any other sustainable solution.
That being said, it doesn't mean everybody has to pack up for the coasts. A lot could be done to make inland cities like Indianapolis or Chattanooga or St. Louis more attractive to rural residents of their respective states.
Frankly I think trying to develop rural America to be economically competitive to urban America is a bad idea wrapped in the cloak of a well-meaning idea. Infrastructure and services and much (like 2-5x) more expensive over a wide area. And you need a LOT of infrastrucute to reasonably support a professional class economy (just think how many specialist lawyers and doctors you would need before you could justify leaving a metro area).
Instead, we should focus our attention on lowering the cost of living in cities and enact policies that make it easy for people in rural, poorer areas to move to cities, such as a government-paid waiver on the first few months of rent, or a state-subsidized relocation package. There are a lot of people who would like to move but cannot save up enough to pay for relocation, security deposit, and things like that while they look for metro work.
Last time we seriously developed rural America it was in the 1930s, when the needs of an industrial economy were different and primarily the benefit was cheap rural manufacturing labor over costly metro manufacturing labor. But now far cheaper labor and supply chains are in China, so the New Deal framework is moot in this circumstance.
Make it easier for rural folks to come to cities, instead of trying to smear cities across the countryside. I can't see any other sustainable solution.
That being said, it doesn't mean everybody has to pack up for the coasts. A lot could be done to make inland cities like Indianapolis or Chattanooga or St. Louis more attractive to rural residents of their respective states.