The brain drain is a myth… mostly perpetrated by local governments to get citizens to fund programs (govt jobs) which had no impact on the brain drain..
Back in the day… Every doctor, lawyer, dentist, most businessmen wanted their sons and daughters to leave town or the farm and not look back.. to fly and try to find their dreams.. govt wasn’t ever going to change that…
Now… what was really happening was this…
Central Carolina Bank, CP&L, the Mills rotated young people thru the small towns in their management training programs…. the local PTBs used these guys to front new ideas… while maintaining some political distance… that system worked to the benefit of all involved…
If you ever went to a United Way or Chamber of Commerce meeting… you remember what I’m saying…
Those doctors, lawyers and such would have felt like bad parents if they kids had not left home…
The doctors, dentists and such could count on kids just like their coming in into the small towns with their jobs and cheap houses….
Fact was… 3 out of 5 of those guys were NC State men and women…
which unfortunately brings up the OTHER SORE SUBJECT….
Simultaneous with the exodus of manufacturing, local banking and such…. our Land Grant University disregarded it’s charter and went to other directions too… leaving the Other North Carolina to die the death of atrophy or to be consumed in whole by Metro NC…
The small towns still have cheap houses, but they have no jobs and no NC State men and women passing thru…
The problem in small towns is the JOB and LOW WAGE Drain….
sad but true….
no turning back…
but then what could they have done different???
idk…
