Ramblin' Fever

Almost half of Americans wish they lived somewhere else, within the US, that is. This according to a new PEW Research poll featured in USA Today.

The results are not surprising. Young people want to live in the city and older folk want to be somewhere quieter. The wide-open, down to earth South and West are more desirable than the cold, pinched North and East.

Regardless, the most important point is not mentioned: America, unlike most of the rest of the world, is a highly mobile society. Are you a progressive metrosexual stuck in Hickville, Alabama with a Baptist Church on every corner? You can move to California and get your liberal froot loop on, and you'll be one of the regulars in no time.

Not so in Germany. Yes, you're free to move where you want, but good luck trying to fit in. You will always be viewed suspiciously and referred to as the guy that talks funny. In most Latin American cities even moving to a new neighborhood can be too stressful to contemplate. In the Persian Gulf region being a fellow Muslim means nothing, tribal connections everything. If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers there, you'll never fit in.

But we're not like that in America. Welcome, pardner! Are you escaping a bankrupt, rotten, crime-infested urban cesspool? You may want to consider checking your liberalism at the door, or you could find yourself escaping another self-made mess in 20 years or so. Unlike half my fellow Americans, I don't want to move.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-01-29-where-we-live_N.htm