The I Dont Blame that Generation for being what it is

The Go Nowhere Generation
Hmm...fitting to the bill here, crashed and burned on a life adventure, burn too much even for some measurable risk, bear conservation kicks in...that simple, don't move unless you need to really...

why make life harder then it need be?!
What pushed people to move and go back then...seems to me, feeling like choices were much limited, and making alternatives a necessity by comparison, if great social movements and wars were a reflection of this.

speculation on why this were so...

As to picking up and going, this is a bit of a psychology and sociology question it seems.  Moving away from friends, family, social networks and re inventing a new far away from home, isn't exactly easy for all, even when social technologies have made living abroad or elsewhere in the country easier.  Sure if you had means, you might be able to afford child care, or having any other things at once disposal to make due in situations where you might have needed help, but as to Nuclear family alone, it seems a modern industrial invention, people that move in lower socio economic strata face challenges that others in higher brackets don't face, they don't have perhaps as much the resources I might argue, and compensations socially would likely be in order to make amends when setting down roots in a new place.

As to personal example, you move, you figure out the basics like getting a job where you move to, or at least know that not having a company transfer in place and just moving where you like to go rather then choosing on the basis of opportunities provided, means necessarily dealing with something simple like having a local address perhaps for the place that you locally desire working.  You might not get hired, for instance, if you made it obvious you were technically homeless, or made it clear you were living out of a motel and so forth, but it really depends I imagine.  Sort of personally skirted this by setting up a local P.O. Box. which seemed to work for temporary employment until having had some month to month rental agreement in place...and then transitioned into six month rental agreement terms.

The problems though with living elsewhere when you social network and bailout safety net are limited relatively so...you get by month to month, but even when 30k cuts it for living costs, its not like you are wealthy in a fairly big city, or even modestly saving really well here...I've heard of some living out of cars, just for the purpose of building some sort of savings here as sad as this sounds and this were prior to 2001, imagine its probably the same if not more true today, you might have once been able to swing the mortgage for 100k property purchase, out there, but then you might get locked in, and if you were unlucky at some point to get caught in a housing bubble collapse, you might also be walking away from the property and pretending it never existed with that much water over your head.  I was leary buying property back then, and while not building any sort of equity in renting solely, at least provided me some easier emotional let go when the time might have come in leaving as predictably happened to me.  It seems, if you got burned on bad financial housing investments, or you were stressing yourself out way too much with water accumulating working any number of part time positions just to keep the water from flooding in on mortgage payments, added to this living hundreds if not thousands of miles away from most family, friends and relatives, social technology only goes so far relative to being in closer physical proximity.  I went west, as supposedly I heard others might have for a time, dot com bust caused some fallout in Seattle supposedly, but fortunately I worked in telecommunications which were generally unaffected, but almost took an entry level position with Amazon, and fortunately avoided this...they basically left Seattle within a year or so from the time that I left.  Of course, it seems, as I've heard credit markets aren't great, so you move today elsewhere, maybe you are more likely to get scrutinised for credit applications...investing in housing could be as likely less gain in so far as equities acquisitions with a risky move away from old social networks...albeit however rooted in childhood and otherwise unchanged and generally less promising in so far as opportunities provided otherwise, in making new ones.  Mostly though the big question when you move elsewhere...umm...this is to say depending on what you do, where you work, you may or may less likely make new social networks...

you work in data entry and generally have little downtime doing it, and generally are expected to do what you do, you might make some acquaintances here and there...and as to the types of positions that are opened up based upon friendships had, well, maybe characteristically and statistically speaking this were lateral in nature in so far as potential for economic mobility.   Though depending upon the characteristics of the employer, whether hiring and promoting from within, if you knew something of your employer and they often hired outside for higher level positions, you're chances of vertical mobility internally in the company or corporation you worked for were slim to none... chances are if you were going door to door without a friends referral in this poor economy looking for a better position, and you hadn't known anyone at the referring corporation/company, your chances may diminished for hiring, and the reality of moving to a new location, unless you had some recruitment/internship opportunity line up prior to moving, you may be wasting your time...I decided to move without knowing what I was going to be doing, without having anything lined up, and still fortunately got a job by lucky coincidence, but as to being a long lived opportunity (beyond a few years)...nope.

Read some story awhile back about a man, once chef, turned c.s. major that moved with his family to S.F....of all exorbitantly expensive places to live, puts his wife and kid up in a homeless shelter and ends up sleeping in some bushes around Golden Gate Bridge park...never found out if his plight landed him a job, hope so, but seems remember hearing so much about doctors, engineers making solid middle class wages, holed up an hour or more away from San Francisco and living in a house no bigger then a small car garage....rent may have declined, but even moving to a bigger city where potential opportunities may be greater, doesn't always provide enough relative to living and housing costs.

Of course, knowing people from all around the country might help you if you do decide to move, at least, they might help with a referral, but really, would seem surprising if people were kind enough to extend themselves out more so only knowing you in some digital context, and then not having friends is something of a double edged sword where any number might learn the fine art between wanting and needing friends and so forth...being too needy upsets and bothers people, and not wanting could be estranging and off putting to others. :)  Sort of laughable social judgements that exists, if you were typically, resorting to stereo type here, if you were satisfied with life and occupation, all of this might not matter, but whose employment position in today's and age were securely set for life here in America?!  Chances are the more people you know might get your foot in the door for some employment opportunity...you'd probably here some career counsellor tell you, lots that get hired, may have had added chance for success simply knowing someone that worked in the company or corporation that such applicant applied for.  So as it turns out if you were sitting on your duff, feeling secure at what you were doing for a time, and you didn't bother to socialise much and hard times come your way, someone might help put a word in for you, but it may be tougher if no one really knew you that well...sociological case in point, excursions into new frontiers with mixed population groups the first to go freezing to death:  the loners, the last to go...the women in the families.  :)  Obviously, on aspect of survival in these social settings when times are dire are:  well...women have much body fat relative so less likely to freeze to death as quickly literally, but perhaps more telling here (in the pop psych sociology trivia), the women in these setting were more socially resourceful relative to men, and able to manage loss through distributive networks, any stockpiles of food, and likewise, through households had better distributive means of acquiring food...it seems in the modern context, something of lesson could be applied, being the quiet loner doesn't make it easier for you to get by in hard times, or mean that you were merely tougher to survive at that, at least you may be tougher relatively so in some manner, but the odds may be stacked against you...generally if you were bear, you might be better off here, a wolf...probably not much of a go....  And if someone else in the household had some occupation, or you had savings built up for some temporary crisis however such may have taken place, you might be able to swing the downtimes, with a savings cushion.  If you were stressed about being on time everyday for work, time obsessed and so forth and you were the sole wage earner in the household, having moved half way across the country and hadn't made much of a social network where you moved to, would all that stress, headache, lost sleep, be worth the move?!  Hmm...guess its perspective here...a city seemingly full opportunity socially speaking, may be as lonely as desert island, if you were constantly searching for a place that were paradise fitting to some idea, you might never find it, and perhaps all the ails, stress and worry of finding something that never really existed might have been better extinguished with the decision of giving up on an idea that a better world existed elsewhere relative the world that you came from...

In any event, instead of encouraging movement, what about local sustainability?!
Roadtrips are okay, gas prices permitting.