
Dreams Detoured: Struggle After the Recession in Greater Cincinnati - hownottowrite
https://www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/news/the-long-hard-road/2019/03/27/long-hard-road-beginning-80-miles-struggle-after-recession-heart-greater-cincinnati/2850397002/
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lainproliant
I grew up here. Cincinnati is a place full of really hard working people who
care about family and have a lot of pride.

The comment about the father not wanting to accept aid because he is too proud
hurts because my family was the same way. I didn't get basic medical or dental
care until college unless I was taken to the ER. There were many nights we
went hungry and many times we had to sleep on grandma's floor because we had
nowhere else to go. I do wish that families would discard their pride with
regards to helping their children and accept as much aid as possible to ensure
that they are healthy and prepared for the future.

~~~
logfromblammo
Many forms of aid come with a different sort of price.

When people attach stigma to public assistance for political purposes, this is
what happens. People with a demonstrable, provable need for charity refuse it.
Whenever someone prattles on television about people on the dole being lazy,
someone who is emphatically not lazy refuses a handout that might have allowed
their child to get a dental checkup.

It may not occur to them that the person on the television is so far removed
from the realities of poverty that they don't even know how false their words
are when they say them. And so poor people, who actually do want to work, are
constantly looking for jobs, turning over ever possible lead, and yet still
unable to meet living expenses. And then, rather than giving up, they try even
harder.

You can examine case after case, and find, time after time, that there is
nothing there that anyone could point to and say "Aha, solve this one problem,
and this person would not be poor!" You can find a lot of instances where the
family was teetering on the knife-edge of solvency, and then just one
unexpected event, completely beyond their control, sent them tumbling into an
abyss. For a disturbingly large fraction, that is a medical expense--and
occurs even if they had medical insurance. For a still-significant fraction,
it is a major employer closing down local operations and moving the work
elsewhere.

That's not a situation that one can blame on the poor. It comes from a
systemic disrespect for the least-valued humans in the community--a disrespect
that is compounded by a myth that they alone are responsible for all their
hardships.

It is not pride to believe that a poor man should be treated at least as well
as a rich dog. And it is not charity if it requires that the recipient throw
away their sense of self-worth. There are a lot of things your family could
have done for money--prostitution, smuggling contraband, stealing, fraud, etc.
--and that sense of self-worth also kept them from doing those things. To
discard that "pride", and do anything to survive, means to literally _do
anything_ to survive. If your moral foundation is to have things because you
earned them lawfully, and you then shift to taking things because you _really_
need them, that does not necessarily stop at things given voluntarily, or in
keeping to the law.

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ctrlaltdylan
I didn't grow up in the Cinncinnati area specifically but Akron, OH is not
that far away. The stories are similar. These are hard working, friendly and
virtuous people that grew up on values that if you worked hard good things
will happen.

However, it's not turning out to be the case any longer. I am so grateful and
luckily to have found my way into computers at a young age. I really feel for
my neighbors and family who are in similar situations.

I grew up in this place and I feel very proud to call it my home, I left it
years ago but it's a special place.

It's hard to describe this feeling to anyone that didn't grow up in the
rustbelt. It's so easy to take for granted the things you have and the money
you made in our tech bubble. Outside of it there are many real people facing
insurmountable odds to make ends meet with limited options for themselves.

I try to keep these things in mind whenever I think I'm having a bad day.

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joshlittle
I grew up in Cincinnati. I finished college at the start of the Great
Recession. As career opportunities in Tech were (at the time) nonexistent
there, I couldn’t find a future for me in Cincy. I moved away in 2009 to
Chicago; and then to San Francisco 5 years later. I feel a little bit guilty
for leaving my childhood friends and family behind to move on with my
aspirations.

It’s been hard to listen to my parents complain about how terrible the region
has become; yet I am grateful for their continued encouragement to pursue my
own goals - even if elsewhere.

It’s easy to say “why don’t they move?”

It’s a question I bring up all the time to myself. As it turns out, it is
really hard to relocate an entire family once roots are put down - my aging
grandparents, my sisters and their families, my fathers’ business, and my
mothers‘ career in commercial banking all anchor them to Cincinnati.

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86carr
I know these people. Some are family. I live in the Cinci metro. This article
illustrates the reality of life for what I think is most of the country. They
are constantly on the edge of financial ruin. Living everyday under that kind
of stress is hard and hard to watch.

~~~
bilbo0s
Definitely sounds like Wisconsin. I was reading the whole time thinking, man,
things must be exactly the same everywhere?

~~~
86carr
I doubt it's like this every where but it's certainly like this for many
across the country.

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itsaidpens
Staggeringly good piece, and should be required reading for anyone on HN.

~~~
FreeCrypto
Excited to read this. Their piece on heroin won a pulitzer last year:
[https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-
of-...](https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-of-heroin-
epidemic-cincinnati/)

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lacker
I grew up just a few miles from that blue line they drew. I got good grades,
went to a good college, and when I was looking for a job it just seemed like
all the promising careers weren't in Cincinnati. I moved to the San Francisco
Bay Area and have lived here ever since.

My little sister had a similar story, but she moved to Chicago. My other
little sister had a similar story, and also moved to San Francisco.

San Francisco just has a better economy than Cincinnati. What feels wrong to
me is that this better economy is only really open to the top end of jobs.

It isn't that you can't make a lot of money for low end jobs in San Francisco.
While you can struggle in Cincinnati to make $20 an hour even with some useful
skills, San Francisco gives people $184,000 a year in salary + benefits to
pick up poop off the street.

The problem is that high rents prevent people from moving to San Francisco,
even if they could make a lot more money here. I feel like one of the best
things our country could do for poor people in the middle states is to figure
out how to make rent cheaper in the coastal states. Not just for some
protected class that happens to currently have rent control, but for everyone
who is looking for a better economic opportunity and wants the chance to move
to a more vibrant part of the country.

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urda
> San Francisco gives people $184,000 a year in salary + benefits to pick up
> poop off the street.

You are 100% disconnected if you think this is true. The wage gap is an even
bigger issue in SF than Cincinnati.

~~~
bilbo0s
Sounds like a relative newcomer to the Bay Area. Newcomers are, generally
speaking, always a bit disconnected, and tend to have odd ideas about the area
they've moved into. Over time, I'd expect that poster to get a better view of
what San Fran really is. As you said, "prosperity disparity", "income
inequality", whatever you want to call it, is a good deal worse in San Fran
than it is anywhere in the rust belt. That's for sure.

Unskilled laborers moving to SF thinking it's the land of opportunity are
likely to be disagreeably surprised.

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sgt101
Sadly not available in the eu...

~~~
nerdkid93
Videos aren't here, but the text and most images are:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190502180114/https://www.cinci...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190502180114/https://www.cincinnati.com/in-
depth/news/the-long-hard-road/2019/03/27/long-hard-road-beginning-80-miles-
struggle-after-recession-heart-greater-cincinnati/2850397002/)

