Employment: Why Big Cities Aren't Better

Besides the fact that I am in no way shape or form a city person never have been never will be having lived in Portland and Seattle and now living in a small city of 55,000 where I have come to know this is still much too big and crowded and downright insane for my needs (deep breath), I've still had to endure the comments from others "Move to Portland. More jobs."

Ah, yes. On paper there are more jobs. However, some things need to be taken into consideration. One, the unemployment figure and two, how many jobs are available per person. So I decided to look into this. A move to Portland doesn't necessarily increase the chances of finding employment. To begin with, Portland's unemployment rate currently sits at 12.1% (figures as of April 1st) whereas Corvallis' rate is 8.4%. A glance at the state employment department website's list of available jobs shows that for the entire Portland metro-area, the number of jobs per capita is .0005 (dividing the number of jobs available by the approximate number of citizens, which I gave a modest estimate of 3 million). The same calculations show that for Corvallis, the number of jobs per capita is .0012. I also calculated the competition deal. 12% unemployment for 3 million people is 360,000 folks out of work. Corvallis, just 4620. So, more jobs does not necessarily increase the chances.

Personally, I think the way of the City is going to have to come to some sort of an end. City living isn't healthy. Traffic congestion. Crowds. Noise. That doesn't feed the soul or the spirit. It robs it, smothers it, pollutes it. I truly believe small communities (of 5,000 people or less) are the way of the future. Not to offend city dwellers, I just believe the way to peace must enact balance and responsibility and must include the needs of the soul and human spirit, which means we put an end to explosive growth, unnecessary building (which much is unnecessary today--afterall, how many box stores and shopping malls do people need), wasteful time spent in traffic listening to noise pollution (stereo's, honking, loud engines) and inhaling the pollution as well as all of the unnecessary businesses (banks, cpa's, real estate, investment firms which means the end of the system of money) and replacing it all with a system where people find their long-forgotten passions and pursue those. At least that's the kind of community I wish to be a part of. And moving to some damn noisy, congested city packed full of people often leaving one feeling more detached and lonely than one would feel sitting under a forrest of trees in the middle of nowhere, is not going to help me in that pursuit.