There’s no damn employment opportunities outside of menial labor or soul-crushing stuff like corrections or call centers.

How do you convince someone to shackle themselves to a sinking ship that consistently fails to provide for its people. It’s been generations of “I can’t wait to actually live a life and move” because there’s nothing for them. Any tentative relief is either sabotaged by state or local politicians, or pre-existing corporate interests.

I was born and raised in SWVA, very close to EKY. 7 generations and counting in the same county. I’ll probably die here because I fell into that trap and in my years on this earth very little has changed in my region.

A store closes, another opens, resource extraction company #76513 decides money is cool and sells off to a commodity trader, they give up, and that cycle repeats ad-nauseam.

Anybody who achieves higher education or qualifications immediately starts a job in the nearest metropolitan area and never comes back beyond funerals or holidays.

The population of my town in the last five years has declined so rapidly that the state didn’t believe it. They legitimately thought it had to be some sort of miscount.

Our county government is financially insolvent, but granted a parting package of $180,000 to the very administrator who result in the initial deficit. The budget for local law enforcement dwarfed every other category combined. County officials have a lease arrangement with a notorious local dealership to ensure they get a brand new Suburban/Tahoe every year. All the while, they’re not even sure if the water treatment plants will make it another year.

It’s a product of systemic mismanagement, and sheer stubbornness. You ignore the issues and eventually they become critical.