[American Thinker] The "Great Migration" of the early twentieth century had segregation and the racist policies of the South as one of its roots. The largest human migration, Chunyun — the Spring Festival Season in China — is founded on the idea of visiting one's family. Today, we are witnessing a historic migration in the United States from metropolitan to rural areas that many view as an escape from rising crime rates, urban decay, or maybe something else.Before we dig into the current exodus from American cities, we should have a quick peek inside those other historic population movements
Let's start with a second look at the "Great Migration." Historians bookend it somewhere between 1916 and 1970, when more than six million Black Americans moved from the southern states to northern and western cities. Putting this in perspective, in 1940 (roughly the midpoint), the U.S. Census pegged the entire Black population of America at around twelve million folks. That's right: over fifty percent of all Blacks moved out of the South during that 50-year period!
Most say it was to escape Jim Crow and racial prejudice. But Blacks, once installed at their new addresses in cities like St. Louis, Chicago, and even Omaha, still faced blatant racism, riots, and even the bastion of the unionized left — the AFL — advocating the segregation of Blacks and Whites in the workplace. Racism is partly a cover story for why they moved. In reality, they moved for jobs — factory jobs, railroad jobs, warehouse jobs — that paid better than sharecropped agriculture. The Great Migration was an economic event, not so much a social cause.
Every spring, halfway around the world, the Chinese celebrate by traveling home for a week. Boarding trains, planes, and automobiles, they crisscross the country by the billions — 3.5 billion at last count. Yes, it is about having a week's vacation, but even as recent as a decade or so ago, this mass migration was nowhere near this size. Its growth isn't about a resurgence in family relations; it's about returning home from jobs taken in urban areas and in specialized economic zones. Because of government limits on relocating, a third of China's entire workforce has escaped rural agriculture for the cities by leaving their families behind to maintain an "official" residence. It's the Great Migration without really moving, and again, it's about economics.
So much for the history lesson — now let's flip forward to the present time. We'll call this period "Backwards Land." People aren't escaping the poverty of subsistence agriculture to live in cities; they're doing exactly the opposite. The giant concrete jungles of the west, the upper mid-west, and the east are witnessing a new mass migration — people are leaving town! Is it because of crime? Is it because of liberal politics? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Not so fast! Guess what's causing it. Shhhh...it's economics.