Since 2013, James and Deborah Fallows have traveled through smaller-town America, reporting on cities that had faced economic or other challenges and had devised responses. One of their findings is about a new trend in migration, of ambitious young people looking for alternatives to big-city coastal life.
Through the past few generations, many people have assumed that the more you aspire to first-rate achievement (and rewards), the more you have to decide to live in a handful of coastal centers. New York for finance, San Francisco and Seattle for technology, Washington, D.C., for politics, Los Angeles for entertainment, and so on.
