Working class towns/cities are awful, anyone agree?

Post Reply New Topic

social intelligence [rather like a savant-like social shtick with generous helpings of ruthless bullyboy temperament] helps to put one atop one's local heap o'humanity. in my experience, raw general intelligence comes in a distant second 99% of the time. I discovered this in the army.

I grew up in a terrible, high crime, working class environment and I'll never go back. Now I live in a sleepy small town and love it, except that everything closes by 6pm.

The grass is always greener on the other side. A big city or a "charming" small town isn't necessarily any better for us than a working-class neighborhood. Class does make some kind of difference in that I feel more comfortable around people who resemble my low-key middle-class family. I don't like rich snobs, but I'm okay with poor people if they have some common sense and regard for other human beings. I've always been poor myself, after all.

Just personal preference, but my experience and preference is opposite the OP's. I grew up in a working class agricultural town, and in my post-high school years spent time living in a little college town in the mountains of Idaho, in an area dotted by little working class logging towns. The kind of towns where the phrase "They're shutting down the mill" strikes utter dread into the hearts of everyone in the town, and in some cases causes the town to dry up altogether.

Today I live in the middle of the largest, most affluent, and most densely populated and most culturally and economically diverse area in the nation - Southern California. Home is a nice little family town on the edge of Orange County, work is in the belly of the beast in Los Angeles. There are things I do like about it, but for the purposes of topics being discussed here, I hate it. It is absolute hell on my ASD. The constant stimulation, crowds, and complete inability to be alone anywhere puts me on sensory overload 100% of the time. Having to constantly manage interfacing with multiple diverse ethnicities and cultures does as well, possibly even moreso. I'm constantly stimmed out here, even in the relatively quiet areas.

In the working class towns back home, there is 1) a lot less to manage socially, as you typically do have one "type" to interact with so the social rules are easier, and 2) wayyy more opportunity to get out alone and away from the sensory overload. I was much much more at peace in those areas than I ever am here.

It's no better in the upper and lower classes for the socially disabled.

Though I prefer the working class mindset, as they tend to be less controlling.

it depends on the location of the town and the people who inhabit it.

Yes, the rust belt and anywhere that has been left to decline for 40+ years are almost all universally pretty awful places. Is anywhere good? I dunno, probably if you have money but being poor in these cities is worst than anything. Gotta go where the growth and the money is while still being somewhat affordable.

most of my life I've lived in working class circumstances in working class places. I am what the middle-class snobs refer to as "from the wrong side of the tracks." and the upper class looks down on us all, especially the middle-class brown-nosers who naively want to join the upper class. the working class town I live in, has the basics and no more. no real culture unless you can call rustic nature culture. one [much smaller] side of town [on a plateau near a lake] is populated mainly by rich fundies, and on the other side [the valley next to the freeway] are working poor or underclass. there are artsy-fartsy stores downtown, many shuttered due to the main employer going titty-up- and a safeway store that the rich ones shop at [their prices are too GD high but they sell fancier food], a wally world for everybody else. I've lived here since 2008, I moved here when I determined I couldn't afford to live anywhere else that didn't require driving forever to get anyplace. it's home, for better or worse.

^^^here, they are more prone to saying things like, "you have a purty mouth," with a malevolent sneer.