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			| Greedy,Greedy,Greedy | 02-19-2018 01:26 PM |  
 Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 
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					Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
					(Post 513475)
				 Yup.  Allow immigrants to innovate in the depressed areas of the country and you'll see growth.  Real growth.
 I'd start a program to grant not only entry to skilled immigrants, but to also give them incentives (tax abatements, tax incentives, financing for businesses... hell, free property!) to move into depressed regions.
 
 But we both know, a lot of smart immigrants are going to look at depressed areas and, even with all sorts of incentives, they're going to instead opt to live in developed areas with already thriving markets for their skills.  And I don't know how anyone could force them to live in depressed areas as a condition of entry.  That's both unconstitutional and generally repugnant.
 
 |  Don't make too many assumptions here. Chobani started in the Otsego, NY area and then expanded into Idaho, and has attracted a lot of immigrants who are coming from rural places and comfortable in rural places. I've worked with people doing tech businesses in places like Northern Florida, Northern Ontario, Alabama, Utah, and Eastern Washington, and know tech immigrants who have moved to all parts of the US and enjoyed it. The largest trade group that targets immigrant entrepreneurs, The IndUS Entrepreneurs, has chapters in places like Ohio and Tampa and Pittsburgh, all off the beaten tech path. And if you look at the MIT student population, the immigrants among the students are probably a significantly more rural group than the Americans in terms of origin.  But if you look at why North Florida gets a big immigrant entrepreneurial community, in Gainesville and Jacksonville and Orlando, while Morgantown gets next to none, the difference is UFlorida v. WVU and the welcomingness of the Floridians versus the West Virginians. 
 
Yes, there are people who will gravitate towards SV and Boston regardless of what you do.  But a lot of getting immigrant entrepreneurs to move elsewhere is the difference between whether the welcoming committee wants to try their food or burn down their temple.
 
But the rural parts of the country, like the urban parts, were originally settled by immigrants, and can just as easily be a home for them. |