No, this isn’t a call to action of some radical revolutionary group. This post is about something more substantial. It’s a history lesson and a brief talk about current trends. As a student of history, I see patterns in events that are shaped by and shapes the world around it.
In the last 250 years, the world has changed. It has gone from being the height of empires and imperialism to a global trade network. It has also changed from being agricultural in nature, to being industrial.
With the discovery and invention of steam power, the factory was created. This pulled people to urban cities. Steam power replaced many agricultural techniques, which pushed people away. The steam plow replaced the worker at the farm, but the worker still needed to eat. This factor drove them to the city.
This trend was spread over 250 years as the world became more and more urbanized. Cities have gotten more massive as the population of the world exploded. The pattern doesn’t seem to have any sign of stopping. Or has it.
In North America today, the big city has many pulls. City services, access to luxury goods, access to high paying jobs, and the internet. But these pulls have been eroding over the last thirty years. The high paying jobs are being moved overseas to China and Vietnam. With Amazon and the Premium shipping, those luxury goods are a day away. No need to go out of the house to get them. City services are becoming less relevant as many smaller towns are bolstering their services. The internet is available in most places. The big cities are also pushing people away. The high cost of housing, high crime rates, the lack of community, and the lack of jobs to pay for it all.
One trend worth noting is the change of jobs. Manufacturing jobs have moved out of the North American city. This has left people filling low paying service-level positions. There is no way to earn a living working in the service industry. They have been trying to make it work since the 1990s and still haven’t been successful. One type of jobs that have been created is the digital job.
Twitter. Patreon. Ko-Fe. Youtube. Amazon. These are just the glamorous new digital jobs people are making use of. Added are virtual call-center and customer service jobs. Coding, graphic design, and other software design jobs are also fueling the revolution. These new digital jobs are hard to find. Most times, it requires the worker to work for themselves. This is a scary aspect that tends to keep people from signing up. The term scam is often used. Yet, I know of many people who have successful digital jobs.
This new trend has removed a big pull of people to live in big cities. Jobs. Being a digital job, most of them are worked from home. This creates a push from the big cities. Why live in a tiny expensive house, when the worker can spend the same amount of money and live someplace smaller and more rural getting a whole house.
This is the trend. The removal of high paying jobs from the city, coupled with the creation of a digital economy, has given people the freedom to be able to move from the highly polluted city.
This is my end goal. A digital job where I don’t have an office to go to. Where I can work from home, see my kids more, and all that jazz.
This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free on Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.
Atomic Slingshot Press 