Neal Milner: Why You Should Leave Hawaii

0

There are at least seven reasons why people, especially young adults and families with young children, should move away from Hawaii.

I say moving not because I’m disaffected or because I’m pandemic.

This is because this is the most realistic strategy.

Here are the seven reasons.

First, more and more people have left Hawaii in recent years. Outward migration has outgrown immigration.

That alone might not be reason enough to leave, but it should remind you that something is a lot of people.

According to the latest forecasts, emigration from Hawaii will increase significantly.

So far, these doers have tended to be better trained, presumably with more marketable skills.

A recent study by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization predicts that due to the sharp decline in tourism, many more less marketable people will leave.

Moving to the mainland has many benefits, including economic and emotional ones. Civil strike

second, things are getting worse here, even if they get better in the long run. The short term is important for families.

So, yes, the state has plans for more affordable housing. It seeks to develop ways to make Hawaii’s economy more diversified.

Ho sum.

All of this is important and absolutely necessary, but in the long term. Long-term is for politicians, planners, reformers, politicians, people of good will with a broad horizon.

Well, if you are now, say, in your early 30s, have a few children and live with grandma and grandpa, you have the following horizons: If my children are in elementary school now, you have a chance that things will be noticeably better for them will? me and for them before they start middle school?

Third, The pandemic is making these problems more immediate and more serious.

Well, of course it does. But you need to be reminded how much more serious the housing and economic problems are and will become.

More and more people here are giving up their rent because they can’t afford it and moving in with someone else. So if this couple with two kids had to give up their rented apartment to move into their parents’ home, that’s not necessarily the power of Ohana.

It is the problematic force of the forced ohana that can turn into a completely different dynamic. As family oriented as this place is and as hard as the family members try to help each other, this type of move from more to less space is a major potential nuisance and stress factor.

Families gather under tents on Waikiki Beach.  Aug 6 - After a sustained spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths, Mayor Caldwell's 2020-23 Emergency Ordinance sees city parks, most parks, all campsites, botanical gardens, and community gardens being closed from Saturday, August 8th through Friday, before September 4, 2020.
Waikiki Beach is a great hangout for families. Many families are moving in together as jobs and money become scarce during Hawaii’s economic downturn. Cory Lum / Civil Beat

Fourth, in the end, that’s not the state’s problem. It is your own problem that needs your own solution.

Making this a better place is a goal to strive for, and for many that is enough to keep them here. It is not too much to say that those who do are heroes, ready to stand and fight.

But at bottom the decision to stay or to go, to fight or to flee is a decision about the individual and his or her families: what is good for them.

“Brain Drain” is a term that is both totally resonant and totally weird. We wring our hands over the brain drain as too many of our best and brightest leave Hawaii. But that’s a state perspective – what’s good for the state? Fair enough again. That is what the politicians should ask.

But it is not a perspective that is relevant to the decisions made by individuals or families here and now.

The drain of the state can be your own gain.

Fifth, in fact, getting used to it can make you less confident and at the same time limit your ability to do something about it.

Hawaii is my forever home, you say. Well, maybe, but you need to be aware of the dire consequences that can happen if you feel this way.

The social scientist Richard Florida has shown that “stuck” people – those who do not want to leave their homes – often live in economically weak areas and have little chance of good jobs.

These people stay in place even when their ties to the institutions around them – church, union, family – crumble. You suffer mentally. Your health suffers. Drug addiction is increasing.

Hawaii is not located in northeast Pennsylvania, and the Kalihi Valley is different from a working-class neighborhood in Detroit, but the pandemic here certainly creates the same stress with the same potential to trap people in their own despair.

And here are some more general, less depressing reasons to consider moving.

SixthMoving is hard, but it can be good for the soul. It’s a challenge, an adventure, an opportunity for new experiences. The downside is easy to spot – missing your old friends, stowing your surfboard in your parents’ carport, the best damn weather ever.

The perk takes work, but the rewards can be surprising and powerful, such as discovering new ways to differentiate yourself and be the same.

Hawaii may feel like this last place to you, but keep in mind that all of us who live here come from one of two groups of adventurers.

Most of them are either the descendants of immigrants who took some pretty big risks and faced big challenges in order to settle in Hawaii.

Or you are descended from Hawaiians who have sailed hundreds of miles through uncharted waters to settle on completely unknown islands. And thrived.

Or, less dramatically, but more recently, grandparents who were born and raised in Hawaii, uprooting themselves somewhere on the continent so you can live close to children and grandchildren who have obviously already moved away from Hawaii.

Seventh, there are all kinds of familiar communities out there for you. They are called the Hawaiian Diaspora, which is large and thriving and usually works hard to adapt to a new home while maintaining a love and attachment to Hawaii.

Sure, it’s not the same. But Hawaii is not the same for parents with young children today as it was when those parents were young children themselves.

Hawaii is an easy place to love and a hard place to leave. That makes life here a blessing. But it’s a mixed blessing, and that mix is ​​changing.

Whether you decide to stay or to leave, you owe it to yourself to consider all of these aspects before making up your mind.

It helps remember that home is a state of mind – a product of the imagination – and not just a place. Hawaii can still be home even when you go.

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.