An article from Wall St 24/7 - March 26, 2013 -
America’s Most Content (and Miserable) Cities - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2013/03/26/americas-most-content-and-miserable-cities/#ixzz2OnfJQUFv
The
Gallup-
Healthways Well-Being Index, which has surveyed 1.7 million Americans since it was first conducted in 2008, measures the physical and emotional health of residents in 189 of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the scores of each metro area in the six categories that comprise Gallup’s index to identify the cities that did best and worst.
5. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, N.C.
> Well-being index score: 62.7
> Obesity: 32.1%
> Median household income: $38,923
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 79.0%
Nowhere else in the nation did people have as negative an evaluation of their lives as in the Hickory metro area. A major reason was that survey respondents living there were less optimistic about their life in five years than respondents in almost all other parts of the country. Hickory residents also were rated poorly for emotional health, with survey respondents telling Gallup they felt sad or depressed more often than in almost all other metro areas. As of January, the Hickory metro area had an 11.5%
unemployment rate, among the higher rates in the country. Many residents lacked the formal education necessary to work in higher paying jobs. Just 79% of residents had at least a high school diploma, and 18.2% at least a bachelor’s degree, versus 85.9% and 28.5%, nationwide.
The Hound: And many of us who are educated are screwed as well. I keep hearing this thing about how we need to be "Solutions Oriented" until it makes me want to throw up. That is just a Mantra of the status quo, because the Hound has offered up many a solution and every time those "Solution Oriented" people will give you every reason why it won't work and I have even seen people that will do everything they can to assure your failure if you get something off the ground.
Case in point is Microlending. We can continue to tell the local Powers That Be why we need a Microlending program for entrepreneurs and start-ups, but as long as you have government officials that act as roadblocks it will not happen. We can talk about the need for High Speed Fiber-Optic and competition in local Telecommunications/Media, but the Powers That Be don't feel it is in their interests, so we continue to fall behind.
You can go on and on. I have been told that we need to consolidate our local governmental web portals to streamline processes that enable entrepreneurs to get the information and fill out the necessary documents to move ventures forward. It has fallen on deaf ears.
I am not the only person with ideas. The ideas aren't my ideas, but they are ideas that I champion. What saddens me is that they can't move forward with the impediments that I have addressed and people aren't being listened to. They aren't being given the time of day by the Glad Handers.
I will be telling a story of reality soon that will put a lot of things in context. When we can minimize these sad experiences in our lives, then we will be able to move forward. The reality is that this isn't a psychological issue. It is about getting creamed by realities. When you start to address the realities, then you will start to change the mindset. You will never change the mindset until you address the realities.
Update : In March 2014 Hickory Metro 2014 - Tied for 4th Most Miserable in the United States
