Returning to the Velvet Rut

In C-Ville Weekly, Jordy Yager writes about the pattern of middle-class kids moving away from Charlottesville for college, but returning a decade or two later. This is a pattern I’ve seen in the past 20 years—I’m 35—as many of my friends decided to shake the dust of this crummy town off of their feet and move to Brooklyn / Austin / Seattle / San Francisco, only to return 5, 10, or 15 years later, having figured out that Charlottesville isn’t so crummy after all. (Some, of course, remain happily in their new city.) Those of us who never left looked a bit lame to some (“no, seriously, he still just lives in Charlottesville”), but now look prescient for escaping the gravity of New York, never having needed to share a 600 square foot apartment with three roommates, the rent eating up 70% of our budgets.

Warning: If you’re sensitive to stories about privileged white kids becoming yuppies, this story is going to annoy the hell out of you.

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