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Karen Heller: Pennsylvania, home of people who stay in Pennsylvania

Know what Pennsylvania has too many of? Pennsylvanians. This is what's known as a sticky state. People stick to the commonwealth, for better or worse, like a marriage. Or a pest strip.

Know what Pennsylvania has too many of? Pennsylvanians.

This is what's known as a sticky state. People stick to the commonwealth, for better or worse, like a marriage. Or a pest strip.

Four out of five native Pennsylvanians will most likely die here. People may move to other homes, but rarely to other states. It makes us think small, no further than the neighborhood. This reminds me of the time, because I can't help myself, when Councilman Jack Kelly couldn't be located because the international jet-setter was "out of county."

Is this good? No, it is not.

Love can be blind, and also confining. People so love the city, the region, and the state that they never leave. There are benefits to such loyalty, but also huge challenges.

Chauvinism is a popular stance too often built on ignorance. We insist our hometown is better than anywhere else without the experience or knowledge to claim otherwise.

Imagine if the Phillies operated this way. Or the Eagles. OK, forget the Eagles.

For a seemingly cosmopolitan city, Philadelphia shares an equally high percentage of native-born residents - approximating 80 percent - as the state. Almost all Pennsylvania counties boast big native populations, far above the national average of 67 percent. (Elk County, 92.1 percent!) The exceptions are Monroe and Pike, the latter the state's fastest-growing because of its proximity to New York City.

In a mobile culture, we stay put. This is the state of couch potatoes.

Indeed, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are so ingrown that residents are perpetually shocked that anyone from elsewhere would ever move here, as if you need a green card or something.

It's odd to hear other accents, let alone other languages. Only 9 percent of city residents - and 4 percent of the state's - are foreign-born.

By comparison, Arkansas is a bigger "magnet" state, attracting a larger percentage of new residents. So is West Virginia. And Mississippi.

For heaven's sake, even South Dakota draws more outsiders.

True, these states shed more native-born residents, but they also attract fresh blood and perspectives, diversifying and even improving the economic and cultural climate. Only Louisiana, Michigan, and New York (not the city, but the state) have a higher percentage of residents who were born there than does Pennsylvania.

Our region is home to about 218,000 college and graduate students, but, alas, not college graduates. Only a dismal 18 percent of city residents - and 22 percent in the state - graduated from college, according to the 2000 census, numbers no one should be proud of. And education is a great indicator of mobility, as well as cultural and economic growth.

Civic leaders complain about the brain drain, all those motivated, educated young people boarding Amtrak with their fresh diplomas. Perhaps they're leaving because there's not enough allure to stay put in a place that, by its very nature, remains provincial.

It's the empty-restaurant theory: Why would you eat at a place when no one's there? Why would you move there, either?

This is also a gray state, one of the top three in the nation in numbers of the elderly. It's like Florida without the weather or azure water. A large senior population decreases the number of taxpayers and revenue to the state. And, using the restaurant theory, old folks don't tend to draw the young.

More perplexing is why the natives aren't restless, why they don't journey farther. People need to live in other places, not merely in New Jersey, the TV-reality state next door, to understand what we have at home and what could be made so much better.

In many cultures, young people are encouraged to take a "gap year" between school and work, to travel or do public service. Some countries mandate a year or two of military service.

Unfortunately, joining the military may be a less viable option for Philadelphians. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of the city's young adults are not medically, morally, or mentally qualified to enlist, according to a recent report by Mission: Readiness, a national nonprofit organization of retired military brass. These citizens wouldn't make the cut because of obesity, criminal records, and inadequate education.

Which means more Pennsylvanians will stay put when they might benefit from wanderlust. Don't they want to see Patagonia? Or Paris?

When your world is small, you tend to think small. You take for granted the bounties that you have while believing that what's inexorably wrong can never be fixed. You're not prone to adventure. You believe the broken way of our government is the way that all governments work, and you give up trying to change the system or your situation. You accept the inadequate leadership, the status quo.

With an enveloping love of home often comes a distaste for risk and a fear of innovation. And all of this comes at a price of stagnation.

Change, as someone once said, is good.