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Started By
Message
re: Depressing Small Southern Cities
Posted on 6/22/20 at 3:44 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
Posted on 6/22/20 at 3:44 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
Did you fly through town?
1
Posted on 6/22/20 at 3:46 pm to Philzilla2k
quote:
Did you fly through town?
If he was just "passing through", he presumably was driving on 72 with an off chance of 31. Neither one of those highways have many shitty, collapsing buildings alongside of it, if any at all.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 3:55 pm to Midtiger farm
quote:
Nice local anecdotal evidence
My point is that your evidence is anecdotal. Yes, there are some areas that are hot: Always have been and always will be certain areas that are doing well. But since we are taking about the death of the rural south (and other areas that are experiencing the same sort of long term decline) I am positing what I know to be true with evidence that proves that your point is more than a little myopic.
FACT: Large swaths of the country have been rendered obsolete by modern farming techniques and improved logistics. I honestly don't understand how you can argue otherwise.
For instance, fifty years ago I would be buying lettuce grown on some farm 10 miles from where I live. Now I am buying it from some farm in the San Fernando Valley in California. Why there? Because they have more *sun days* (improved sunlight quality that means that plants grow faster and are harvested more quickly) and logistics that can get that produce all the way across the country in a way that never was possible 50 years ago.
This post was edited on 6/22/20 at 4:08 pm
Posted on 6/22/20 at 3:55 pm to kingbob
quote:
Lyndon Johnson destroyed this country.
That boat car thing he had was pretty bad arse though.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 4:00 pm to 4Ghost
quote:I have relatives all over Enterprise, Elba, New Brockton areas. There's a slow and relaxed way of living down there, it's nice actually.
I was born and raised southwest of Enterprise down towards Samson. There is farming and Fort Rucker. I was home last weekend to see family and take care of farm business. Enterprise is a great little southern town. One High School in largest class in football. An hours hop to Black Creek and little over an hour to Panama City Beach. It is a nice place to live if you like low crime, slower paced lifestyle. Yankees please stay away.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 4:00 pm to HempHead
quote:
I think the only initial draw will be COL. Otherwise, the amenities and entertainment you get from cities or well-to-do suburbs will be lacking until there is enough growth and wealth present.
Correct! Work isn't the only reason folks don't live in the country. They don't want to drive 30 min to the grocery store. They want to have all the activities for their kids right there.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 4:14 pm to 14caratgoldjones
quote:The odds of revitalizing Selma, AL are about the same of a revitalization of Union Town, AL. It's not happening and it's the sad truth. There's no new industry that would drive it in that region. Two paper mills between Demopolis - Selma won't drive growth and new roof tops.
I’d say Athens, Alabama if it was stock, I’d buy.
It’ll get absorbed the growth that is going on in and around Huntsville. Now would be the time to purchase one of those dilapidated properties and flip it in a decade or so.
Now, the Blackbelt region of Alabama has been hit extremely hard. I live in Selma and it was once a Mayberry town full of wealth and plenty of educated people. Those.cotton days are over and we can’t even afford to have a Parks and Rec dept do simple upkeep and maintenance. They ask citizens to pitch in to mow the city beautiful old cemeteries. No city garbage pick up, beautiful old buildings downtown in disrepair overlooking the Alabama River and cotton district. I could go on and on. I have elderly family members here and we’ve been here for over 200 years. This is my home and hope to one day see a revitalization, I don’t care if it takes 40 years, I want to be here to see it. Nothing would make me more proud.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 4:17 pm to kingbob
quote:
The issue is that from 1870 to 1965 the amount of manpower it took to plant and harvest a crop plummeted. Those towns were filled with workers for jobs that ceased to exist. However, the Industrial revolution often brought small-scale manufacturing to these towns, which were utterly destroyed by NAFTA. Farming supports fewer and fewer jobs with fewer additional sources of revenue for these hamlets
This describes my hometown, population 2,200 then, in very rural N. La. perfectly. I graduated from HS in 1979. We had a garment factory that probably employed around 20-30 people. We had some kind of a wood factory (I can't remember, but it wasn't a sawmill) that probably employed around 15-20. We had a brick plant. Probably 10-20 workers. There was a thriving main street with many businesses. We had probably 4 stores that sold clothing, a couple of which were pretty nice. We had 2 hardware stores, a furniture store, 4 different hamburger joints or cafes, 5 gas stations, 2 pharmacies, a locker plant/meat processing business, a pool hall, 3 grocery stores, a newspaper, phone and electric were located there as well and employed people. There was a shoe store, 2 feed stores, just a lot of little small businesses. My family had a shoe store and a pharmacy.
Walmart, Best Buy, and Sam's combined with NAFTA killed that town. Everything was available cheaper with one stop shopping. Forget that there isn't any personal attention or service! It's CHEAP! My parents still live there. That town now has half the population or less and 1 grocery store, a Dollar Store, a few gas stations, a hardware store, and a few convenience stores. It's a shell of it's former self! It makes me sad to drive through there.
Now we are doing the same thing to real stores with Amazon! If we aren't careful there won't be anywhere left to shop!
Posted on 6/22/20 at 4:30 pm to LaLadyinTx
quote:
This describes my hometown, population 2,200 then, in very rural N. La. perfectly. I graduated from HS in 1979. We had a garment factory that probably employed around 20-30 people. We had some kind of a wood factory (I can't remember, but it wasn't a sawmill) that probably employed around 15-20. We had a brick plant. Probably 10-20 workers. There was a thriving main street with many businesses. We had probably 4 stores that sold clothing, a couple of which were pretty nice. We had 2 hardware stores, a furniture store, 4 different hamburger joints or cafes, 5 gas stations, 2 pharmacies, a locker plant/meat processing business, a pool hall, 3 grocery stores, a newspaper, phone and electric were located there as well and employed people. There was a shoe store, 2 feed stores, just a lot of little small businesses. My family had a shoe store and a pharmacy.
Walmart, Best Buy, and Sam's combined with NAFTA killed that town. Everything was available cheaper with one stop shopping. Forget that there isn't any personal attention or service! It's CHEAP! My parents still live there. That town now has half the population or less and 1 grocery store, a Dollar Store, a few gas stations, a hardware store, and a few convenience stores. It's a shell of it's former self! It makes me sad to drive through there.
Now we are doing the same thing to real stores with Amazon! If we aren't careful there won't be anywhere left to shop!
Exactly. In 50 years we have made huge parts of our country obsolete: No jobs, no industries, no way to make a living. Then they became so unimportant that we didn't spend money on making them competitive (terrible internet/ no internet for a long time), schools in disrepair with any good teachers leaving for greener pastures, no hospitals/healthcare...
We need to put the opportunity zones in rural America, not the inner cities. At least they might mean something there.
This post was edited on 6/22/20 at 4:34 pm
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:24 pm to AbuTheMonkey
quote:
et al make North Alabama seem like Switzerland.
More like Germany with all of those Nazi Rocket Men that moved there after WW II, am I right?
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:29 pm to member12
quote:
Shreveport are depressing for me
Shreveport is probably the saddest story of all. That city could have actually been something. At one time Shreveport had more independent Oil and Gas producers then anywhere in the world. The Bossier Strip was an international entertainment district. Ah... what could have been.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:31 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
Shitty small towns in the South are less shitty if they are on a lake, river, bayou, or creek. The ones that are landlocked just seem more depressing to me. I guess it's because I view water an avenue of escape. I'm just going to float away from this shitty place.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:39 pm to AbuTheMonkey
How much time have you spent in rural Louisiana and Mississippi?
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:39 pm to La Place Mike
quote:
Shreveport is probably the saddest story of all. That city could have actually been something.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:41 pm to La Place Mike
quote:
Shreveport is probably the saddest story of all. That city could have actually been something.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:44 pm to HempHead
quote:
If he was just "passing through", he presumably was driving on 72 with an off chance of 31. Neither one of those highways have many shitty, collapsing buildings alongside of it, if any at all.
Met a padnuh at Dubs for a burger. Decent burger not worth the hype.
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:47 pm to 14caratgoldjones
Selma had a really nice Air Force Base also. Selma was beautiful in the 60-70s. Funny thing, they closed all those Bases and reduced Armed Forces to nothing. Was supposed to save all kinds of money. Look at our Debt today. I wonder where all those savings went?? Hummmmmm
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:47 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
So you went down Jefferson St, saw the two abandoned buildings and the shitty Crutcher Center, and made a judgement based on that? 
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:50 pm to HempHead
quote:
So you went down Jefferson St, saw the two abandoned buildings and the shitty Crutcher Center, and made a judgement based on that?
Baw meet me at Joe’s pizza tomorrow for lunch. I heard it’s good
Posted on 6/22/20 at 6:51 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
Village Pizza is far superior.
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