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Started By
Message
re: Why is Appalachia so poor and decrepit
Posted on 9/23/25 at 1:58 pm to ClemsonKitten
Posted on 9/23/25 at 1:58 pm to ClemsonKitten
Systemic racism.
0
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:00 pm to Gifman
quote:
So shutting down coal plants had nothing to do with jobs leaving Appalachia? Or are you just sky screaming?
No, but not being able to read has a lot to do with your reply.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:00 pm to Knocksville
quote:
not all of Appalachia has the crazy issues that are often seen. Only the counties and small towns with corrupt politicians, commissioners, mayors and lawmen who have lined their own pockets, and local physicians and nurse practitioners who have fed these folks pills for 30-40 years. Also those whose employment has been pretty well ravaged.
I went to one of the smallest high schools in the whole state of Tennessee and grew up in one of the most remote hollers in the northeastern end of the state. There were elder folks without electricity, running water and still using outhouses up until I was in high school in the 90s. That all being said, most of the kids at my school, myself included, have gone on to great things - because most parents and folks could still live at home and get to decent work within an hour or so, and we had resources at home even when our local education systems may have not.
I can take a two hour drive through some of the hollers and rural mountain communities from Western North Carolina through Northeast Tennessee into Southwest Virginia and southeast Kentucky and it’s night and day difference. In North Carolina, you can live somewhere remote and be in Asheville or Boone or Morganton or Hendersonville to work in a pretty decent amount of time. In Northeast Tennessee, same with the Tri-Cities or Greeneville, the Smokies or Knoxville.
In Kentucky, it’s a damn haul to get from a holler to somewhere with decent work that isn’t educational or medical related. Same with Southwest Virginia or WVa.
This. Truth. All of it.
I know it's been pretty dry the last few months but damn if Eastern Kentucky's hollers and valleys aren't about to see severe flooding again with the amount of rain they're going to see this week and next.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:02 pm to ClemsonKitten
They are probably much happier than you.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:03 pm to Joshjrn
quote:
Historically, people lived places they could work, whether for sustenance or pay. Historically, when either/both of those dried up, they moved. With the rise of the modern welfare state, the pressure to do so has disappeared. Now, people live places with practically no capacity to work either for sustenance or pay, simply because that's where they were born. Those places have, and will always, display abject poverty.
Yep. See the Mississippi River Delta.
I would be for making people move from these areas or cutting off all government benefits. If there is no work there, and never will be, the government should not subsidize generational welfare.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:06 pm to SallysHuman
quote:
Appalachia's poverty and decline are the result of historical factors like land dispossession and the "resource curse" theory, compounded by ongoing issues such as isolation from urban centers, a lack of economic diversification, poor infrastructure, and limited access to quality education and healthcare. The collapse of traditional industries, particularly coal, has left the region struggling to transition to new economic models.
This is all true but another aspect is the terrain does not lend itself very well to large scale agriculture so in addition to the fact that these areas became basically resource colonies the fact you could not have an independently wealthy planter/farmer class was also a big problem.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:07 pm to ClemsonKitten
Mothman.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:09 pm to Gifman
quote:
De-industrialization, war on coal,and the proliferation of drug addiction
Can confirm. Appalachian American here.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:09 pm to dupergreenie
Mothman is a good guy
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:11 pm to Bjorn Cyborg
quote:
I would be for making people move from these areas or cutting off all government benefits.
There is little doubt welfare kept them where they are instead of chasing employment.
I read an old 1960-ish article on this once. They even knew back then.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:15 pm to Dawgfanman
quote:
Lagos Nigeria
I thought that was part of Nola at first glance
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:17 pm to Dr RC
quote:
Other fuel sources like natural gas being more efficient, cleaner, and cheaper than coal...
Up until the mid 1940s, West Virginia was the nation's largest producer of natural gas. There are also several very productive oil fields in southern West Virginia in Lincoln, Putnam, and Kanawha counties where coal is rather scarce compared to the rest of the state. Pennzoil has enjoyed highly productive crude wells and Columbia Gas (among many other companies) has had, and continues to have, success in the production of natural gas.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:18 pm to Dr RC
quote:
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:20 pm to ClemsonKitten
Same reason why Louisiana is poor.
Lots of poorly educated people who elect incompetent/corrupt politicians.
An economy built around natural resources and no innovation almost always ends up like this, look up "Dutch disease." The Netherlands was the poorest western European country for decades eventhough they had pretty much all of the regions oil. They started reinvesting the royalties into other industries like tech, manufacturing, and agribusiness and are no longer.
Lots of poorly educated people who elect incompetent/corrupt politicians.
An economy built around natural resources and no innovation almost always ends up like this, look up "Dutch disease." The Netherlands was the poorest western European country for decades eventhough they had pretty much all of the regions oil. They started reinvesting the royalties into other industries like tech, manufacturing, and agribusiness and are no longer.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:23 pm to ClemsonKitten
When you have an economy built entirely on natural resources. Its easy to become complacent and do nothing to innovate. Then, when the world changes, your whole society gets nuked
Not an uncommon situation unfortunately
Not an uncommon situation unfortunately
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:28 pm to ClemsonKitten
It's full of poor and decrepit people
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:33 pm to BluegrassBelle
quote:Same as the MS Delta. Back when you needed a lot of manpower to operate farms and equipment the place was thriving, relatively speaking, but the more automated things got to where one man and machine could do what once took 15, it dried up fast and hard. It's not really any one "person's" fault that they're continuing to live in despair (other than the people who choose to do it because they're trapped in a cycle of government subservience for a small stipend), it's just the way it is. The most valuable asset in the Delta is the dirt, and using it to build sprawling industrial complexes that hire hundreds of people won't happen, and likely never will because the remaining populace wouldn't dark the door for an application if they did bring industry. Appalachia has it own set of problems given its geography and cost to develop big industries and its required infrastructure. Look what one single extreme weather event can do to the area, and imagine a huge industry gambling on setting down roots there.
Automation is a far bigger threat to legitimate coal miners in the modern age.
You drive through the Delta today, and it's hard to fathom how there can be people living in sheds so decrepit that they would strip a lawnmower of its dignity. But there's no incentive to leave and find work and upward mobility because of endless social "safety nets," that really only serve the purpose of keeping those people enslaved to the government. They are generations deep doing what they do. They don't know to want for more, and that's just the way they like for us to be. Same story, different color people.
As far the OPer goes, he must not of done much traveling to non-tourist areas where natives live, because as bad as those people in Appalachia and the Delta have it (with a handful having it exceptionally worse), they pale in comparison to the scope and scale of utter squalor that people in those counties live in, and it's not even close.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:36 pm to Defenseiskey
quote:
An economy built around natural resources and no innovation almost always ends up like this,
When welfare replaces productive jobs, this is what happens.
If you want to know what UBI and socialism will look like, look no further than the Reservation or Native Village.
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:50 pm to ClemsonKitten
quote:
I’ve been to some crap holes across Latin America,
You ever visited a favela? E não estou falando com um guia
This post was edited on 9/23/25 at 2:51 pm
Posted on 9/23/25 at 2:55 pm to ClemsonKitten
Visit Cairo, Illinois.
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