re: WSJ: 'The South’s Economy Is Falling Behind: ‘All of a Sudden the Money Stops Flowing’'

Story used Natchez as a primary example.


Actually, the story dovetailed with a BRBR story a few years ago on why BR was falling behind.

Where exactly are small towns booming? They sure as hell aren’t in Illinois or in Wisconsin (where I grew up).

Articles like this like to selectively use certain spots and they discount the areas that don’t fit the narrative. Well Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee? Well that’s not REALLY the south. Only the areas with a weaker economy qualify as the south. Never mind that almost 70 million people live in those states compared to like 16 million in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana

I can’t even tell you how awesome it would be if the gulf coast had more plants outside of LA. Yeah, i know Texas does but i mean, MS, AL, or Florida. I would there in a second for a plant job around those areas

This was written by a liberal.


So facts are skewed. False story.

The story should really be cities vs. smaller towns / rural areas. The South just has fewer cities.

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I thought suggestions in the thread like "omg once you start electing Democrats it's sure failure!" were ridiculous,

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Until you look at every city that's run by Dems and they eventually all look alike

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Richard Florida, an urbanization expert at the University of Toronto.

stopped right there

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Which was convenient because that was the end of the post.

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I can’t even tell you how awesome it would be if the gulf coast had more plants outside of LA. Yeah, i know Texas does but i mean, MS, AL, or Florida. I would there in a second for a plant job around those areas

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It would be nice to have options other than Baton Rouge or Houston.

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It's all demographics.

This is why political correctness is one of the most important issues of our time, because it prevents people from being honest in their discussions, which then prevents problems from being solved.

The head line should be:

The South is lagging due to poor, uneducated blacks.

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Go look at the uneducated whites throughout the rust belt Midwest and north east. Small town America is dying because the because the mill jobs have gone overseas and the small farmer is being bought out or run out by large corporate farms. This is all over the country.

The small towns that thrive are mostly bedroom communities to larger cities or tourist destinations.

And anyone in this thread should read Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance.

For every "mill" in the south that's closing, there is a chemical / oil and gas facility that is hiring.

For every manufacturing plant that is closing, there is a wharf betting for employees.

The South is urbanizing. These small towns lose their paper mill and have nothing left going for it, so the residents have to move to where the new jobs are, which are increasingly along waterways and in big cities.

This isn't the "South's economy is falling behind". The "South" as a whole is doing great. However, that is made up of a lot of winning communities and losing communities.