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I'm from Lexington, KY, the blue dot in a sea of orange on the map. You hear a lot about Appalachia's woes (the stories on the local news from Bell County, Bath

I'm from Lexington, KY, the blue dot in a sea of orange on the map. You hear a lot about Appalachia's woes (the stories on the local news from Bell County, Bath County, etc are depressing beyond words), but it's been hard for me to understand why Appalachia is the way it is: chronically, horribly and uniformly poverty stricken. So I just read this PBS author interview which tries to put some reasons to it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/readings/duncan.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/readings... The main takeaway, as I read it, is that in cities and other rural areas there is a middle class and even some upper class folks around and the resources they bring along (and maybe even the example they set... sorry if that's offensive) is a positive influence on the extremely poor. In cities, obviously you have better municipal services and programs and a professional class of doctors, lawyers, etc. In rural farmland many families own their land which has some value and there are some wealthy landowners with large tracts sprinkled in. In Appalachia, there's none of that. The land isn't worth anything and it's just poor poor poor as far as the eye can see (which is large, geographically, unlike inner cities). Except for coal mine owners and operators. That, I can't explain. Do they live in the area? Do they not contribute to the communities? The PBS article goes as far as to say they actively held the poor down to keep them working in the mines, but I'd have to see more evidence to believe that wholesale. In any case, it strikes me that this wasteland of poverty with very few middle class or wealthy folks is the opposite effect of tech hubs. Brad Feld and others have written about how the density of entrepreneurs and angel investors with deep pockets is what makes a tech hub viable (very liberally paraphrased). From a general perspective, it seems like a normal curve where the outliers at the top are places most uniformly non-poor and populated densely and the outliers at the bottom are uniformly poor and populated sparsely.

bane 12y ago
It's a bad cycle. Imagine you're the "wealthy" person in a town of poor, jobless people. What local businesses do you spend you time and money in? Groceries and gas? Both are probably not locally owned, so most of what you spend leaves the area. You drive 2 hours on weekends to get to the nearest Walmart to buy clothes, so again most of your money leaves the area: and none of the places you're spending at employee lots of people and/or pay them lots of money. Most of the jobs servicing those industries will be part-time anyways. For the people who work in the mines, they make more money, but they honestly don't really know what to do with it...and there's nothing in particular to spend it on locally anyway. Even worse, arable land is a rarity, it is a mountain area! So it's hard to even build a local agricultural economy. It's isolated from transport links, landlocked and hard to navigate. If you pick a route from anywhere East of Appalachia, and take it to San Francisco or L.A., you'll be routed entirely around the area in favor of a Northern or Southern route. I didn't grow up in Appalachia, but I grew up in an area not too different from it. Honestly, if we hadn't been within commuting distance of a major city, my career options would have been farm work or gas station attendant. There wasn't even enough of a commercial sector for "retail clerk" to make the list. It's a useful thing to drive through that area: it's stunningly beautiful, but you start to get a feel for why there's so little going on there.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Tourism might work, the area is plenty beautiful. Of course, those jobs aren't really that great. Most cities in mountainous regions are built in valleys for that reason. But really, mountainous areas just can't support that many people, so they shouldn't be that populated anyways. > Even worse, arable land is a rarity, it is a mountain area! In Asia they terrace a lot. Not sure if that is a good idea though, and definitely not necessary in the states where there is plenty of good agriculture land (much of China is mountainous, so it is necessary).
  - bane 12y ago
    There is, lots of ski resorts, hiking, that sort of thing. The kicker is that those same places will actually hire in lots of Europeans to work the facilities, so not only are the employees not local, they aren't even from the same country! It's a shame, there's a kernel of some great culture there, a unique dialect, great music, entertaining local history and color, some beautiful folk art. Local dialect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU The traditional music is a descendant of Celtic folk music, but unique enough to be interesting. Here's a fantastic documentary on the music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXh8SDp0H-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXh8SDp0H-E All it would really take would be for some kind of Appalachian Music to become wildly popular and I could see the region getting popular music centers people would come to visit. Their main possible export market is all cultural.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - fivedogit 12y ago
    My dad, as part of his economic development work, is actually moving on this right now. His folks did some research and found that despite the vast natural beauty of eastern Kentucky and its geographically central location, there isn't a single venue in a 100 mile radius that would be suitable for a corporate retreat or convention. So that's what they're focusing on. I can't say much more about it at this point as I don't think the details are public yet, but things are definitely happening.
evantish 12y ago
If you're looking for some insights into why it's like that, you should make some time to read American Nations [0]. It connects a lot of dots. Probably the best book I read/listened to last year. [0] www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

bane 12y ago

It's a bad cycle. Imagine you're the "wealthy" person in a town of poor, jobless people. What local businesses do you spend you time and money in? Groceries and gas? Both are probably not locally owned, so most of what you spend leaves the area. You drive 2 hours on weekends to get to the nearest Walmart to buy clothes, so again most of your money leaves the area: and none of the places you're spending at employee lots of people and/or pay them lots of money. Most of the jobs servicing those industries will be part-time anyways. For the people who work in the mines, they make more money, but they honestly don't really know what to do with it...and there's nothing in particular to spend it on locally anyway. Even worse, arable land is a rarity, it is a mountain area! So it's hard to even build a local agricultural economy. It's isolated from transport links, landlocked and hard to navigate. If you pick a route from anywhere East of Appalachia, and take it to San Francisco or L.A., you'll be routed entirely around the area in favor of a Northern or Southern route. I didn't grow up in Appalachia, but I grew up in an area not too different from it. Honestly, if we hadn't been within commuting distance of a major city, my career options would have been farm work or gas station attendant. There wasn't even enough of a commercial sector for "retail clerk" to make the list. It's a useful thing to drive through that area: it's stunningly beautiful, but you start to get a feel for why there's so little going on there.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Tourism might work, the area is plenty beautiful. Of course, those jobs aren't really that great. Most cities in mountainous regions are built in valleys for that reason. But really, mountainous areas just can't support that many people, so they shouldn't be that populated anyways. > Even worse, arable land is a rarity, it is a mountain area! In Asia they terrace a lot. Not sure if that is a good idea though, and definitely not necessary in the states where there is plenty of good agriculture land (much of China is mountainous, so it is necessary).
- bane 12y ago
  There is, lots of ski resorts, hiking, that sort of thing. The kicker is that those same places will actually hire in lots of Europeans to work the facilities, so not only are the employees not local, they aren't even from the same country! It's a shame, there's a kernel of some great culture there, a unique dialect, great music, entertaining local history and color, some beautiful folk art. Local dialect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU The traditional music is a descendant of Celtic folk music, but unique enough to be interesting. Here's a fantastic documentary on the music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXh8SDp0H-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXh8SDp0H-E All it would really take would be for some kind of Appalachian Music to become wildly popular and I could see the region getting popular music centers people would come to visit. Their main possible export market is all cultural.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- fivedogit 12y ago
  My dad, as part of his economic development work, is actually moving on this right now. His folks did some research and found that despite the vast natural beauty of eastern Kentucky and its geographically central location, there isn't a single venue in a 100 mile radius that would be suitable for a corporate retreat or convention. So that's what they're focusing on. I can't say much more about it at this point as I don't think the details are public yet, but things are definitely happening.

evantish 12y ago

If you're looking for some insights into why it's like that, you should make some time to read American Nations [0]. It connects a lot of dots. Probably the best book I read/listened to last year. [0] www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029