I often wonder how much of America is now this in one way or another, or on the verge.

[RKP5637]

I'm always shocked at how many cities of my youth now look like this, the result of American Exceptionalism, Reaganism, trickle down economics and failed politicians.

[peacebird]

1. When we biked the transam last year we were amazed how many small towns were shuttered

Main streets were gutted, lined with boarded up buildings. It was a shock really.

[RKP5637]

2. So often many of us live in a bubble of sorts, not seeing first hand what has happened

in many areas. Fortunately, with YouTube and cheap videoing we can now see things we well might not have ever seen. Certainly, MSM does not do much coverage.

When I was back in my hometown as a kid, I saw some things like this, nowhere near as bad, not nearly, but I saw bordered up businesses, houses, etc. that were very prosperous in my youth ... and other places that were shabby that were once pristine.

Really major industries had moved all operations into other countries and the mainstay of income for all types of jobs was gone. It was a happy place back then and one had to work really hard not to have a job that paid a reasonable income.

[peacebird]

4. Yes, I blame NAFTA for a lot of this. Manufacturing jobs provided a solid middle class income.

[rpannier]

6. In the case of Cairo it appears NAFTA was not the culprit, nor even a factor

Cairo apparently has had issues for over a century

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cairo.html

[RKP5637]

14. Very interesting link! Thanks! n/t

[surrealAmerican]

27. That's a great link.

I was expecting the typical "company town falls apart when the company moves/goes bankrupt" story. This was so much more interesting.

[liberal N proud]

3. America is full of ghost towns from east to west

I was in rural Missouri last week and visited a famous small town that is virtually boarded up. It was where my wife's grand parents once lived and they had a train depot that someone was storing any documents they could save as people died or left town.

There was one church and one business left in what once was a thriving business district. Trees had fallen and closed several of the already limited number of streets and the remainder had been left to return to dust.

So many towns across America where there are a dozen or more houses left occupied.

[midnight]

5. Austerity sure is ugly. Wait till TPP that is being fast tracked gets moving through the rest of

what seems to be stable.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. The history of Cairo is ugly, but austerity is not the brand of ugly involved. Cairo was a hotbed of

hardcore racism for many years. Brutal. Nasty.

[midnight]

23. The loss of jobs via the Rail Road industry most likely didn't help

tensions between the difference in people. However, I have a theory that austerity seals the demise of any freedom. And this go around the ugly will not discriminate.

[SCVDem]

7. Even the desire to

Keep America Beautiful has fallen. With overgrown weeds and grafitti allowed to stay along with the trash, I think Lady Bird Johnson would have a heart attack.

We are third world.

[Demeter]

8. There are many places where cities should never have been formed

because the lack of resources (water, transportation, arable land) meant that the city couldn't be self-sustaining even under the best of circumstances, and certainly not during Hard Times.

It wasn't called The Empty Quarter as a compliment, or a challenge:

[malthaussen]

16. Sure, but this is Cairo.

Located right at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, solidly within the area marked "breadbasket" in the graphic you supply. A priori, I can think of few places that are more ideal for a city location, except of course for the flooding.

-- Mal

[Hestia]

18. It was the railroads, who after the theft of cheap land, that pushed for development in

the empty areas, where the build up should never have happened.

IMNSHO, I think liberals need to go in and "take" over these empty areas (where viable) and develop our own towns. It ain't as if the infrastructure isn't there (in a large part). It wouldn't take much, especially as empty as these towns are. Develop sustainability, solar, water conservation, etc.

We, for whatever reason (middle class mores), need to quit asking for permission and just say screw you, we are doing it. It would be easy to move in, get rid of local control and take over. With global warming coming, the area's that can be developed will be taken over by hedge funds along with privatizing the water.

[villager]

26. Agree that eventually people will need to "occupy" these empty towns and villages...

Repair, rebuild what they can. Grow what they can.

Keep building, keep cooperating, since no one will be getting "evicted" from these empty, otherwise unused spaces...

[Botany]

10. Not saying that NAFTA and other things did not hurt Cario but I'm willing to bet that from ....

.... May to October the place is hotter then hell and very humid.

[Dont call me Shirley]

11. Word of the day: Slumlord.

This is what happens when slumlords run the country.

GOP = SLUMLORDS

[Hestia]

19. and local tax rolls refusing to move these properties off the rolls - it pads the property tax

amount and cities can get loans from those figures, putting you and yours in future debt because they will have to jack up your property taxes because of these "bad" properties are still on rolls.

In Pine Bluff, Ark., there are buildings falling down on Main St., with the owners refusing to clean up the debris and further emptying out of Main St./Downtown District. The buildings were built cheaply and haven't been maintained throughout the years and landlords either dying off or simply abandoning the properties. But you can bet they get a property tax bill every year - $120k or more - as if anyone is going to pay that.

[Dont call me Shirley]

21. But yeah, no intrusive gubmint regullations for binissess.

[Enthusiast]

12. Outsourcing. Corporations have no loyalty to the nation (people).

Those responsible for this believe they will remain above the fray. Eventually it will catch up with them.

Eventually there will be a very contracted market for goods and services. Just the effect of cutting "entitlements" will have a very adverse effect on local economies.

I remember early in the Dubya Bush Administration they had one of Dubya's main economic advisers on TV. The host of the program asked him about the negative effects of all the foreign outsourcing. He responded that we are all stockholders now, all the American workers. He went on to say that when the bottom line of corporations increases we all benefit and one of the best ways to achieve a better corporate outlook was to outsource jobs. Obviously this line of thinking has not been abandoned.

The ones responsible for this are the true enemies of this nation.

[RKP5637]

15. When the piers are allowed to rot through neglect and greed, eventually the entire building

will fall, no matter how strong the pier once was!

[Enthusiast]

13. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

We must address this.

[TinkerTot55]

17. The abandonment of Cairo seems more closely tied to it's geographic features:

From Wikipedia:

Cairo is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The rivers converge at Fort Defiance State Park, a Civil War fort that was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant. Cairo has the lowest elevation of any location within Illinois and is the only city in the state surrounded by levees. This part of Illinois is known as Little Egypt.

Several blocks in the town comprise the Cairo Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The Old Customs House is also on the NRHP. The city is part of the Cape Girardeau?Jackson, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population at the 2010 census was 2,831, a significant decline from its peak population of 15,203 in 1920.

The entire city was evacuated during the 2011 Mississippi River Floods, after the Ohio River rose above the 1937 flood levels, out of fear of a 15-foot wall of water inundating the city. The United States Army Corps of Engineers breached levees in the Mississippi flood zone below Cairo in Missouri in order to save the areas above the breach along both the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.


Seems it is very vulnerable to flooding.

But I certainly agree with poster's point about small-town America being hit hard by forces beyond their control, leading to large scale abandonment by the populations.

[rpannier]

28. Cairo's problems run deeper

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cairo.html

[TransitJohn]

20. It shouldn't really be that surprising, given long term (century or more) demographic trends

80% of Americans live in cities. That leaves roughly 60 million non-urban dwellers. It's a continent-wide country, and that's not a lot of people to fill tens of thousands of small towns.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

22. All over the country.

Wal-Mart has destroyed thousands of small businesses. Non-functional downtowns. No real grocery stores, no dry cleaners, no movie theaters, no general merchandise/dry goods stores, just a dollar store that is part of a chain. Where I live the pharmacy closed. We have not had a grocery store in about ten years. No jobs, too many people stealing and on illegal drugs to survive.

And yet I had some guy tell me that after Obama's second inauguration, all those poor people in Houston (I think he meant "poor blacks&quot were going to come to the rural areas and take everything we had. He was telling me to stockpile food. And guns.

Well, there is no wealth here, and what little there is is probably inherited wealth from businesses. There's an awful lot of wealth in Houston, with 4 million people in the metro area.

This guy was wrong. Maybe he heard it from his tea party buddies or on Fox News. I don't know.

[swilton]

24. Walmarts, Shopping Malls

which promote driving rather than walking, drive-through banks, loss of small farms and loss of communities.

I blame this on the globalizing economy - nothing supports communities like independent businesses and local agriculture.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

25. The malls have died except for the high end ones.

You have Wally World at the bottom, and Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus at the top and no stores in the middle, like Foley's in Houston. Foley's was eaten by Macy's. Sakowitz and Battelstein's went out of business.

The Foley's downtown store was amazing. It had 9 floors and a basement, occupied an entire city block, and was the second largest department store in the country after the famous Macy's in New York City. I used to walk 19 blocks from the courthouse to Foley's on my lunch hour.

I have looked at old pictures of the great department stores in Houston and it strikes me now how elegant and spacious the stores were, with well designed display cases, beautiful chandeliers and a lot of details. I remember them from my childhood. Now the stores just stack too much stuff up and you have to climb on a display to get what you need, or you might injure yourself trying to get around the merchandise.

In Dallas you have NorthPark Mall which is in Highland Park, a rich, close-in suburb of Dallas, and in Houston you have the Galleria which has 3 sections and is massive, on the west side just outside Loop 610. You can get attentive service in a store, you just have to pay through the nose for it. The vibe in expensive stores is completely different from Wally World. People are cheerful and happy in the high end stores. Even if you don't buy anything, the salespeople smile at you.

In Texas, everything is far apart so a car is a necessity. You needed a car in Texas back in the 1950s and 60s, so it hasn't changed. The city fathers in Houston and Dallas fought light rail kicking and screaming, but the people like it. Houston's bus system and light rail are completely inadequate.

It costs too much for most people to live in a high density neighborhood like Montrose, and you still might not have a grocery store in walking distance. I have been to New York, Boston and San Francisco, and even high density in Houston is nowhere nearly as dense as it is in these old cities. New York, Boston and San Francisco all have excellent subway systems which work with high density population. I was amazed when I found out that you could grow up in New York or Boston and never need to buy a car or get a driver's license. That concept was utterly foreign to me. Kind of like a state income tax.

Cities like Dallas, Atlanta, San Antonio, Austin and Houston have seen population growth because of the ubiquity of central air conditioning. It's miserable and just about intolerable for several months out of the year due to the heat and humidity, so you have to have an air conditioned house and an air conditioned car. I grew up in an un-airconditioned house in Houston with a couple of completely inadequate window units.

In high humidity the temperature does not go down at night. Many a night I couldn't sleep because it was still 85 or 90 at night. You have to go north or west to get to a dry enough climate that it cools off at night.
People who think it gets cool at night must be thinking of dry climates like Southern California, or New Mexico or Colorado.




http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspot.com/2010/05/foley-brothers-dry-goods-co-houston.html


788,000 square feet:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0bRrhyfW294/S_szU8CmQ9I/AAAAAAAAC6c/t_M0OjFAeN4/s400/foleys+ext+8.jpg