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America's Poorest White Town: Beattyville, Kentucky

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rudd1

Heisman
Oct 3, 2007
14,419
21,101
0
-Dads family from morgan/wolfe/menefee counties. I wish we could figure out a way to capitalize on the natural beauty: db forrest/red river gorge/clifty wilderness etc. In east Ky. Model after western nc.
 
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Wall2Boogie

Heisman
Jan 28, 2010
26,239
21,732
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That was quite an obituary for beattyville. It crazy how out of hand the epidemic is. As for the article itself, someone needs to show its writer spellcheck. It may come in handy.
 
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domino79

Senior
Feb 2, 2008
46,122
665
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I'd have to put Nicholasville, KY, up there. Everything about the place is just dirty. Everyone I've ever met from Nicholasville might as well have had those floating stink lines that Pigpen has in the Charlie Brown comic strips. Just an overall dirty, nasty looking place and people.
 
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GYERater

All-Conference
Jul 19, 2012
2,489
3,375
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If/when pot is ever legalized is will not be grown in Eastern Kentucky, it will be grown in the fields that used to grow tobacco. The only reason it is in Eastern Kentucky now is because it is easier to hide. Eastern Kentucky is basically screwed, the infrastructure will never be there for any legitimate industry and there isnt really a workforce to speak of.
 
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jwheat

Heisman
Aug 21, 2005
97,626
24,206
42
GYERater said:
If/when pot is ever legalized is will not be grown in Eastern Kentucky, it will be grown in the fields that used to grow tobacco. The only reason it is in Eastern Kentucky now is because it is easier to hide. Eastern Kentucky is basically screwed, the infrastructure will never be there for any legitimate industry and there isnt really a workforce to speak of.
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There will be a lot of weed stores though
 
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MoreheadEagle

Freshman
Jan 28, 2003
1,587
59
0
Most of the legal weed that's grown in Colorado and Washington is grown indoors in climate-controlled facilites. Even if marijuana were made legal, it would still be so strictly controlled that we wouldn't see it grown on an industrial scale. It's a weed and you can grow a ton of it indoors and year-round. It won't be like my grandpa's tobacco patches on his farm in Carter Co.

EKY had only one viable resource, coal, and now that's dying off and has been for 30 years. The only thing that can happen now is little towns dry up and blow away. It's sad, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened. No amount of Interstate or Mountain Parkway is going to help. Turn a bunch of EKY into a National Park/Monument and get a little more tourism in the area.
 
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Bodvar Bjarki

Senior
Oct 11, 2015
696
630
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I find it really hard to believe that Beattyville is poorer than its sister city Booneville right next door. Lee county has always been more "prosperous" than Owsley county so things must really be devolving over there.
 
MegaBlue05

MegaBlue05

Heisman
Mar 8, 2014
10,052
18,879
66
This is what happens when an area lacks infrastructure, an educated, skilled work force and hitches its entire economic wagon to a nonrenewable resource that eventually will run out.

It's either finish high school and GTFO as soon as possible or stay and live off the gubment while you chase your next high.
 
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MudererofCrows

All-Conference
Dec 4, 2005
14,149
3,597
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MegaBlue05 said:
This is what happens when an area lacks infrastructure, an educated, skilled work force and hitches its entire economic wagon to a nonrenewable resource that eventually will run out.

It's either finish high school and GTFO as soon as possible or stay and live off the gubment while you chase your next high.
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That's why it was interesting to me to read about Tchula in the second article. The same problems exist there as in Beattyville. I think it's not an issue of race but of class at the core. Just different mechanisms of power and control in place.

The bigger question is do these places deserve to wither away and die off? Or are these systemic problems fixable?
 
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Calf

Junior
May 13, 2002
2,003
242
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Bodvar Bjarki said:
I find it really hard to believe that Beattyville is poorer than its sister city Booneville right next door. Lee county has always been more "prosperous" than Owsley county so things must really be devolving over there.
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I always thought of Booneville as being poorer than Beattyville but it always seemed like to me that the Owlsey County folk appreciated what little they had, more so than the Lee County folk.
 
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Bodvar Bjarki

Senior
Oct 11, 2015
696
630
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Whole region has devolved into pills, laziness, and hopelessness. You don't go there you wind up there. Folks that can get out. Those that don't are consumed by it. It really is not much different than inner city urban blacks. The same vicious cycle.
 
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starchief

Heisman
Feb 18, 2005
10,137
43,981
0
GYERater said:
If/when pot is ever legalized is will not be grown in Eastern Kentucky, it will be grown in the fields that used to grow tobacco. The only reason it is in Eastern Kentucky now is because it is easier to hide. Eastern Kentucky is basically screwed, the infrastructure will never be there for any legitimate industry and there isnt really a workforce to speak of.
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The infrastructure is not there. The educated and ambitious people who left would be glad to go back if there were decent jobs there. I have not met many expats from there that didn't hate that they had to leave and wished they could go back.
 
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starchief

Heisman
Feb 18, 2005
10,137
43,981
0
Bodvar Bjarki said:
Whole region has devolved into pills, laziness, and hopelessness. You don't go there you wind up there. Folks that can get out. Those that don't are consumed by it. It really is not much different than inner city urban blacks. The same vicious cycle.
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Sorry to have to agree with you but you are right. Piss and moan because the jobs won't come to them.
 
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mrhotdice

All-American
Nov 1, 2002
21,923
5,450
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MudererofCrows said:
Really good read. Anyone from around there?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-towns
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Eastern Kentucky main resource are its people. The state has used the resources like coal to take the areas wealth and basically put back nothing to replace what they have taken out. Put a factory in the mountains and the locals will work. American Standard built a factory outside Paintsville and it was successful until that company decided you can make toilets in Mexico.

Tourism is the answer in my mind. Develop tourism and people will come. Millions of people live within 300-400 miles of the mountains but you can't have the attitude that the Mountain Parkway is a road up hill to know where.

Just my opinion.
 
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Chuckinden

All-American
Jun 12, 2006
18,977
5,870
113
starchief5 said:
The infrastructure is not there. The educated and ambitious people who left would be glad to go back if there were decent jobs there. I have not met many expats from there that didn't hate that they had to leave and wished they could go back.
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Not me. I grew up there and know of only a couple of people that have said they would go back if they could.
 
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ThwKentuckyKid

All-American
Jul 4, 2015
4,078
7,297
0
My girlfriend is from there, she is one who made it out though. I am very proud of her for having the will power to not give up. I worked at the prison in Beattyville, it didn't pay very much just $8.11 after three month raise.
 
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