How to fix Mississippi
- Thread starter AttalaDawg72
- Start date
Hope they are located in and around the Jackson Metro.
Or the Golden Triangle, of course.
Where are we with those data centers? Are they moving forward? Haven't heard much since this: https://www.wapt.com/article/amazon-web-services-breaks-ground-on-mississippi-project/60843839
6 people I know personally already hired, not sure of timeline but they are already working here as employees for Amazon
So many of our people are resistant to almost anything. I have some land in the next county, literally 30 miles from where I have lived for my whole life. We have owned this place for almost 25 years now and the folks that are our farm neighbors there still consider us to be outsiders and treat us like we are foreign spies or something. Very backward and childish in their behavior. I suppose that in time these folks will die out and hopefully replaced with a newer generation of citizens that are not still stuck in the distant past. That county is one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states and for the most part, they are so ignorant and backwards that they can’t see beyond the end of their nose. Unfortunately, I don’t think that their attitude and behavior is uncommon for the area and our State in general. I don’t know the solution.
Disagree. Some areas are crime-ridden and have people that lack basic respect, which makes raising a family difficult. I am always amazed when I take my kid somewhere that has a great playground that is safe and not trashed. We typically either do something outdoors (go to the lake, fish, go to the pool, sports, etc.), country club, or at his school.
I don't like to take him to Walmart or anywhere like that where he's likely to hear someone screaming cuss words and smoking weed, don't want to take him when the carnival comes to town because there was a shooting last year and one year a kid fell off the ferris wheel, can't take him to a park because they're dangerous, etc.
Not to mention, we drive two hours + for any major healthcare or any variety of healthcare options. Lately, I've been trying to treat chronic headaches and it's been miserable being on the road constantly.
We need to move, but we're stuck right now due to aging parents that need us. I love my hometown, love that my church and family and some friends are there, but I think it's too far gone.
We do seem to have an inordinate amount of people opposed to development. Certainly every area has their NIMBY's that don't want things to change, but usually it's after having something nice there. The older residents in starkville that fought so hard against it being a nice college town should be charged property taxes as if their property was worth three times as much as it is, because it probably would be if they hadn'td fought any and all progress that involved Starkville actually being more friendly to students. I dont' know if Meridian really was as bad as people say about fighting against development because they didn't want to compete for employees, but if that's true, that's not shocking. Even now, Ocean Springs has a ton of momentum but it seems like every development gets criticized, and it's usually by people wanting to essentially preserve public land for private benefits. Can't do a development on the beach because that would draw more people and make it less pleasant for the people that live in easy walking/biking distance. You have people near downtown sitting on unerdeveloped property sitting on a gold mine and instead of cashing in and moving somewhere less busy, they are pissy about the downtown area growing and people wanting to pay them a lot of money for their property. At least Ocean SPrings has some charm, but it's still weird how much antipathy there is to progress and how much people are willing to openly advocate against public improvement projects because they would allow more people to enjoy public property.
And your governor and legislators could care less if you make a living wage. Hell, they really would rather you don't have a job.
And yet they expect college kids who spend high 5 to 6 figures on their education to remain in MS and appreciate their $40k job.
This is a big reason. I wish I could link a copy of the news articles on our Board of Supervisors- it's a clown show every month. Feels like you're watching some reality show with a script each month. It's really unbelievable, and would be entertaining if it wasn't my tax dollars.
Here's a video of the latest if you're just bored and want to know what government shouldn't look like: It's not the most entertaining one, but the volume is best on this one. The supervisor that likes to cut up always has an issue with her mic for some reason.
"If you want to understand a place like Mississippi, watch the last year's worth of the Washington County Board of Supervisor's meetings."- William Faulkner. Or something like that.
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I work less than a mile from the location in Ridgeland. The roads and electrical infrastructure are currently being built.
The location in canton the data center structures are already finished.
I'd take em all to the vet and have all their balls cut off. Or have Jackie do it on the 50 yard line.
If that is all that's required, probably 4/5's of the land mass in the US qualifies, and there's no reason to pick those areas in Mississippi over those places in other states.
It's like a bastardized reverse of the Yogi Berra quote. "It's a great place to live because very few people want to live there."
That is legitimately the pitch for most areas of the population centers in the state outside of the Jackson metro area. The coast offers basically all the amenities of a big city except for professional sports, top notch music and other entertainment, and of course probably the biggest, jobs. And it does so with basically no traffic. Get smaller than that and for the most part you are losing amenities without increasing quality of life unless you really, really like being in a small town.
Serious Tort reform. Many major businesses stay away from Mississippi because they know they're one lawsuit away from bankruptcy if they tried to locate there.
It is certainly that. Maybe the nicest and most heartfelt true things that can be said about Mississippi.
“There is both land and oxygen here, the climate is mostly tolerable to humans, and food and shelter are both sporadically available both naturally and for trade or purchase”.
So its OK to live in Mississippi even if its not the only place you can work, but “cities” should only be chosen if the only place you can work? That’s interesting. Especially considering that competition for both jobs and desirable living spaces is higher in cities, therefore many people are going to have the opposite situation.
I kinda over dramatized a bit. I was raise in a small town and cities just aren't for me....both of my daughters live in cities and love it.
I think you underestimate the cost of living and the level of internet connectivity, mixed with a moderation of city size. The traffic in other places is a deal breaker, being in traffic/train/subway 2 hours a day is not a desirable life. You may not realize the # of people that want to move to a place like Mississippi and work when more large businesses move here. It is a dream come true if you have lived in other megatropolis overpopulated, overpriced areas. That is why major companies are moving away from places like DFW, Atlanta, DC, Chicago, California, NYC, etc, etc. No one wants that life longterm. It is not sustainable.
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My point is that you don't need to go to a rural or small town to get those things. The only place in Mississippi you don't get that is Jackson, primarily because so many people need to work in Jackson but want to live outside of it, and I guess South Memphis for the people commuting into Memphis. Nowhere else in Mississippi has any traffic to speak of or requires a commute of longer than 10 to 20 minutes.
But even to the extent you need/want to be in a rural or small town setting, there are plenty of those all over the US, including in states that do have booming metro centers.
Yep....remove Jackson and half of the Delta and call it a day. Get us down to about 2 million population and it is perfect!
and yet fortune 100 tech companies continue to choose 1 state out of 50.... Amazon has the data and figured it out.
Elon is finishing up a huge AI data center in Memphis down on the river. Supposedly will be the largest one in the world until someone builds a bigger one. Heard he needs a lot of water to cool the damn place.....guess having the Mississippi river right next to his site will come in handy.
Two suggestions that don't cost much:
1) somehow eliminate roadside litter and trash. Stiff fines, public education, peer pressure, and even tax on convenience store and fast food products like the state of Oregon does may help. Also, requiring street sweeping of business parking lots. Filth doesn't sell.
2) each municipality should haves its own architectural review board for its business district. Buildings don't have to cost a fortune to look nice. Starkville would benefit immensely from this. Helen, Georgia is a good but extreme example.
We have to make things look like a place others would want to live. If not others, then do it for ourselves.
1) somehow eliminate roadside litter and trash. Stiff fines, public education, peer pressure, and even tax on convenience store and fast food products like the state of Oregon does may help. Also, requiring street sweeping of business parking lots. Filth doesn't sell.
2) each municipality should haves its own architectural review board for its business district. Buildings don't have to cost a fortune to look nice. Starkville would benefit immensely from this. Helen, Georgia is a good but extreme example.
We have to make things look like a place others would want to live. If not others, then do it for ourselves.
Except a lot of those bones are sitting on top of Yazoo Clay
This would actually go a long way. I generally like Mississippi and think it's underrated, but we legitimately have a lot of trash and it's frustrating as hell because it's just because we have so many pieces of ****. I suspect if you could get rid of the people littering, we'd suddenly be a fantastic state because the types of sorry pieces of **** that can't hold onto trash until they get to a trash can are probably also contributors to 99% of our problems. I've been to other relatively poor places that still manage to have clean looking roads and parking lots.
This would be great, but as far as I can tell, the standard way those work is they drive up cost and frustrate the hell out of people and stop legitimately good development, but impose those costs without meaningfully improving the type of development overall.
We have this weird situation where we look at a lot of desirable places, almost all of which were developed before significant zoning/code restrictions limited what you could build, and when we try to "copy" them immediately impose requirements (e.g., parking minimums) that would have prevented those types of development in the first place.
Yep. I always say you can tell pretty much all you need to know about a town by 1. noting if it has a good public school system, and 2. looking at the grocery store parking lot and seeing if they have a lot of buggies not put up- add trash floating around to that.
If we’re going this route screw Jackson. Put the combined university in Tupelo and build brand new state of art Capital and relocate to Tupelo as well. Within 10yrs we’d have a robust newer city in better location with at least 150-200k population base.
I have only read thru the first page so far, but this thread has given me dejavu like a dozen time already.
SPS is definitely consistent because I swear I have read some of these responses word for word less than a year ago.
40 posts in and nearly 20 have to be copy/paste from a similar thread earlier in the year.
SPS is definitely consistent because I swear I have read some of these responses word for word less than a year ago.
40 posts in and nearly 20 have to be copy/paste from a similar thread earlier in the year.
On a 2015 deployment to Kuwait, one of the young troops remarked, "this place reminds me of MS, hot as hell, trash everywhere and everyone lives in trailers."
I need to think on this and figure out if I am not understanding the deeper meaning, or if its just an absurd comment that is trying to pass as profound.
I am fully on board with the frustration of this post and points you make...except for the example in red.
A person wants to live in a less busy area and is annoyed their area is growing, so you say they should sell and move to an area that is less busy. Well they were already there! Thats where they were living in the first place.
I am not saying they are in the right to force an area to stay less busy, but its just sorta rough to not recognize that you are wanting them to go to the very type of place they were already at to begin with.
Good question, but do we really want to talk about politics and economics in a sports form?
Perhaps. I think that's the answer though is to create a super college town. Again, it won't happen, but it's 100% the quickest way to fix the state. Create a center of culture
As rough as it is for the property you don't own being developed in a way you don't like is, think about how much rougher it is to not be able to develop property you own because somebody nearby wants an uncrowded area without actually buying the property they want to stay uncrowded.
There are lots of parts about owning property that can be tough. Unless you have enough money to buy a lot of property, you are somewhat at the mercy of what nearby property owners do, provided they are complying with the law. But having other people make your property much more valuable by investing in their property is really way, way down on the list of rough things about owning a property. Maybe you'd prefer to have less valuable property and not have a lot of stuff going on around you, but the good news is those people can have less valuable property, plus a lot of money that people pay them, and not have a lot of stuff going on around them, and all it will cost them is the hassle of moving. Most people would love to be thrown in that briar patch.