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It baffles me how a lot of times the national media inaccurately portrays cities in SC as small little towns. Yesterday, NBC CNN and Fox all reported about the winning powerball ticket drawn in Lexington and described it as a "little town located in the middle of the Palmetto State." Dateline NBC did the same thing when they did the Ascot Estates Murder Case episode where the never actually referred to Irmo, but described the area as a "sleepy little southern town on the banks of the Broad River."
Obviously Columbia is much smaller than a place like NY or LA, but anyone that has been to Irmo or Lexington can notice very quickly that they are not "sleepy little small towns" they are more like affluent Columbia Suburbs. Now I know there are bigger and more developed suburban areas in large metros like NY or LA, but you cant call an area filled with new subdivisions and 60,000+ people, in a metro with 747,000 people a "sleepy little town."
It baffles me how a lot of times the national media inaccurately portrays cities in SC as small little towns. Yesterday, NBC CNN and Fox all reported about the winning powerball ticket drawn in Lexington and described it as a "little town located in the middle of the Palmetto State." Dateline NBC did the same thing when they did the Ascot Estates Murder Case episode where the never actually referred to Irmo, but described the area as a "sleepy little southern town on the banks of the Broad River."
Obviously Columbia is much smaller than a place like NY or LA, but anyone that has been to Irmo or Lexington can notice very quickly that they are not "sleepy little small towns" they are more like affluent Columbia Suburbs. Now I know there are bigger and more developed suburban areas in large metros like NY or LA, but you cant call an area filled with new subdivisions and 60,000+ people, in a metro with 747,000 people a "sleepy little town."
Didn't see the Powerball news, but I agree with you on the Dateline episode on the Ascot murders. I think Dateline went a bit overboard portraying Columbia as a "sleepy little town on the banks of the Broad River, where the pace of life is slower, and, blah blah blah." Like you said, they never mentioned Irmo specifically, but just kept saying "Columbia." If I didn't know any better, I would have honestly thought Columbia was about the size of Winnsboro, based on Dateline's portrayal. I know it's all relative when discussing city size, and they were just trying to create a compelling story. But it was a misleading portrayal of the size of Columbia to say the least.
Didn't see the Powerball news, but I agree with you on the Dateline episode on the Ascot murders. I think Dateline went a bit overboard portraying Columbia as a "sleepy little town on the banks of the Broad River, where the pace of life is slower, and, blah blah blah." Like you said, they never mentioned Irmo specifically, but just kept saying "Columbia." If I didn't know any better, I would have honestly thought Columbia was about the size of Winnsboro, based on Dateline's portrayal. I know it's all relative when discussing city size, and they were just trying to create a compelling story. But it was a misleading portrayal of the size of Columbia to say the least.
It really was and like you said it is up to relativity but even if you are from NY or somewhere like that you cant deny that the area characteristics do not have the make up of a small town. Hartsville is an honest to goodness small town and shares NO characteristics with Columbia other than that they are both in South Carolina. So if Columbia is a small town what would that make Hartsville? I think it has to do with being in the south because they would never describe Akron,OH or Syracuse like that and Columbia is a very similar size as they are. I have also heard them refer to even Atlanta suburbs as small towns too.
What got me about the Ascot Estates show was that the reporter had her cake and ate it, too. She captured the setting of where the Ascot Estates is and how tranquil the neighborhood is, but she used Columbia as the place name and lumped them together in the story.
This is typical of the national media when it comes to anything outside of any of the major media markets.. It makes the story more interesting... "murder in sleepy southern city"..."murder rocks small southern town" as opposed to "murder surprised this midsized southern city that is the largest metro in the state that is not unfamiliar with violent crime..."
I remember watching American Gangster series and they featured the home grown gang G-Shine.... The narrarator was talking about how Columbia has high unemployment and that there are little opportunities for urban youth other than drugs and crime.. The video footage that they were showing was of the Vista and parts of Five Points.. and all you saw were blurry images of people walking in and out bars or standing on the sidewalk in front of bars... To a local.. if they had brought those images into focus. it wouldnt have been criminals and gangsters mulling around waiting for their next hit.. but USC Students and professionals out for happy hour in the Vista.. but the power of the camera is amazing..
I choose not to get too wrapped up in media characterizations of South Carolina. I'm just glad they didn't mention Alvin Greene, the Apalachin Trail or the guy that keeps getting arrested for having sex with a horse.
I choose not to get too wrapped up in media characterizations of South Carolina. I'm just glad they didn't mention Alvin Greene, the Apalachin Trail or the guy that keeps getting arrested for having sex with a horse.
Or Ms SC at the Ms America pagent, the Lizard Man, Joe Wilson, the Confederate Flag or....well you get the idea
Columbia doesn't seem like a small town at all to me. Timmonsville, Hartsville, those are small. Even Florence is moderately sized.
Thats exactly what im thinking. I mean yes Columbia seems small compared to New York but you would never categorize Columbia in with a place like Hartsville or Florence. I would say that Florence could sort of go either way. I wouldn't say it is a small town because compared to Hartsville it isn't, but it does have a lot of small town characteristics that would almost categorize it that way, its more like a big town.
I'd compare Florence to like Rome, NY, not a big city but spread out in area.
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