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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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In general it seems like people from Eastern Kentucky have low self esteem (as a region, not indiv. people per se) - they seem to view their land as so useless that its only worth is to be destroyed to give other areas coal for electricity. If anyone proposed bulldozing the Rockies in Colorado or Black Hills in South Dakota they would be gagged before they could reach the door. They love their land and view it as worth protecting. Eastern KY will never be a major tourist destination because no one wants to see a strip mine from a hiking trail or canoe in a creek filled with coal slurry
Compare that to the area around Mammoth Cave which is thriving with tourism. 80 years ago the area was a mess filled with polluted caves and too many privately owned caves whose owners cared nothing about the ecosystem. The people in that area allowed a large area with many private residences to be made into a national park and many other caves outside the n.p. were also cleaned up and protected. You don't see idiots driving around with "I support salt peter mining" there because the see the land is more valuable being left in its natural state
In general it seems like people from Eastern Kentucky have low self esteem (as a region, not indiv. people per se) - they seem to view their land as so useless that its only worth is to be destroyed to give other areas coal for electricity. If anyone proposed bulldozing the Rockies in Colorado or Black Hills in South Dakota they would be gagged before they could reach the door. They love their land and view it as worth protecting. Eastern KY will never be a major tourist destination because no one wants to see a strip mine from a hiking trail or canoe in a creek filled with coal slurry
Compare that to the area around Mammoth Cave which is thriving with tourism. 80 years ago the area was a mess filled with polluted caves and too many privately owned caves whose owners cared nothing about the ecosystem. The people in that area allowed a large area with many private residences to be made into a national park and many other caves outside the n.p. were also cleaned up and protected. You don't see idiots driving around with "I support salt peter mining" there because the see the land is more valuable being left in its natural state
You are right in a lot of ways, but in a state that's is supposed to be an "tree-hugging" environment-friendly state (I'm talking about Oregon) I saw (I go there to see in-laws every summer) a lot of clear-cut logging in a LOT of places in western half of state, including coastal areas, that looked as bad or worse than the logging and strip mining you see here in KY. (i saw LOTS of homes in Oregon, and a lesser extent, Washington that looked like they were going to be swallowed in building-high morasses or mud and logs any second, and it rains a lot out there!).
In general it seems like people from Eastern Kentucky have low self esteem (as a region, not indiv. people per se) - they seem to view their land as so useless that its only worth is to be destroyed to give other areas coal for electricity. If anyone proposed bulldozing the Rockies in Colorado or Black Hills in South Dakota they would be gagged before they could reach the door. They love their land and view it as worth protecting. Eastern KY will never be a major tourist destination because no one wants to see a strip mine from a hiking trail or canoe in a creek filled with coal slurry
Compare that to the area around Mammoth Cave which is thriving with tourism. 80 years ago the area was a mess filled with polluted caves and too many privately owned caves whose owners cared nothing about the ecosystem. The people in that area allowed a large area with many private residences to be made into a national park and many other caves outside the n.p. were also cleaned up and protected. You don't see idiots driving around with "I support salt peter mining" there because the see the land is more valuable being left in its natural state
The amount of Mountain Top Removal Surface Mines (MTR) in Eastern Kentucky is on the decrease. Fast. They are running out of reserves and permits in Eastern Kentucky and the resurgence of Illinois Basin Coal (Western Kentucky Coalfields) has created a bit of in-state competition for coal contracts. The last big MTR Sites are in the area around Pike and Perry Counties and that's really it. Most new mines there are going underground again. Kentucky took a pretty hard stance on Black Mountain and that set a precedent that the coal companies haven't forgotten thankfully. There are other MTR sites, but they are on the down side of their lifespan. Western Kentucky is starting to pick up more mining now and you are seeing a resurgence in Surface Mining there and in neighboring states like Indiana and Illinois to a lesser extent. Illinois' coal reserves have been mined more which means there is less to extract there. Western Kentucky and Southern Indiana still have years and years worth of coal left behind with interest from large companies like Peabody, Armstrong, and Murray Energy increasing on an almost daily basis. The problem right now is the EPA and their inability to issue permits that have already been approved which is just flat wrong. But I digress.
Maybe Western Kentucky will finally get the attention from Frankfort it deserves after having been virtually ignored since the mid-80's in favor of Eastern Kentucky. I'm speaking in terms of economic help and investment.
State with subpar universities won't attract a lot of people with money or with education. That's the way it goes..
True points all.
Add to that, Texas has UT-Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice. Georgia has Emory, Georgia Tech, and UGA. Pennsylvania has Penn, Penn State, Temple, and Villanova. Missouri has Washington University. Indiana has IU-Bloomington, Purdue, and Notre Dame. Virginia has UVA, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, and Washington & Lee (where Kentucky's Governor Bevin graduated from). California has too many to list, so I'll paraphrase: the UC system (of which I'm an alumnus), the "Cal Polys," some other campuses in the CSU system, the Claremont University Consortium, USC, Caltech, Stanford, Santa Clara...
Anyway, it's great to see that Kentucky has become more aggressive about recruiting large-scale economic development opportunities, and streamlining its economic development incentive packages and regulations. This will probably work better in improving long-term economic growth and diversification in the state than improving longstanding, subpar public K-12 schools and colleges. This is similar to the strategy that Alabama started employing in the 1990s; even though UA-Tuscaloosa, UA-Huntsville, and Auburn are all stronger public universities than UK or UofL, they also aren't prominent national universities. They've been able to grow their aerospace, transportation, shipping, biomedical, financial, and manufacturing sectors moderately nicely, and diversify their overall economy in so doing.
Kentucky might well become a sort of Alabama North in ten years, if Governor Bevin can be allowed to continue his vision for economic growth and tax reform, a vision that would be continued with his reelection in 2019. Many of these jobs might be contractor jobs for call centers at $13.50/hour or whatever and no benefits, but for underserved areas throughout rural Kentucky, such jobs would actually be a major boon for local economies. A place like Harlan, Hyden, or Princeton would eat such jobs right up.
I'm happy to see Kentucky take its most tangible steps toward a "right" direction since circa 1986-1991, when Toyota and KERA were the big new things coming down the pike. I've even fleetingly, slightly flirted with the idea of maybe, maybe coming back to central Kentucky in a few years.
Last edited by EclecticEars; 06-25-2017 at 09:23 PM..
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