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When I drove into Greenville, what I saw were a lot of abandoned buildings, places where businesses once existed but were now long gone. The section along Highway One (the primary north-south corridor) north of its intersection with Highway 82 (the primary east-west corridor) is the worst part - a wasteland of empty and crumbling storefronts. I remember when Grenada Farms had a dairy distribution center along this stretch of Highway 1. Happy Day Motors - Greenville's first Honda dealership - was located just north of the intersection with Highway 82.
Once crossing Highway 82, things got a little better, but slowly. Eckerd (now CVS Pharmacy) and Walgreen's built drug stores in the last few years roughly across the highway from each other. Other than that, more businesses are still there, but struggling. Not until you get to the Greenville Mall, which is past its prime, does Greenville appear to be thriving, but by that time, you are close to the city limits.
What has disappeared from Greenville in the years I have been going there?
Mainstream Mall
Grant's
Shainberg's
TG&Y
Gibson's
Ford, Honda, BMW, Hyundai, and Volkswagen dealerships
Schwinn Bicycles
Blockbuster Video
Full-service Sears store (now replaced by one that sells only appliances and lawn care equipment)
How Joy and Hunan Chinese restaurants
Baskin-Robbins
Dairy Queen
Western Sizzlin' steak house
Cinema 1-82
Showtown USA Drive-In
Holiday Inn
Bonanza steak house
Allied Van Lines
Plitt Plaza movie theatre
Rex Appliances
Discount Auto Parts
TCBY yogurt shop
Bookland
McCormick Book Inn
Ventura Cafe
Christian Science Reading Room
Goofy Golf
Pizza Inn
Kaybee Toys
The Book Shop
Schlom's Jewelers
Tenebaum's of Greenville
The Fair
Others I can't think of right now
What has happened? Well, some stores were part of chains that went out of business. Others closed due to lack of profits or owners retiring. The thing is, many of these were not replaced by other businesses.
Besides Schwinn, Greenville has lost other industries I can't think of at this time.
In essence, Greenville is on life support due to most of its citizens receiving welfare or Social Security payments. The public schools are lousy. Several generations of people live there who have always been unemployed. Drugs and crime have put the black male population in peril. Downtown Greenville is a shell of its former self. Two casinos float on Lake Ferguson and one near the Mississippi River Bridge, but they primarily take much of what little disposable income people have and give mostly empty thrills in return. The population has been declining for decades. It really dropped since 2000.
To be sure, Greenville's past prosperity primarily benefited its white population, as most of the able-bodied black population worked in the cotton fields for a pittance and legal segregation kept them out of many businesses as employees or customers. Those blacks who didn't want to remain in that marginalized existence left for the industrial cities of the North. After World War Two, farm labor mechanized, making chronic unemployment a fact of life for the black community. Welfare may have provided more financial security initially, but it was really replacing one form of servitude for another.
Greenville's best and brightest have been leaving the city for decades. Very few remain to provide the leadership the city needs now.
In short, I think Greenville is obsolete because the economic system it was based upon for so long (an agrarian aristocratic model) was too slow to evolve toward toward one that supplanted agriculture with industry or service. Compare Greenville with Tupelo in northeastern Mississippi. In the 1930s, Tupelo was smaller and poorer than Greenville. Now look at it.
I am in total agreement. My family and I recently moved from North Carolina because of a job promotion. I am a health care professional and make six figures a year. I thought we would be able to find excellent housing at great price and good schools as well. My husband and I were in complete shock - The entire city looks like a huge ghetto (I am African-American and hate to be so blunt but this is the truth). Greenville has potential to do so much more it is really sad. I would never consider buying a home here. We have decided to look into Arkansas for housing even if I have a long drive.
Hmm...I suppose that since I've lived here most of my life, I don't see it that way.Maybe I'm too close to be objective, but I would never declare the whole city to be a 'big ghetto'. There have been some new businesses popping up here and there and I think that the mayor is on the right track as far as making improvements. But of course these things are not going to happen overnight. It does irk me when people talk bad about Greenville, but I don't have any problems here and it works for me and that's all that matters.
Another thing, you should've seen the state of businesses here around 7 or 8 years ago. When WalMart left their location to build their Supercenter, that shopping center was bare for nearly 2 yrs except for Kroger. That's because Subway and the Dollar tree joined them in the new shopping center. Then Lowe's got built and different establishments started to fill up around Kroger. And the last spot was filled by Papa John's a week or so ago. So I think we're making more progress than we're being given credit for.
That's one of the things that I like best about Greenville is that you can find nice housing at a cheaper price. A person making six figures should be able to afford at least 200k and there are houses that fit that price(and usually more) in Bayou rd. area. And if you find that area to be 'ghetto', then I don't know what to tell you.
If you are a healthcare professional-physician-you may want to check your contract you may need be within so many miles of the hospital. Public schools anywhere in the Delta are questionable you would need to go private. The Delta is what you make of it and at this point in time rental is usually the best way to go until you know you are going to stay. If you cannot live in the community that you work you may not want to stay at that job not matter the pay-due to quality of life. Country living is not for everyone no matter what state you are in or area. This is my opinion and it will conflict with others but like I said it is MY opinion.
the fact of the matter is the majority of the population is black, and there is a large percentage of THAT population that is uneducated and unwilling to work gainful employment. This town IS a large ghetto, with the outer fringes being nice. 10 years ago the dividing line between a decent neighborhood and one where you did not want to live was basically the Highway 82 corridor. now it is between Reed Road and Bowman. The whites keep moving out to the edges of town, and the blacks keep moving further south in town. When they move more into a neighborhood, so do the gangs. Until the black community pulls itself together and takes of control of it's kids there will be these issues where ever they live.
My neighborhood has several black families in it now. THEY are good people and actually work to maintain their homes and keep their kids out of gangs/off drugs. I don't have a problem with them at all.
And just to set the record straight, there is also a large portion of the white community in the city/county that are pure white trash. the only difference between them and the black thugs is the white trash does not run in "official" gangs.
I pray the new mayor can turn things around, but i know there is little hope. There simply are not enough caring citizens left to make a difference.
Finally, this is not just Greenville but the entire MS Delta. the region has always been an agricultural base economy and modern ag work requires much fewer hands to maintain ever larger farms. therefore we have even fewer jobs for the uneducated masses, the oens who are willing to work simply can't find work. The jobs that are out there are often unfilled because there are no local workers that can fill the position.
I read these posts and checked the area out in Google Maps. It's been a LOOOOONG time since I've been to Greenville, over 20 years. I know the new MS River Bridge was finished a few years back, but what's the status of the 82 bypass? After the traffic is diverted south of town and Leland becomes the defacto first town that through-travelers hit, what happens to Greenville?
All of the Delta's problems are distilled and concentrated in Greenville. I no longer look forward to trips there like I did when I was a child. Sometimes we would stop to have dinner after shopping at the mall. I liked going to the Prime Steer Steak House (later Anna Casey's) and having "Mexican" food (that was long before I discovered the superior authentic product). In the years before that, we would sometimes go to the Marina to eat.
From 1998-2002, I worked at the public library downtown for a few years and the furnishings looked like they were holdovers from the 1970s. In the afternoons, we were essentially baby-sitting.
Greenville produced a lot of authors (Shelby Foote, William Alexander Percy, Hodding Carter, David Cohn, etc.) but they are long gone and the Greenville they inhabited no long exists - which is good in the sense that it was segregated and aristocratic. Yet no new authors took their place.
In short, the town is stuck in a rut, existing but not really living.
I read these posts and checked the area out in Google Maps. It's been a LOOOOONG time since I've been to Greenville, over 20 years. I know the new MS River Bridge was finished a few years back, but what's the status of the 82 bypass? After the traffic is diverted south of town and Leland becomes the defacto first town that through-travelers hit, what happens to Greenville?
The bypass is still under construction. A few years ago, a new Hampton Inn was built on VFW Road near its intersection with Highway One South. It seems a strange place to put a motel, but it is close to where the new highway will go.
As for Leland, Highway 82 doesn't really go THROUGH it. It skirts Leland and there are a few businesses along it, but Leland has problems of its own and won't be changed in any way by a new highway alignment.
the fact of the matter is the majority of the population is black, and there is a large percentage of THAT population that is uneducated and unwilling to work gainful employment. This town IS a large ghetto, with the outer fringes being nice. 10 years ago the dividing line between a decent neighborhood and one where you did not want to live was basically the Highway 82 corridor. now it is between Reed Road and Bowman. The whites keep moving out to the edges of town, and the blacks keep moving further south in town. When they move more into a neighborhood, so do the gangs. Until the black community pulls itself together and takes of control of it's kids there will be these issues where ever they live.
My neighborhood has several black families in it now. THEY are good people and actually work to maintain their homes and keep their kids out of gangs/off drugs. I don't have a problem with them at all.
And just to set the record straight, there is also a large portion of the white community in the city/county that are pure white trash. the only difference between them and the black thugs is the white trash does not run in "official" gangs.
I pray the new mayor can turn things around, but i know there is little hope. There simply are not enough caring citizens left to make a difference.
Finally, this is not just Greenville but the entire MS Delta. the region has always been an agricultural base economy and modern ag work requires much fewer hands to maintain ever larger farms. therefore we have even fewer jobs for the uneducated masses, the oens who are willing to work simply can't find work. The jobs that are out there are often unfilled because there are no local workers that can fill the position.
So, Blacks are soley responsible for the alleged problems of Greenville because the majority of them don't work, are uneducated and cause whites to flight because they bring gangs to their neighborhoods, correct?? I don't know why I am even responding to this ridiculous assessment. I doubt that the majority of Blacks here are any of the things that you stated...some,yes...but not most.The thing with Whites moving to the edges of the city is that some don't like it when Blacks move into 'their' neighborhoods and that's what that is. The first poster who responded can easily afford to move into one of those neighborhoods, but just let a few more Black families move in and see what happens. I highly doubt that those families would be gang affiliated,but use any excuse to separate yourselves,right??
Like I said in earlier posts about Greenville- if you don't like it here, then move. It's just that simple and if you're not being part of the improvements that are going on, then you have no right to complain.
I honestly don't have as much experience with ghettos as the rest of you all do, so I don't see the entire city being a ghetto. Maybe I'm living in one and I don't know it.
I think a lot of whites who were poor to middle class moved south of Greenville towards Avon so they could send their children to Riverside High School. I noticed a lot of trailers around Wayside.
I guess it's impossible to talk about Greenville's problems without racial issues popping up.
On a different note, I wonder why O'Bannon High, a school on the edge of Greenville's city limits at the corner of Raceway and Reed Roads, is located there. I know it was originally the "black" school when the Western Line District was segregated. Most of the kids who go there are from Metcalfe. It would make more sense to me if the school was located there. Can kids who live close to the school but in Greenville's city limits, like on South Beauchamp, go there?
God bless,
Chris
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