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After recently traveling through the "coastal country" as I call it, you couldn't tell me it wasn't the pits of impoverishment just based on the optics of areas around US-17, US-13, NC-101, etc... But I'm thinking mountain country probably takes the cake as far as percentages... The views are much more accessible down east...
Eastern NC catches a lot of flak on here, but if I had to be dropped off in one of the state's most impoverished regions, I'd take my chances in the country of the coastal plain/eastern NC instead of the mountains...
Eastern NC catches a lot of flak on here, but if I had to be dropped off in one of the state's most impoverished regions, I'd take my chances in the country of the coastal plain/eastern NC instead of the mountains...Thoughts?
Eastern NC is much more impoverished than the mountains.
solid numbers... thanks for posting. but you definitely have to dig beneath the numbers... they just tell a part of the story, especially when the myriad of info. gathering and design variables are factored in. Your post inspired me to do some digging...
Eastern NC will always catch more flack for two reasons....
It's ugly:
The poverty in the mountains can be overlooked/forgiven because not only does the natural beauty make it more of a tourist destination (thus bringing more money/economic opportunity to locals) but the sheer fact that there are dense forests, waterfalls, and mountains make it more aesthetically pleasing. The run-down shacks actually take on "charm".... That's not the case for Eastern NC. It's pancake flat and there are more cotton fields than forest in most areas. The rusted-out single-wides with 2.5 cars rotting in the side yard stick out like a soar thumb much worse.
The demographics:
No way around it; there is a racial bias in how we perceive poverty; and it "looks worse" on people of color. Many towns and counties in Eastern NC are majority black the majority of people in poverty are black and that scares most people more than the poverty stricken white hillbillies in Western NC.
This is a strange thread. Every area has poverty. Would you like to be dropped off in southeast Raleigh? Or right outside of uptown Charlotte? My GPS took me into a part of Portsmouth, VA last month that I wish I could have snapped my fingers and gotten out of.
I've lived in eastern NC my entire life; born and raised. I can't wait to move to the mountains. The poverty here or there isn't something I take into consideration.
Eastern NC will always catch more flack for two reasons....
It's ugly:
The poverty in the mountains can be overlooked/forgiven because not only does the natural beauty make it more of a tourist destination (thus bringing more money/economic opportunity to locals) but the sheer fact that there are dense forests, waterfalls, and mountains make it more aesthetically pleasing. The run-down shacks actually take on "charm".... That's not the case for Eastern NC. It's pancake flat and there are more cotton fields than forest in most areas. The rusted-out single-wides with 2.5 cars rotting in the side yard stick out like a soar thumb much worse.
The demographics:
No way around it; there is a racial bias in how we perceive poverty; and it "looks worse" on people of color. Many towns and counties in Eastern NC are majority black the majority of people in poverty are black and that scares most people more than the poverty stricken white hillbillies in Western NC.
Bingo. I didn't know a way to frame this but you did it very well.
Also, not gonna lie, the hillbilly types are much more friendly and welcoming than the impoverished set down here. They don't seem to have the proverbial chip on their shoulder.
After recently traveling through the "coastal country" as I call it, you couldn't tell me it wasn't the pits of impoverishment just based on the optics of areas around US-17, US-13, NC-101, etc... But I'm thinking mountain country probably takes the cake as far as percentages... The views are much more accessible down east...
Eastern NC catches a lot of flak on here, but if I had to be dropped off in one of the state's most impoverished regions, I'd take my chances in the country of the coastal plain/eastern NC instead of the mountains...
Thoughts?
The areas you were in really aren't the highest poverty areas of rural/eastern NC, and even in areas that are, if you're on a main highway, you may not be seeing areas with the most dilapidated housing, etc. since the elected officials want to keep the main highways looking "presentable", even in the poorest areas.
US 17 is very close to the coast, and in many areas, such as Brunswick County, have high end developments for retirees and other upscale amenities. US 13 and NC 101 are either going through a very rural area of forestland, are near military bases, or are near Greenville, which is itself an anomaly for Eastern NC (and would likely be very impoverished without East Carolina University).
As poppydog mentioned, some of the areas in Robeson County, Scotland County, etc. are high poverty and have been that way for a long time, even during the supposed economic expansions in the last few decades. Those economies have been based on textiles and other manufacturing that NAFTA ravaged, and because of low education levels within those counties, they haven't been able to recover much.
But even in those counties, if you're on a main road, you may not get the full sense of poverty that you would from a poorer area in town or in a rural area. For example, there's even a Harris Teeter in Laurinburg, which you don't find in impoverished areas and is unusual since Harris Teeter (a mid to mid-upper scale grocery) has left most rural and working class areas.
FWIW, most people don't consider Robeson and Scotland County to be located in Eastern NC.
Using stats for Jones County and Hertford Co would be fair game though.
And in all reality Coastal NC is not a high poverty area...the counties on the coast have differentiated themselves from Eastern NC...this would include Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender, Onslow, Carteret, Dare and Currituck Counties.
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