Why didn't Kentucky develop compared to their neighbors?

[Shakeesha]

Originally Posted by jjbradleynyc

I'd disagree there, with the bolded statement. Sure, the country culture, food, religion, attitudes and similarities with the south and backgrounds overall, are very similiar in both regions.

But, eastern Kentucky is very different from eastern Tennessee in general. E KY is loaded with tiny to small towns that have mostly relied on the coal economy over the decades, to survive - with minimal well paying jobs, other than coal, medical or a "trade" like construction, welding, plumbing, electrical, etc. The towns have a very isolated feel, a dated and poor feel, with minimal services or "things to do."

There are no large cities at all and the area is extremely lacking in infrastructure and well-paying jobs. Most young people flee after they get educations or move away for careers.

Eastern Tennessee has a huge tourism economy with the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area and the Great Smoky Mountains, welcoming 10 million plus annually.

Also, metro Knoxville is at almost 1 million people, and Chattanooga at almost 600k. Add in the tri-cities region, and those metro areas are 300k for Kingsport, and 200k for Johnson City. Eastern Kentucky has nothing at all close to any of this.

Other than hilly geography and southern culture, eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee are growing further and further apart--and are almost apples and oranges in a lot of ways.

Don't get me wrong--there are some incredible people in eastern Kentucky--my mother is from there, and I have a lot of family living there. I enjoy visiting on occasion.

But the region is in dire need of better education, access to well-paying jobs, better infrastructure and better healthcare, for its citizens.

I agree. Even portions of Western Kentucky (with Bowling Green being the notable exception) are stagnant and heavily reliant on blue collar jobs. Owensboro, Henderson, Paducah etc. depended on coal and agriculture, historically, and have not worked as hard to diversify their economies in the same way Louisville or Lexington have. Western Kentucky also suffers the fate of being sandwiched in between the much larger cities of Evansville and Clarksville, both of which provide many jobs, medical facilities, shopping, entertainment, restaurants, and educational opportunities not found in the region. Bowling Green is doing very well because of the university, services, manufacturing, healthcare, and proximity to the Nashville region. I see many Kentucky tags in Hendersonville when I visit.

[TheseGoTo11]

Tennessee River led to creation of cities at Knoxville and Chattanooga, while the Cumberland River-Natchez Trace intersection created Nashville, which benefitted greatly from Eastern TN country stars, not to mention New Yorker Cornelius Vanderbilt putting his university there.

If Eastern KY had a river like the Tennessee things might have turned out differently.

[jjbradleynyc]

Originally Posted by Shakeesha

I agree. Even portions of Western Kentucky (with Bowling Green being the notable exception) are stagnant and heavily reliant on blue collar jobs. Owensboro, Henderson, Paducah etc. depended on coal and agriculture, historically, and have not worked as hard to diversify their economies in the same way Louisville or Lexington have. Western Kentucky also suffers the fate of being sandwiched in between the much larger cities of Evansville and Clarksville, both of which provide many jobs, medical facilities, shopping, entertainment, restaurants, and educational opportunities not found in the region. Bowling Green is doing very well because of the university, services, manufacturing, healthcare, and proximity to the Nashville region. I see many Kentucky tags in Hendersonville when I visit.

Yeah, and Eastern Kentucky - like many other more impoverished regions of the country - suffers from prescription drug abuse, and a widespread "pandemic" of sorts with that big problem. It's really sad to see happen all over the US. But in large more impoverished regions like Eastern Kentucky, it is more concentrated and widespread for sure.

Western KY is in a bit better shape overall than Eastern, but as you mentioned, it does have its challenges overall.

I think the politics of Kentucky do also hold the state back a lot. Many of the leaders do not want the state to change--limiting its growth.

[costellopresley82]

Without Nashville, Tennessee and Kentucky would be a lot more similar than they already are. I feel like we have to give the city of Nashville credit for the growth, it has always been a fairly progressive city in many ways, even as far back as the 1960s. It has been growing for years and it’s leaving the rest of Tennessee in the dust. For whatever reason, Louisville and Lexington haven’t been able to do the same, although both cities could learn from Nashville.

Kentucky’s geographic location is a little unfortunate because it kind of serves as a transition area between Appalachia (eastern Kentucky might as well be West Virginia) and the Midwest, two regions that haven’t experienced a lot of recent growth. As others have mentioned, it’s also not in the Sun Belt. Take all of this into account and it makes sense that Kentucky is overlooked to an extent, although clearly not as bad as neighboring West Virginia.

[marino760]

Originally Posted by Zedd90

Tennessee is growing rather quickly and the landscape isn't too different than Kentucky. I understand why Indiana and Ohio developed. Both states are connected to the Great Lakes and is also connected to major metropolitan areas such as Chicago and Detroit.

Virginia developed from it's connectivity to the Atlantic ocean and the South. Missouri being the gateway to the Midwest from the West coast and the East coast. West Virginia is a different story, but mainly comparing Tennessee to Kentucky. They're both similar in landscape and connectivity to major parts of the US. So why did Kentucky lag so far behind?

It wasn't very long ago TN was thought of as a backward state, represented in the 1960s by the show Beverly Hillbillies, no better than KY. Granny was usually cooking up some possum soup and Jethro laying around the cement pond. Then people discovered there are no state taxes which gave them the incentive to move there. With that brought wealthier transplants and retirees with money who of course wanted to be taxed as little as possible.
The state grew and developed as well as its major cities. Retirement communities sprang up and infrastructure was built to accommodate all the transplants. Many jobs were created and the standard of living improved as a result.
IMO, KY and TN are sister states, very similar in topography, culture and climate. The difference became the taxes collected.

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by Landolakes90

For the purposes of discussion it's fair to point out that it's not Tennessee that's growing gangbusters so much as it is Nashville. The rest of TN is not exploding with growth. Knoxville and Chattanooga are growing around the average rate, and the area around Memphis is declining. Also Virginia is not growing impressively outside of the DC region. Richmond has decent growth, but Hampton Roads is stagnant. Outstate VA doesn't have significant enough population centers to shift those states. Same with Ohio. Columbus is growing, while the rest of the state lags quite a bit. Indiana is the outlier. Though again if you take out Indy the rest of the state doesn't perform much better than KY. This really is a tale of specific cities, not states.

I think it's a misnomer to say Kentucky didn't develop. It's the largest vehicle manufacturing state by cars produced, and has a sizeable corporate presence for it's population. I'd be curious to know what you consider "developed". Based on the OP I'm going to assume that you don't have a lot of in person exposure to KY, and that your impressions are largely based off of pop culture stereo types. It's worth pointing out that Kentucky as a state is 400 miles end to end and within that expanse are some VASTLY different regions. When most people who aren't familiar think of KY they think of the eastern 3rd of the state. Appalachia, mountain folk, abject poverty. This represents less than 20% of the state as a whole. It has virtually no interface with Kentucky's "Golden Triangle" which is Louisville, Lexington, and the Northern Kentucky Cincinnati suburbs. These area's are more developed, and educated. They are growing at or above average. They also contain a very disproportionate amount of the states wealth and power. Though that's true for any urban/rural divide. West of that is western Kentucky which feels the most southern of all regions.

To answer your question as to why Kentucky lags it's border states(TN anyway, one could argue the others) I would say the answer lies in economics. Specifically the economics of the last 40 years. When you take out the eastern portion of the state Kentucky has developed right along side the rest of it's peers. You start seeing a divergence from this in the early 1980's when the "New South" states aggressively pursued policies to attract businesses and investments. They pursued low tax, or no tax in some cases policies and made themselves attractive for corporate investments. Kentucky did this as well and you see a surge of corporate/economic growth in the 1980s/90s in cities like Louisville and Lexington.

Over the last 20 years Kentucky for whatever reason stopped being aggressive to attract this type of investment. Kentucky is an old automotive center and it's leadership seems to pursue the more "Michigan" model of investment where they focus more on attracting manufacturing investment instead of the higher paying, higher educated corporate jobs that the new south states pursue.

But to say that KY hasn't developed I think is misguided. When you look at the state as a whole it performs poorly nationally. That performance is so incredibly disproportionate within the state borders so just looking at those state level numbers won't give you the full story. If you remove the impoverished counties in the eastern 3rd of the state, the numbers jump quite a bit, and you're looking at a population with income, economic, and educational attainment at or above the national average, and not that divergent from the states that border it.

This is a good post. “States” other than like Florida are not really growing. A select number of cities are. Atlanta is booming not GA, Nashville is booming, not Tennessee, Seattle is booming not Washington.