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This thread just started yesterday - give it time!
I don't think it was for discussion purposes...just to make a point...a point that has been made many times over. Like most, they can make a point but, no solutions.
There seems to be a lot of that on the Kentucky thread, then they get all bent out of shape when someone disagrees with them. We do have our problems, but so does every other place you care to name. For instance, can somebody name me one-just one- place that doesn't have a problem with drugs?
Yep...I'm hearing that the Heroin problem in Louisville and Northern Kentuky is about to surpass the prescription drug problem in Eastern Kentucky. Please forgive me for saying that, it sliped out.
There seems to be a lot of that on the Kentucky thread, then they get all bent out of shape when someone disagrees with them. We do have our problems, but so does every other place you care to name. For instance, can somebody name me one-just one- place that doesn't have a problem with drugs?
It's a big problem in many areas, but the problem is that rural areas like eastern Kentucky have fewer resources to combat and treat the drug problems...
Eastern Kentucky has always built a life around coal and it dwindling significantly but there is no major employer and it hard to have any other type of work in the rugged mountain terrain.
My 91 year grandmother still lives in Cutshin and cousins up in Greasy Creek I visit them bi yearly.
In the early 90's I went to college in Hazard and stayed with my grandmother. That trip took an hour for just 25 miles. Then you also get behind coal trucks climbing mountains at 10 mph, and sometime I would be stopped by the same train twice. My professor understood since that was the way of life.
The eastern Kentuckians are true Appalachians and most are good people and very friendly.
Crazy part is area hasnt changed since I was kid. Except a new roof here and there and some buildings burnt down but Bingham, Harlen, Cutshin, Wooten and most of Cumberland look the same.
There is promise for Corbin and London but those towns are on bottom part of the mountain and close to the interstate.
My family owns land we would like to lease out or sale to oil-gas or coal but we cant because of an adjacent lot who refusing. I wished we could have force pooling before Obama makes coal worthless. Dont take that wrong way Im proud voter of him.
Due to Kentucky rugged terrain it hard for tourism to take off except area around I 75 like Mammoth Cave and Cumberland River.
To rocky of mountains to create a ski industry. Hazard does have the Mother Goose House. File:Mother-Goose-Building.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I would love to run a bed & breakfast out of my grandmothers house when she goes but she lives deep in a holler on a 5 mile one lane road, I don't think I would have any visitors, definitely you cant drive a motor home.
This thread makes me miss my grandmother, its getting warm enough to visit. I wish there was easy solution to Eastern Kentucky impoverish state but it is what it is.
Last edited by SunnyKayak; 03-16-2013 at 07:11 PM..
Sunnykayak. Thanks for your understanding. We in the southern appalachians struggle to keep our way of life alive, yet fit into the moderian world. Both are important, yet it is like we have to accept one or the other. It is a hard choice for up, but it helps to know that someone understands our position. Thank you.
Lets not forget the oil and gas compaines who stripped the landowners of their rights. Most Kentuckians were honest people who were used to dealing with other honest people and were facing other people who were not honest.
It is currently happening with fracking in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
I'm sure some of you have seen these maps created by the Appalachian Regional Commission that measure the economic performance of all the counties in their designated region...
...and I couldn't help but notice how distressed eastern Kentucky looked. According to them, there are 98 distressed counties in the region, and 40 of them are in Kentucky.
Economic performance has a pretty strong correlation with general quality of life, and I often see Kentucky near the bottom of all those different lists that measure various quality-of-life indicators. I'm not saying all this stuff to pile on; it's just that Kentucky never really struck me as such a distressed place from what I've seen. Of course, I've mostly been through central and western Kentucky, and I've only ever passed through eastern Kentucky once on I-75 a few years ago.
Is it really bad when you get away from the large cities and Interstates? Is it a lot worse in eastern Kentucky than the rest of the state? If it is, is there any hope for the future in some of those places? Just inquiring.
Why is there a sudden change for the better on the Virginia side of the border?
Why is there a sudden change for the better on the Virginia side of the border?
The rural ARC counties of VA have generally better roads and a bit more economic diversification. Also, I-81 is a decent linkage for a good deal of the area. The most problematic counties in VA are the ones closest to the Kentucky border and include: Wise, Dickenson and Buchanan. These three counties have the most mountaintop removal, particularly Wise County. The ridiculous item regarding Virginia is that the Mountaintop removal is occurring in the Jefferson National Forest according to maps. I give Virginia a grade F if this is the case.
How and when did mountaintop mining get started? Doesn't that technique employ less miners than underground mining? It couldn't be a jobs issue.
Why didn't the citizens of Kentucky and West Virginia complain to their state governments at the outset?
It puzzles me.
It would not surprise me that someday they will give environmental disaster tours of areas of KY and WV as they currently do in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
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, it sliped out.
its getting warm enough to visit. 
