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You can cherry pick cities all you want. Everyone is migrating south and west for various reasons.
Its an old trick when you're losing an argument. Such as using Hamilton County NY as an example for NY when you're talking about problems in NYC.
Gotta love it when someone is talking about the greater Charleston area and somehow the economic conditions of Yazoo City Mississippi are used as a basis to disprove your argument. smh
You can cherry pick cities all you want. Everyone is migrating south and west for various reasons.
Suuure, but be realistic. You know what's going on. No ones moving to Meridian MS from NYC anytime soon, anymore than someone from Atlanta, is moving to Rochester NY. I don't care how pro-business and pro-personal freedoms that person says they are. You nor I are fooling anyone.
Its an old trick when you're losing an argument. Such as using Hamilton County NY as an example for NY when you're talking about problems in NYC.
Gotta love it when someone is talking about the greater Charleston area and somehow the economic conditions of Yazoo City Mississippi are used as a basis to disprove your argument. smh
Both Charleston, SC and Philadelphia, Mississippi are parts of the South.
If you want to exclusively talk about Charleston, that's an entirely different matter. But to people who are real Southerners, when they/we speak of the South, we mean the entire region.
My family, btw., is Southern. I have no long term ties to NY.
So with that said, I can say that much of the South is in serious economic decline, just like big parts of the Northeast. I've lived in it and seen it first hand.
I personally know a lot of people who lost their jobs in the textile industry in various small towns in the South after NAFTA was signed and much of the textile industry fled. This was in small towns hit hard by agricultural reforms (collapse of small scale farming). The rural South is plagued by the same problems that hurt the rural North, empty factories, kids moved away, lack of professional opportunities, etc.
Yes, there are cities in the South like Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami and yes these cities are thriving. But I likewise could say in the Northeast Philly, NYC, and Boston are thriving.
On the topic of race, I think the South is actually less covert than anywhere else. The wealthy black man in the South lives in the same suburbs as the wealthy white people. Go to Cary and you'll see that. Integrated neighborhoods that are predominately white with some blacks and Asians. The wealthy black man of the North lives mostly in cities and inner ring suburbs and almost never in the rural counties.
The poor black man of the North lives in slums and ghettos in the cities of the North- Newark, Camden, Boston, Syracuse, Rochester, Philadelphia, etc. The poor black man of the South lives in cities as well, but also in rural areas, where he might have himself a trailer and a shotgun and a little space for himself (this also goes along the lines of what Phil Robertson said about entitlements and blacks being freer before entitlements came). And having your own church to go to, and your own small plot of land, and the open space to roam around in, bottom line is you are freer and not answering to the government.
In the North, these blacks in ghettos and inner cities are answering to social workers, welfare offices, aggressive cops, and every nanny program that liberals have created to keep blacks "taken care of" in the cities and not in Nantucket. I say this as a staunch Democrat. Watch how fast a Senator will call the cops if they see a group of blacks walking down their streets, unless a camera is on them, then they'll bust a rhyme and "be down with them". I love it when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton suddenly get a black Gospel preacher accent when they are in a black church. So, its not all that covert- it just depends who is saying it.
I get what Phil was trying to say, but that was a bunch of BS. Yeah, Blacks had their own businesses, and their own land, and guess what? Alot of Blacks STILL DO, but at least in 2014, we're not being limited to where we can own land. Yeah, there were alot of Black-owned businesses, and black-owned land before the Civil Rights bills, of the 60's, but Blacks moved North and West for a reason in those times. The Great Migration didn't happen by accident. No one wants to be supported by the government, or government -owned, but when you compare pre-entitlemnt Blacks, to post-entitlement Black America, you're just splitting hairs. It's like asking which was the less of the 2 evils. BOTH seem like they suck. A White man telling people Blacks were happier back then, and labeling a whole race of people as "entitled" because some of the race is on welfare, and many of them who are on welfare really did fall on hard times, just isn't gonna sound right to alot of people. No matter how biased the Liberal media is. Black folks were getting lynched, with unfair trials, and all-white juries. KKK activity was up, houses and black-owned businesses and churches would get fire-bombed just for the hell of it.
Both Charleston, SC and Philadelphia, Mississippi are parts of the South.
If you want to exclusively talk about Charleston, that's an entirely different matter. But to people who are real Southerners, when they/we speak of the South, we mean the entire region.
My family, btw., is Southern. I have no long term ties to NY.
So with that said, I can say that much of the South is in serious economic decline, just like big parts of the Northeast. I've lived in it and seen it first hand.
I personally know a lot of people who lost their jobs in the textile industry in various small towns in the South after NAFTA was signed and much of the textile industry fled. This was in small towns hit hard by agricultural reforms (collapse of small scale farming). The rural South is plagued by the same problems that hurt the rural North, empty factories, kids moved away, lack of professional opportunities, etc.
Yes, there are cities in the South like Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami and yes these cities are thriving. But I likewise could say in the Northeast Philly, NYC, and Boston are thriving.
I don't think anyone is denying the fact that the South, as well as the North, has large areas that are in serious decline. Most people understand that New Mexico is also very poor, but if you look at that board, the majority of people are looking for a place in Albuquerque or Santa Fe or the suburbs thereof. I think most people understand the dichotomy.
I'm not even sure what the argument is, because on another board, you flat out admit that Upstate NY is not doing well. I think others on this board are saying the same thing. Others may be stating the specifics as to why (taxes, entitlements, pensions, Medicare, loss of manufacturing). I'm moving on from this one.
Exactly. The Appalachia area (those parts of NC, TN, WV, KY) are extremely poor and never had much going on. Much of rural Georgia, rural Alabama (not Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, etc) has actually gotten poorer since certain factories closed. Ditto rural Mississippi and Northern Florida never had much going on (the Florida people speak of are parts of Central and South Florida). New Orleans was a crime ridden disaster before Katrina, and the city has never truly recovered from the hurricane. Louisiana has always had a lot of poverty and never much development.
And though Texas is the 2nd biggest state by size and population (California has more people, Alaska has more space) there are huge areas of rural Texas that are underdeveloped as well.
People in NYS complain about taxes. But see some of the rural areas with little in the way of services and ask yourself do you want to live there. You get what you pay for.
There aren't enough people keeping it real in this thread. I just had to add my 2 cents, as someone who was born and raised in the South. You get what you pay for, is so spot-on. I could see why a gun-owning, agrarian, Northerner, who wants to start their own businesses, would want to just hop up and move down South. How can these Southern states be pro-growth, but anti-public transit, anti-infrastructure, anti-education, etc. We want more folks, but we don't want the taxes that'll help build the public transit that'll alleviate the headaches of transplants on our freeways. Jeez. We're so pro-growth, yet so anti-growth. Too many back-roads, for a place that wants to keep attracting folks from other parts of the US.
There aren't enough people keeping it real in this thread. I just had to add my 2 cents, as someone who was born and raised in the South. You get what you pay for, is so spot-on. I could see why a gun-owning, agrarian, Northerner, who wants to start their own businesses, would want to just hop up and move down South. How can these Southern states be pro-growth, but anti-public transit, anti-infrastructure, anti-education, etc. We want more folks, but we don't want the taxes that'll help build the public transit that'll alleviate the headaches of transplants on our freeways. Jeez. We're so pro-growth, yet so anti-growth. Too many back-roads, for a place that wants to keep attracting folks from other parts of the US.
A lot of the dying towns across much of the South don't even have freeway access, and aren't even near the AIRPORT. So with NO INFRASTRUCTURE, and no plans to build it, TAXES could be absolutely ZERO and the area is still 100% USELESS to BUSINESSES. There's a reason why a certain number of big businesses still put up with places like NYC. Good public transportation, easy airport (and seaport) access in and of the area, a number of freeways, public transportation, and other public facilities. There are a number of universities that produced train and skilled employees in the area too.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely places in the South that have many of those above things. I'd say places like Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Charlotte, etc. have a lot going on. But there are a number of Northern cities with things going on too (Boston, Philly, DC area,etc.).
There aren't enough people keeping it real in this thread. I just had to add my 2 cents, as someone who was born and raised in the South. You get what you pay for, is so spot-on. I could see why a gun-owning, agrarian, Northerner, who wants to start their own businesses, would want to just hop up and move down South. How can these Southern states be pro-growth, but anti-public transit, anti-infrastructure, anti-education, etc. We want more folks, but we don't want the taxes that'll help build the public transit that'll alleviate the headaches of transplants on our freeways. Jeez. We're so pro-growth, yet so anti-growth. Too many back-roads, for a place that wants to keep attracting folks from other parts of the US.
Some of the whites in the North want to flee to the South because they are Archie Bunker types, and to tell you the truth they have pre civil rights fantasies of the South.
The people claiming to just love the South will not be doing South Florida (or maybe even Central Florida) because there are too many immigrants. Texas too is a disappointment for them. Now, all over the nation the most rural areas get immigrant farm labor, so there really isn't a place to escape from what they hate. National demographic and political change.
These people have red state fantasies about the South, but oops, Obama won Virginia and Florida TWICE.
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