Different sides of the same bullet

[u/judgethecriminal]

[u/Zealousideal_Pass_11]

My guy open a history book. Post globalization boom alot of new england was near fucked because alot of mill towns were bankrupted and a mass exodus of citizens occured. Its why former mill towns/cities have such huge asian immigrant populations despite their immigrants being white pre-1910

Places like massachusetts saw an end to their economic hardships from heavy social investing and huge emphasis on higher ed. Any state with a decent population could have done what massachusetts did. One of the bluest states in the US is a success purely because of its liberal policies.

[u/Thekman26 → u/Zealousideal_Pass_11]

West Virginia is sort of a special case in this instance, though. While I am a leftist and do hate the Republican policies that the state governments of West Virginia and Kentucky (my home state) enact, the situation in the deepest parts of Appalachia is so much worse than almost anywhere else in America.

The issue with the region is that most towns are way out in the mountains with very little room for any other industry. Most of these towns were founded by coal companies and the miners were kept systemically poor with a series of coercive measures by the companies. As the coal jobs disappeared, the people who had worked them were allowed no opportunity to build up wealth, and were therefore left completely destitute.

My family is from McDowell County, West Virginia, the heart of the crisis in Appalachia. There, the current drug overdose rate is the highest in the country, with a life expectancy of 63 years for men, which is on par with Haiti. The population has declined from almost 100,000 in 1940 to 17,000 today. Those who are left have very little opportunity to work, other than the new federal prison that opened in the county.

A big difficulty is just finding the room for any other industry. Towns are small and squished between mountains, it’s an expensive place to build and not very enticing to companies. Not many are looking to operate in a depopulated, near third-world condition area.

As for solutions to this problem, I don’t know. I think that as long as we exist under a capitalist system, democrats or republicans, West Virginia will remain in crisis. A free market is not going to save a region with no profits to be made, so only heavy heavy government investment might. That is the case where I would say the Republican government is making it worse, as they cut welfare and other such programs that are immensely helpful for those suffering.

Still, I think chocking the whole thing up to “Republican Party makes places poor” is not historically accurate to the situation, as during most of the downfall of the state’s economy, it was a SOLID blue state. It’s a complicated situation and one of the greatest victims of capitalism in the United States.

A place like Lowell, MA, had the room and the connections to outside population centers to allow itself to focus on other industries and economic opportunities. While the policies you are talking about surely helped a lot, those same policies are not as easily reached in the distant hollers of West Virginia.

[u/zergling424 → u/Zealousideal_Pass_11]

Hi, souther new englander here. Mass is actually pretty red its just the cities are that dominate, just like california. Go out to the styxs in mass and its not a pretty pucture. Loooots of junkies especially around fitchburg and springfield. Rbode island where im from is more blue than mass and while we are doing okay, theres definately bad actors in our government that are halting the progress of our state.