Why didn't Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana boom along with the Sunbelt?

[Anonymous]

After WWII, the warm weather states boomed in population. But AL/MS/LA didn't. You had a South Atlantic sunbelt (Carolinas, Georgia, Florida) and the Southwest running from Texas to Southern California. Why the gap in between?

[Anonymous]

I live in the south but not those states.

Here it is—
Lack of large cities that act as a mega hub.

Smaller (large) cities, yes. But Atlanta, for example, compares with nyc, dc, Miami, etc it’s huge and is in a geographic position to make it hub between north and south, east and middle.

If AL, MS, or LA had an Atlanta equivalent, they would be bigger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After WWII, the warm weather states boomed in population. But AL/MS/LA didn't. You had a South Atlantic sunbelt (Carolinas, Georgia, Florida) and the Southwest running from Texas to Southern California. Why the gap in between?

Republicans keeping the masses uneducated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in the south but not those states.

Here it is—
Lack of large cities that act as a mega hub.

Smaller (large) cities, yes. But Atlanta, for example, compares with nyc, dc, Miami, etc it’s huge and is in a geographic position to make it hub between north and south, east and middle.

If AL, MS, or LA had an Atlanta equivalent, they would be bigger.

New Orleans was the largest city in the South prior the emergence of the New South.

Birmingham and Atlanta were similar sized ca WWII.

[Anonymous]

* excluding Baltimore/DC which were the South historically.

[Anonymous]

But Atlanta is such a connector, culturally, and physically.
Delta making it a hub makes my point even more.
Your NOLA example is ok but it’s not as connective. I’m not saying Birmingham etc isn’t important in its way, but it’s a smaller connector.

[Anonymous]

States who didn't care about their uneducated population and didn't invest in infrastructure.

Georgia has its problems, but actually supported education and infrastructure much more than nearby states AL, MS or LA.

Same with North Carolina. Known as the "good roads state" for awhile, and really invested in higher education.

[Anonymous]

It’s the lack of jobs and industry in MS/AL/AR/LA as well as lack of infrastructure and bad education system…all goes back to slavery and sharecropping days, really. Of course those problems existed in Georgia and the Carolinas too but being on the east coast and more accessible to the mid-Atlantic/northeast no doubt helped Georgia and the Carolinas create a post-reconstruction economy that could actually build and grow.

[Anonymous]

I think it's the lack of will to pivot and an obsession with recreating the past. wealthy people didn't want any change and want to keep everything going like it had and the world changed and left them behind as did their labor force. the black population in Milwaukee, Dayton etc. STILL originally is from these deep delta states in their minds but they don't labor or thrive there.

I also don't think its as bad- the us is thriving in little pockets all over, most peoples problems are of perception. also we waste a lot of our tax dollars overseas instead of investing in our own people. more travel, social media and high level of foreign born Americans had exposed how little service our government has provided to us in the past 30 years. we need to have a president who is primarily focused on domestic issues and lets the world sort itself out without American input for at least a term. our taxes are only 4-5% lower than our European counterparts and we get absolutely nothing in return.

[Anonymous]

The correct answer to this is that post ww2 there was massive defense spending in certain sunbelt states (CA and AZ specifically) also TX. The massive infusion of government spending led to defense contractors growth and spinoffs into aerospace startups. I’m an urban planner so I have read a lot about why certain places do/did better than others.

[Anonymous]

The black belt and persistently cheap labor kept large swaths of that region tied to agriculture. Investors soured on New Orleans as hurricanes and the Mississippi River highlighted New Orleans’s unique vulnerability, which was amplified by Houston’s growth following Galveston becoming disfavored.

Post Katrina, Amtrak just recently resumed rail service that connects NO to the gulf coast communities of Ala. and Miss. That it has taken this long is astounding and highlights the relative importance these states places on infrastructure in the region

[Anonymous]

It’s the lack of jobs.

And the biggest employees won’t site in communities lacking infrastructure.

Chicken and egg.

But Birmingham is having a boom along with Huntsville, so time will tell. Nonetheless, those cities have small airports, are far from the coast, and they’ll never become Atlanta or Charleston.

[Anonymous]

They didn't invest in education...colleges etc are terrible.

[Anonymous]

All the booming areas were developed along shipping lines followed by train lines, largely along the two coasts.

Industries popped up elsewhere back when America was a big producer, with factories along train lines—including the Midwest.

Factories left America, and you saw people flock to established cities with other job opportunities.

Jobs have always prompted population shifts.

Google the great migration. The mass movement by blacks to the north was driven by job opportunities back when we still had factories in places like Baltimore and Detroit.

[Anonymous]

Because those states are horrible. Have you ever visited one of them? I have *shudders* Never again.