I have fantasies of mass-gentrifying my Pennsylvania hometown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will you also give millions to improve schools? Incentivize local people to start small businesses and help create jobs? What is your plan for the displaced people?

I want to displace the local population (before anyone comes at me the locale is 80%+ white).

NP. But where would they go? How would they still benefit from the communities they have created?

And who would displace them? Where would those people work?

[Anonymous]

Another person from a depressed PA town. A person actually did this a few years ago in my hometown. Well, not buy up blocks of building but she and her sister did open one nice clothing store in town. It's a start. I wish them well and they seem to be doing well.

I would like to go back in time (the 50s?) to see my hometown in its heyday and tell the powers that be at the time to do things differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Scranton?

There was such charm there for a long time, long ago it was thriving and had a wonderful community.

Politicians were robbing the city for years. Now they are so far behind, is it possible for them to improve?

Their taxes (property) in the city are higher than mine in NoVA.

Yes

[Anonymous]

There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will you also give millions to improve schools? Incentivize local people to start small businesses and help create jobs? What is your plan for the displaced people?

I want to displace the local population (before anyone comes at me the locale is 80%+ white).

In a lot of these Rust Belt towns, they desperately need displacement in the form of young people moving in to work and have kids and revitalize. In my DH's home town, the average age of homeowners there must be in their 70s. They are going to have to close down local schools and consolidate because of under enrollment, and people are freaking out about it. But they've already laid off a bunch of teachers and they can't maintain the facilities because they don't have the money.

To some extent I do blame the people who live there because for 40 years every time anyone has tried to do something to change the town or improve it, a huge contingent of the old timers get mad and refuse. There was a massive opposition a few years back to putting in a traffic light in the downtown area. And then these people wonder why their kids all move far away (they couldn't stay if they wanted to) and why there are no good jobs in town and everything seems so depressing.

Cities and towns are like living things. You're either growing or you're dying. People who get nostalgic and want them to stay the same forever are not doing themselves any favor. Change is inevitable.

+1

This is the demise of many areas. No jobs, retired people living in the home they probably grew up in - not understanding why their grandchildren don't have their own SFH (though theirs will likely be left to them). In some areas, the town/s are slowly turning over, enormous new homes and developments are going in, and the infrastructure is hardly updated, if at all.

Builders and realtors should be paying to support the infrastructure, but they hang a wreath at Christmas on the Town Hall or similar, and call it a day. The old people are elated about their wreath, but there is dwindling infrastructure, and not enough money to support either the slow growth or non growth. When certain (enormous) matters need attention, the builders and realtors are radio silent. But the old people get their wreath on the Town Hall at Christmas! Yeehaaa!! Not sure if this pertains to PA, but some areas that I am familiar with.

I think you have a great plan, and this is an interesting topic, OP. Would you be considered an unwelcome outsider? Or is that not an issue? I find old people seem to only consider their taxes when the issue of change is brought up. As long as they get theirs (don't want to turn this into a Boomer discussion), on their limited budget - (examples) some get to go to Florida part of the year, and have money for gambling, or whatever, but don't mention taxes, or they will have a coronary.

I love the idea of adding new businesses or fixing up downtown, or turning it into a resort/tourist area, with resort/tourist dollars - as long as the locals don't get resentful. It makes perfect sense from the outside looking in, but the word change sets some (older) people off. Curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book]

+1

[Anonymous]

Google the story of Foxburg, PA. The WSJ had a story about the couple who bought the town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book]

Globalists.

[Anonymous]

Ah yes, as I was walking the dog around the small Rust Belt hometown (of my dad, not me) over Christmas break, I was pondering how truly fabulous the real estate there is (or, more accurately, could be again). Beautiful, late 19th century/turn of the century SFHs. So detailed and well built. And huge! Some residents keep them in very nice condition but more often they are run down and chopped up into crappy apartments. I wish I could just airlift one to my address in DC. But then, of course, it would cost 1.5 mil instead of 90K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will you also give millions to improve schools? Incentivize local people to start small businesses and help create jobs? What is your plan for the displaced people?

I want to displace the local population (before anyone comes at me the locale is 80%+ white).

So it's ok to displace white people but not other races?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book]

This is the best book on the issue I've come across (and I've looked at many): https://www.amazon.com/Glass-House-Economy-Shattering-All-American/dp/1250085802

Warning: it's dense. But very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will you also give millions to improve schools? Incentivize local people to start small businesses and help create jobs? What is your plan for the displaced people?

I want to displace the local population (before anyone comes at me the locale is 80%+ white).

You're my hero!

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book][/quote]

Its a gross oversimplification of complex global factors, but in a word, Walmart killed Main Street. Not just the stores themselves, which put moms and pops out of business, but the whole operation- the relentless cost cutting which drove manufacturing out of the US and into China, the interstates on which Walmarts rely for their supply chains and which took travelers past small towns, the garbage jobs that pay only a fraction of the jobs they replaced, and of course the conservative anti-social politicians funded by the Waltons and others of the world that ensured all the benefits of the new economy would stay firmly entrenched at the top.

Locally, it was populations and politicians that got used to being provided for by a single employer and became reluctant to change, forcing out their youth and anyone with better options, and eventually they became too broke and despondent to invest in keeping anything up. The drug epidemics of the last 20 years were the final nail in the coffin but really only a symptom of the greater rot.

Some manufacturing is starting to come back to save on time/tariffs, but the jobs will never be the ticket to the middle class like they were because the unions are shot and the whole economic/ social contract of the postwar era has been destroyed. We’re back to the Gilded Age.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are so many beautiful towns in this country with beautiful homes that could be lovely & thriving.

What killed Main Street, USA? [I am sure this is a book][/quote]

Its a gross oversimplification of complex global factors, but in a word, Walmart killed Main Street. Not just the stores themselves, which put moms and pops out of business, but the whole operation- the relentless cost cutting which drove manufacturing out of the US and into China, the interstates on which Walmarts rely for their supply chains and which took travelers past small towns, the garbage jobs that pay only a fraction of the jobs they replaced, and of course the conservative anti-social politicians funded by the Waltons and others of the world that ensured all the benefits of the new economy would stay firmly entrenched at the top.

Locally, it was populations and politicians that got used to being provided for by a single employer and became reluctant to change, forcing out their youth and anyone with better options, and eventually they became too broke and despondent to invest in keeping anything up. The drug epidemics of the last 20 years were the final nail in the coffin but really only a symptom of the greater rot.

Some manufacturing is starting to come back to save on time/tariffs, but the jobs will never be the ticket to the middle class like they were because the unions are shot and the whole economic/ social contract of the postwar era has been destroyed. We’re back to the Gilded Age.
[/quote]

This is a good start. There have been many books on this. Walmart/the rise of the shopping mall do deserve a lot of the blame.

But also, think about human nature. You can still go to a couple of stores in my depressed hometown. But people complain that there isn't enough parking. But there is! Americans just got used to never being the slightest bit inconvenienced. God forbid they walk for two minutes to go buy a pair of jeans or get a cup of coffee. Similar thing with housing ... people started eschewing the older homes for big McMansions. Landlords bought up the older homes and let them fall into disrepair or chopped them up into apartments.

[Anonymous]

I stayed at an Airbnb off of I-95 where the owner moved back to her hometown after retiring from a corporate career, opened an Airbnb, and set up a really nice restaurant in an abandoned building on Main Street. Her goal is to bring people and life to her hometown. She was very inspiring and it seems to be working, to a minor degree. I think there's only so much that one person can do.