I have fantasies of mass-gentrifying my Pennsylvania hometown

[Anonymous]

Interesting, OP. You're a better person than I am. I'm from a Trump-loving town in Texas. I dream of building tons of housing for immigrants next door to all my a-hole relatives who still live there. Except I'd hate to subject them (the immigrants) to the racist backlash and fake-Christian piety of those idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Johnstown PA and feel that way from afar. Tons of natural beauty in the area. Then I go there and realize I don't want to make my kids grow up without the diversity they have now, especially since we are POC. I read what some of my former friends write on social media and feel like the crappy economy matches their crappy belief systems.

I'm from a small town near the Finger Lakes and as my parents are getting older I think about this every time I visit. It's gorgeous and homes are so much more affordable. But I grew up almost entirely around only white people and that's not what I want for my kids (although I am white myself). I also couldn't wait to escape. In the DMV you don't have to choose, you can have education, opportunity, independence, AND family. (But you can't have a stunning Victorian mansion for $300k.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very poor but dense area. I envision buying up entire neighborhoods for the purposes of income generation and raising the average income and eliminating litter. Dozens, if not hundreds of abandoned houses.

Not Philly or Pittsburgh.

Step 1: get a large part of the population into drug and alcohol rehab

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Johnstown PA and feel that way from afar. Tons of natural beauty in the area. Then I go there and realize I don't want to make my kids grow up without the diversity they have now, especially since we are POC. I read what some of my former friends write on social media and feel like the crappy economy matches their crappy belief systems.

I'm from a small town near the Finger Lakes and as my parents are getting older I think about this every time I visit. It's gorgeous and homes are so much more affordable. But I grew up almost entirely around only white people and that's not what I want for my kids (although I am white myself). I also couldn't wait to escape. In the DMV you don't have to choose, you can have education, opportunity, independence, AND family. (But you can't have a stunning Victorian mansion for $300k.)

How did growing up around mostly white people adversely affect you?

[Anonymous]

During COVID I found a new hobby . . . quilting. So this was for me (as the video says) born out of "loss" (although I didn't realize that at the time). Anyway, the Missouri Star Quilt Company is a story of the revitalization of a town due to the efforts of one woman and her family. Her company and story are truly the story of the yearning of so so many Americans for a creative and community spirited America.

https://www.missouriquiltco.com/pages/about

[Anonymous]

^ Watch the story on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZu8xfTU2Uk&t=1s

[Anonymous]

Downtown Scranton has a Boden outlet.

[Anonymous]

Interesting, OP. My husband and I are from the Scranton area and have been looking at renovating properties there as well. Unfortunately once we actually started looking at the properties there was too much damage than we wanted to take on for right now. Mold, water damage, etc. old home problems that have been ignored for too many years sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Johnstown PA and feel that way from afar. Tons of natural beauty in the area. Then I go there and realize I don't want to make my kids grow up without the diversity they have now, especially since we are POC. I read what some of my former friends write on social media and feel like the crappy economy matches their crappy belief systems.

I'm from a small town near the Finger Lakes and as my parents are getting older I think about this every time I visit. It's gorgeous and homes are so much more affordable. But I grew up almost entirely around only white people and that's not what I want for my kids (although I am white myself). I also couldn't wait to escape. In the DMV you don't have to choose, you can have education, opportunity, independence, AND family. (But you can't have a stunning Victorian mansion for $300k.)

How did growing up around mostly white people adversely affect you?

She understands that to be upwardly mobile in the world of the future her kids will have to come from a rich privileged background but also talk a good game about “diversity”. DC allows for both those things but a small town in the finger lakes full of poor white people does not

[Anonymous]

Curious where OP. Franklin is a marvelous little town.

[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).

Oh so you want to displace a bunch of working class, underprivileged people but it’s all good because they’re white, and you’re…a relatively privileged white with a college education who has some sort of weird hatred for the people you grew up with that you should probably work out with your therapist.

I guess facism is cool as long as it’s levied against poor white people, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting, OP. You're a better person than I am. I'm from a Trump-loving town in Texas. I dream of building tons of housing for immigrants next door to all my a-hole relatives who still live there. Except I'd hate to subject them (the immigrants) to the racist backlash and fake-Christian piety of those idiots.

You do know that all these socially conservative, Catholic Hispanic immigrants you claim to care about would actually get along much better with your relatives than you, right? I hate to break it to you, but in my experience working class minorities don’t particularly take well to the socially liberal, patronizing, snobbishness of UMC white liberals. They’d dock you points for talking down about your relatives as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Johnstown PA and feel that way from afar. Tons of natural beauty in the area. Then I go there and realize I don't want to make my kids grow up without the diversity they have now, especially since we are POC. I read what some of my former friends write on social media and feel like the crappy economy matches their crappy belief systems.

I'm from a small town near the Finger Lakes and as my parents are getting older I think about this every time I visit. It's gorgeous and homes are so much more affordable. But I grew up almost entirely around only white people and that's not what I want for my kids (although I am white myself). I also couldn't wait to escape. In the DMV you don't have to choose, you can have education, opportunity, independence, AND family. (But you can't have a stunning Victorian mansion for $300k.)

How did growing up around mostly white people adversely affect you?

NP. It made me very unaware/oblivious to the ways racism still exists in the world today. I was lucky that I made a wide variety of friends in high school and college and learned a lot about a much wider range of racial and socio-economic and cultural experiences than were available to me growing up. I said and did some very insensitive things that I still blush to remember. I also have a non-traditional family and I enjoy living somewhere the other parents aren't ALL straight/white/coupled/monolingual/etc. Diversity in multiple directions makes the ways we're each odd stand out less aggressively.

[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, [b]forcing out their youth and anyone with better options[/b], 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]

While I don't want to underplay the role of Wal-Mart (saw it happen in my own rural Ohio town), IMO/IME rural communities also played a cultural role in their own demise as society became more mobile. You could argue that the social contract, for a very long time, relied on people not really being very mobile or able to leave crappy family or community situations, so they were forced to stay and make the best of things. In my rural town of less than 10,000, where high school football & basketball ruled not just the schools but the entire town culturally, and academics was shrugged off/clearly less valued than church and sports, the smart or creative/artistic (and often LGBTQ) kids got made fun of or bullied ... they knew very well where they fit in their community's hierarchy, and they left as soon as they could. They'll never go back or want to raise kids in that environment if they can help it. Brain drain is real and I would argue that it's not only about opportunities or dollars. You can make a solid living, and sometimes a very good one, in LCOL communities, who often desperately need doctors, lawyers, dentists, specialists, skilled services, etc. often with little to no competition -- and often with way more space, good housing stock and natural beauty! But if a community essentially chases off a sizable portion of its future middle/creative/leadership class (and also, often, is not very socially welcoming to "outsiders" who come in and might fill the gaps), that's a reinforcing cycle that has roots in the people there, in addition to external forces compounding the problem. I mean, really, small towns make some of their own residents' formative years unpleasant or possibly, downright miserable, and then people wonder huh, why didn't they stick around to be part of/improve the community?

My parents, and their parents, either chose their small hometown or weren't able to/opted not to leave over the course of their lives. My family built a lucrative business -- I could have continued that route if I'd chosen to stay. The social and cultural dynamics/constrictions weren't worth the money, not by a long shot. I got the hell out and have deliberately made my life in suburbs/exurbs of major cities, and raised my kids in school systems where academics are prized above sports. I have one sibling who is still raising a family in my hometown and the school/social dynamics have not changed one bit -- if anything, the town is even more insular/conservative, while all the houses & infrastructure are another 30 years older, and the brain drain continues.

[Anonymous]

NP who grew up in the Wilkes-Barre area with relatives in Scranton. Growing up there 40 years ago, the statistic I knew about Wilkes-Barre was that it had the highest ratio of funeral homes per capita than anywhere else in the United States. Things haven't changed much. It's a service economy and many young people move out.