Reply to I have fantasies of mass-gentrifying my Pennsylvania hometown

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[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. 
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