Anonymous wrote:Many towns went downhill after the giant steel mills shut down. The towns couldn’t survive after that. The area became depressed. The counties need business development on a wide scope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many towns went downhill after the giant steel mills shut down. The towns couldn’t survive after that. The area became depressed. The counties need business development on a wide scope.

+1. The 1980s were disastrous for the Pittsburgh region particularly. Between 1980 and 1983, approximately 95,000 manufacturing jobs were cut from a labor force of one million. Unemployment was as high as 27 percent in some areas, dropping only when thousands of workers left the region to find work elsewhere.

Exactly this. And our corrupt elected officials, who were and still are bought and paid for by big business interests, let it happen to.

In a country that actually cared about its citizens, companies like Apple would be forced to open factories here or else pay exorbitant tariffs on every product they import from countries where they employ slave labor and/or take advantage of countries will regressive labor and environmental laws.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many towns went downhill after the giant steel mills shut down. The towns couldn’t survive after that. The area became depressed. The counties need business development on a wide scope.

+1. The 1980s were disastrous for the Pittsburgh region particularly. Between 1980 and 1983, approximately 95,000 manufacturing jobs were cut from a labor force of one million. Unemployment was as high as 27 percent in some areas, dropping only when thousands of workers left the region to find work elsewhere.

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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.

Similar story here. Have you watched "the s3x lives of college girls" on HBO? I really identified with Pauline, the naive white girl. I made a lot of missteps and POCs weren't particularly nice about it.

Anonymous wrote:Many towns went downhill after the giant steel mills shut down. The towns couldn’t survive after that. The area became depressed. The counties need business development on a wide scope.

Anonymous wrote:Many towns went downhill after the giant steel mills shut down. The towns couldn’t survive after that. The area became depressed. The counties need business development on a wide scope.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in one of the previously mentioned towns. The thing is, it doesn't even require MASS gentrification. It doesn't require mass displacement. If even 500 decent-paying jobs were introduced back into my hometown, it would make a significant impact on housing, the schools, the retail and service economy. Even 300. A moderate salary can get you pretty far in many of these places.

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.)

Anonymous wrote:

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 wrote:I grew up in one of the previously mentioned towns. The thing is, it doesn't even require MASS gentrification. It doesn't require mass displacement. If even 500 decent-paying jobs were introduced back into my hometown, it would make a significant impact on housing, the schools, the retail and service economy. Even 300. A moderate salary can get you pretty far in many of these places.