National Review takes on Kentucky's "White Ghetto"

[pbrower2a]

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/explorer.html

It's still there, and it is still useful.

In all the counties and other such districts with a population density under1754 per square mile, President Obama lost to John McCain by about 60K votes. Reverse that and President Obama wins 67-32 in the 69 counties, DC, and 'independent cities' -- some of which are giants like San Francisco but many of which are small cities like Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, and Harrsionburg in Virginia. 

Kentucky is very rural. The one county that is that densely populated (Jefferson, containing Louisville) did go for President Obama.

Poverty helped President Obama if the poor people are non-white. Kentucky has nine counties with a poverty rate of 34% or more, and they all went for John McCain.   At a 33%  poverty rate Obama wins only one of eleven counties. Of course only 63 counties have 33% or higher official rates of poverty, and eleven, nearly a sixth of all counties in the US are in Kentucky. Six such counties are in Alabama, seven are in South Dakota (Indian reservations), eight are in Texas, and fifteen are in Mississippi.

In neighboring states -- Tennessee and West Virginia have but one such county. The near-neighbor Arkansas has only three. 
 

[DINGO Joe]

The counties mentioned in this thread:

Owsley--80.95% Romney
Clay--83.65% Romney
Jackson--86.25% Romney
Leslie--89.62% Romney

[DINGO Joe]

One way to improve the situation in Appalachia would be reinvigorated labor unions.

What work would these labor unions be doing?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

What work would these labor unions be doing?

Organizing workers.

[pbrower2a]

The counties mentioned in this thread:

Owsley--80.95% Romney
Clay--83.65% Romney
Jackson--86.25% Romney
Leslie--89.62% Romney

Maybe people can't throw the bums out.

[DINGO Joe]

What work would these labor unions be doing?

Organizing workers.

What would the workers be doing?

[hawkeye59]

Personally, I think it would take another WPA (which is sorely needed) to deal with this.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Personally, I think it would take another WPA (which is sorely needed) to deal with this.

Indeed.  Build more infrastructure, including high speed internet... build tunnels and stuff so it's more accessible.  Build tourism/recreational infrastructure (the Appalachians are beautiful and would lend itself to rustic tourism)... plus recreational infrastructure for the people that live there.

[Linus Van Pelt]

SNAP should just be money instead of EBT cards. The restrictions on what may be purchased likely increase rather than decrease fraudulent use that isn't related to genuine need. Nowadays housing and vehicle costs are often bigger strains on household budgets than food, and all these fraud schemes depend on people who have enough to eat but are stretched on the rest of their budget. Also, it contributes to people staying in poverty to make it mandatory to spend benefits on disposable goods rather than saving up a little to pay for emergencies, a move to a region with more jobs, etc.

Other first-world countries have cash instead of food stamps, and it's not like their poor people are going hungry because it's going to drugs, or whatever the moralistic worry would be.

[pbrower2a]

SNAP should just be money instead of EBT cards. The restrictions on what may be purchased likely increase rather than decrease fraudulent use that isn't related to genuine need. Nowadays housing and vehicle costs are often bigger strains on household budgets than food, and all these fraud schemes depend on people who have enough to eat but are stretched on the rest of their budget. Also, it contributes to people staying in poverty to make it mandatory to spend benefits on disposable goods rather than saving up a little to pay for emergencies, a move to a region with more jobs, etc.

Other first-world countries have cash instead of food stamps, and it's not like their poor people are going hungry because it's going to drugs, or whatever the moralistic worry would be.

But right-wingers will tell you that welfare payments discourage people from the compulsion to toil at terms offered -- very raw terms, of course.

Appalachia has always been a source of unskilled workers for Industrial America. For years the typical career advice has been "Take 19 north to Pittsburgh/21 north to Akron or Cleveland/23, 25, or 27 to Michigan/52 to Indianapolis or to the Chicago area/219 to Buffalo"...  that may be over. Such implies a talent drain, and if the Rust Belt begins to prosper again (which is more likely than that Appalachia will ever become prosperous) the talent drain will begin anew.

The counties mentioned in this thread:

Owsley--80.95% Romney
Clay--83.65% Romney
Jackson--86.25% Romney
Leslie--89.62% Romney

Maybe people can't throw the bums out.

 

That's much of the problem. Most sizable communities have some contest in politics. Even in Detroit or Philadelphia one can find factions within the Democratic Party. A late uncle (who was a piece of work on politics -- very far to the Right, extremely bigoted against blacks and Jews -- could recognize from suburban Detroit a huge difference between Dennis Archer and Kwame Kilpatrick (who has had gigantic problems with the criminal justice system).

In Louisville one can find rich, politically-interested people who can go into politics as a hobby and so want to win that they will sell out their obvious class interests -- but in some rural areas there's just enough talent to fill such elected offices as exist. Those who win public office use it to enrich themselves and their cronies -- and they can do so while standing completely for out-of-state interests who bleed the state and the areas that they ostensibly represent. In rural Kentucky there just are no people who have the funds or the ability to organize people. 

Single-Party government in the absence of competition within the Party serves people badly. It creates a few patronage jobs, but it rarely supports the creation of jobs that create some modicum of economic independence.  It's bad for small business that might grow to have the potential for creating a political contest. Even the local car dealer knows enough to not challenge crooked pols who are among the few individual customers for new cars and who need to have the contract to sell vehicles for official use just to survive.   

Some of those counties have been R-dominant for decades. I looked at the 1960, 1976, and 1992 Presidential elections for Kentucky -- and I saw some distinctly R-dominated counties in the southeast aside from those on the Virginia state line.       

[All Along The Watchtower]

One thing that becomes more relevant in rural areas (or exurban/faux-rural, as is often the case), especially in areas that are dominated by a small number of business interests in the wake of deindustrialization, is the tendency toward the local  business interests, the local political establishments, and what remain of (or what has replaced) the community institutions (for example, right-wing evangelical/fundamentalist churches) all having members and leaders who travel in the same social circles (in some cases, being the same people).

Imagine being from a poor family in some part of rural Kentucky or Tennessee, perhaps, with no college education (most likely) and no means of moving to an area with better prospects. To get a job, social capital is important-and the only place providing it these days is the local Protestant fundamentalist church. Their members are willing to help you out, to get you on your feet and even to help land you a job with whatever local low-wage, non-union business is there. Meanwhile, if you have the inclination to vote at all, you are likely to vote for a Republican candidate, because that's who your friends and co-workers and (most importantly) your boss will want you to vote for. The people who you look up to in the community, the people who have the power to hire and fire, and the people who offer spiritual guidance to you and to others (friends, family)-all of these are part of the right-wing Republican dominance of the local community.

We all are heavily influenced by our social environments, whether we realize it or not. It's better to try to understand why things came to be the way they are, rather than to write a community off as "too dumb to vote for their own best interests."

[Indy Texas]

Personally, I think it would take another WPA (which is sorely needed) to deal with this.

Indeed.  Build more infrastructure, including high speed internet... build tunnels and stuff so it's more accessible.  Build tourism/recreational infrastructure (the Appalachians are beautiful and would lend itself to rustic tourism)... plus recreational infrastructure for the people that live there.

Tourism is a poor avenue to go down for economic development. It's heavily seasonal, very sensitive to recessions and high gas prices, and most of the jobs you'll create are low-wage ones - hotel maids, restaurant waiters, car valets, tour guides. And the locals end up being victims of their own success if real estate prices reach a point where they can't afford to live there, which often happens in resort towns and other touristy areas.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Tourism produces some of the worst jobs around. That's why I like going on vacation in places that aren't otherwise based on tourism.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Of course I'm talking more about mom and pop tourism like we have around here.  Locally owned bed and breakfasts, small lodges, etc.

I'm not pushing it as "the solution"... but more as a general way to use the beauty of where they live to their advantage.  Coal isn't coming back.

If they appeal to regional middle class tourism, however, it might pump some money into the economy.

[Indy Texas]

Of course I'm talking more about mom and pop tourism like we have around here.  Locally owned bed and breakfasts, small lodges, etc.

I'm not pushing it as "the solution"... but more as a general way to use the beauty of where they live to their advantage.  Coal isn't coming back.

If they appeal to regional middle class tourism, however, it might pump some money into the economy.

Maybe rich hipsters on the coasts can be sold on paying thousands of dollars to spend a weekend living in a dilapidated mobile home alongside its native Eastern Kentuckian residents. Visitors will have an opportunity to sample local fare, including a lunch of cigarettes and a 64 ounce Coke from the nearest convenience store, and supper cooked by Maw-Maw, the family matriarch who will show you ways to fry things you never thought could be fried. You'll accompany natives in regional customs like serving as a middleman for black-market Oxycontin sales, mediating knife fights at the local watering hole, and serving as a character witness in your host family's pending child custody hearing.

[DINGO Joe]

Story on the long-term pollution in coal country.  Obviously it puts a tamper on things like tourism, or fishing, or farming.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Story on the long-term pollution in coal country.  Obviously it puts a tamper on things like tourism, or fishing, or farming.

Only in the short to medium term. There are salmon in the Tyne now, of all rivers.

[muon2]

What work would these labor unions be doing?

Organizing workers.

What would the workers be doing?

That's the right question. The follow up is what business activity can one attract to rural Appalachia that has enough workers to make organizing effective? Some rural areas of the Midwest have been able to bring in manufacturing plants, but they are aided by the easy transportation infrastructure of the plains. Rugged terrain doesn't lend itself to that sort of development unless it is connected to resources located at that spot.

I think that investment in the universities and university communities of Appalachia could provide an avenue for growth. For example, Morgantown, WV is a natural center to develop for low-cost, high-information businesses with its close proximity to Pittsburgh and DC, and it is frequently on the Forbes list of best small places for business.

[windjammer]

The USA should spend money in the USA. They definitely need more state intervention, they need better education in order to get a job, and they desperately need not to be considered as welfare queens,... They are humans must be helped. It's a shame that Republicans will probably win the KY house assembly and will destroy unions with RTW.
Time to the democratic party to be an Old left party, not a new left party.

[Sol]

Of course I'm talking more about mom and pop tourism like we have around here.  Locally owned bed and breakfasts, small lodges, etc.

I'm not pushing it as "the solution"... but more as a general way to use the beauty of where they live to their advantage.  Coal isn't coming back.

If they appeal to regional middle class tourism, however, it might pump some money into the economy.

Maybe rich hipsters on the coasts can be sold on paying thousands of dollars to spend a weekend living in a dilapidated mobile home alongside its native Eastern Kentuckian residents. Visitors will have an opportunity to sample local fare, including a lunch of cigarettes and a 64 ounce Coke from the nearest convenience store, and supper cooked by Maw-Maw, the family matriarch who will show you ways to fry things you never thought could be fried. You'll accompany natives in regional customs like serving as a middleman for black-market Oxycontin sales, mediating knife fights at the local watering hole, and serving as a character witness in your host family's pending child custody hearing.

Western North Carolina has similar issues with poverty- albeit without the coal problems- and has had some success catering to tourists from Atlanta and Florida. Perhaps Kentucky and WV could do the same for people from DC and Ohio.

An any case, the above post is rather horribly classist.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

It's a shame that Republicans will probably win the KY house assembly and will destroy unions with RTW.

The way things are going, the Republicans are out of luck.