I recently drove along part of the Mississippi coast. The only beachfront businesses for several miles were Waffle Houses and Casinos. Lots of still vacant lots. There were several new high end condo developments surrounded by nothing.
Interesting observations. Do you think it’s the possibility of hurricanes that are keeping business awaya? I doubt it! LOL!
I get the feeling that the folks with low IQs stayed behind, save for the welfarists who followed government cheese, and those with an IQ over 110 found a reason to move on -an act of God good and hard. I do not expect a huge infusion of IQ points into the Katrina devastation anytime soon.
As in all economic recoveries, it's a mixed bag, and there are different issues in different parts of the Mississippi coast (New Orleans is in a world of its own of course).
Some parts of the beach area contained the old mansions that survived previous storms, but are now gone. Those properties may stay vacant for a long time yet.
Some beach front property owners are undoubtedly still fighting with the insurance companies/mortgage companies on getting their insurance funds to rebuild.
Some properties, such as downtown Gulfport, were already having problems because the consumer businesses had moved north to the I-10 freeway area and beyond.
Also, in Pass Christian, where the businesses got wiped out, if you drive in about two blocks, you will find that many businesses have set themselves up in temporary buildings, and are back at work.
Many folks seem to have taken their insurance funds, and/or sold out to the casinos, and are buying property further inland, driving up the costs for property in the country.
New rules on rebuilding in the beach area (such as having homes elevated on (12 ft I think) piers, adds significant costs to rebuild on those empty lots.
Coupled with the rebuilding costs is the to-be-expected actions by the insurance companies to get their pay-out funds back as soon as possible. Our home insurance costs went up about $360 a month, and we live inland about 15 miles. I can only imagine what the cost down at the beach areas are now.
On the flip side, the fact that numerous condos are going up, indicates that people want to live on the beach (no surprise there I guess), and while that will bring back the taxable income base, it may hold off rebuilding in the vacant lots for a number of years.
The recent opening of the new Bay Saint Louis bridge will help with tourism, as will the opening (late this year maybe) of the new Ocean Springs bridge.
Bottom line, the Mississippi Gulf coast is coming back. I'm sure everyone down here would like it to come back faster, but that's life.