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If Your Town Is Failing, Just Go: A prescription for impoverished communities
National Review ^ | 10/06/2015 | Kevin D. Williamson

Posted on 10/06/2015 7:23:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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1 posted on 10/06/2015 7:23:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
If Your Town Is Failing, Just Go: A prescription for impoverished communities

That's certainly a piece of advice that is being followed by the millions of illegals streaming into America across our open borders.


2 posted on 10/06/2015 7:27:06 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Proverbs 21:20 - The wise have stores of food and oil but a foolish man devours all he has))
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To: Iron Munro

Excellent insight!

“If Your Town Is Failing, Just Go: A prescription for impoverished communities.”

“That’s certainly a piece of advice that is being followed by the millions of illegals streaming into America across our open borders.”


3 posted on 10/06/2015 7:37:16 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Pass the popcorn, set back/watch the Russians destroy Isis in Syria and Iran doing the same in Iraq)
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To: SeekAndFind

If Your Town Is Failing, Just Go: A prescription for impoverished communities.


Well, millions have taken this advice. There are declining old industrial towns across the country. There are declining New England mill towns, declining Appalachian coal towns, declining farming towns across the midwest, declining mill towns acorss the south, etc.

Civic pride and other reasons may cause people left behind in these places to push for economic redevelopment, getting new industry, pushing tourism, etc. But for us as individuals, who need to earn a living and provide for our families, abandoning these economic backwaters is the best personal choice for many of us.


4 posted on 10/06/2015 7:46:34 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SeekAndFind

On balance I’ll take 1950.

The only ways we are better off are in material things. The quality of character of the average American is on a steep downward path.

The family is destroyed, culture is an embarrassing mixture of sloth, pride, envy, and depravity.


5 posted on 10/06/2015 7:47:42 AM PDT by ecomcon
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To: SeekAndFind

Phillips simply just got absorbed into nearby Borger.

http://tinyurl.com/nfprw87


6 posted on 10/06/2015 7:49:36 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I grew up in a town in north Mississippi, just like Hollandale. It was dying in the 60’s and is almost gone now. The story is the same.....................


7 posted on 10/06/2015 8:00:31 AM PDT by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

I was born in Poverty.
I grew up in Poverty.
I did not like Poverty.
So I left Poverty..........................


8 posted on 10/06/2015 8:02:15 AM PDT by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
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To: Red Badger

My father grew up in a coal town in Pennsylvania. It was dying in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and is still declining. Population has declined by 60% since the ‘60s in that town. Economic forces have caused many places to decline.


9 posted on 10/06/2015 8:05:11 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Iron Munro

***If Your Town Is Failing, Just Go:***

Look on any OLD map and you will see towns that are no longer there.
There have been lots of old towns on the High Plains that are no longer there, a few ghost towns, and even here on the Ozarks there are lots of old towns that have completely disappeared.

THE MUSIC MAN

1st salesman: Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks
3rd salesman: Cash for the cotton goods, csh for the hard goods
1st Salesman: Cash for the fancy goods
2nd salesman: cash for the noggins and the piggins and the frikins
3rd Salesman: Cash for the hogshead, cask and demijohn. Cash for the crackers and the pickels and the flypaper
4th Salesman: Look whatayatalk. Whatayatalk, whatayatalk, whatayataalk, whatayatalk?
5th Salesman: Weredayagitit?
4th Salesman: Whatayatalk?
1st Salesman: Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker ya can talk, ya can talk talk talk talk bicker, bicker bicker ya can talk all ya wanna
But it’s different than it was.
Charlie: No it ain’t, no it ain’t, but ya gotta know the territory.
Rail car: Shh shh shh shh shh shh shh

3rd Salesman: Why it’s the Model T Ford made the trouble, made the prople wanna go, wanna get, wanna get, wanna get up and go
Seven eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, twent-two, twenty-three miles to the county seat
1st Salesman: Yes sir, yes sir
3rd Salesman: Who’s gonna patronize a little bitty two by four kinda store anymore?

4th Salesman: Whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk.
5th Salesman: Where do you get it?
3rd Salesman: Gone, gone
Gone with the hogshead cask and demijohn, gone with the sugar barrel, pickel barrel, milk pan, gone with the tub and
The pail and the fierce
....


10 posted on 10/06/2015 8:06:54 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Red Badger

*Ahem*


11 posted on 10/06/2015 8:09:24 AM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (All freedom must be transported in bottles of 3 oz or less. - Freeper relictele)
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To: ecomcon
On balance I’ll take 1950.

Ask a Black man in Alabama if he preferred 1950.

12 posted on 10/06/2015 8:10:02 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag necessary?)
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To: Red Badger

Why don’t some of America’s less well-to-do retirees set up in places like that? The real estate has got to be dirt cheap and it’s in reasonable driving distance to other places. Why not?

Heck, I’ve even considered it myself. What’s the difference of rehabbing a house in a town like that versus just building a house way out in the sticks? If you’re looking for privacy, it’s got it all.

Any thoughts? New Galt?


13 posted on 10/06/2015 8:10:54 AM PDT by Dr. Pritchett
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To: SeekAndFind

I grew up in an Adrondack logging town. Environmentalists and the Adirondack Park Agency destroyed the logging industry. Last week I looked through Google Earth at the old place. It looks exactly like Detroit. Lots of closed businesses and decay everywhere.

Another success for Democrat government.


14 posted on 10/06/2015 8:12:10 AM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Dr. Pritchett

Retirees want social services, shopping malls close by and modern medical facilities as well. The abandoned towns have lost all that and more. There are places in Florida that support elderly populations, and are st up exclusively for them. The weather is also a factor, as is the surrounding scenery and recreational facilities available.......................


15 posted on 10/06/2015 8:16:28 AM PDT by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
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To: SeekAndFind
But whatever we do, let’s liberate ourselves from the superstition that every spoonful of rice going into a Chinese mouth is stolen from an American pantry. This world is radically better off than it was in 1990, 1980, or 1950, and those billions are not being fed by the efforts of smug travel writers.

This is globBULList propaganda at its worst.

First he uses and example of a mining town disappearing as an example of "creative destruction" and extents that to manufacturing as if this applies to a manufacturing town closing down. Mining towns come and go, and are subject to the whims of where God decided to put minerals and how much. Gold, silver and oil towns disappear when the ore is gone.

Manufacturing is a "movable feast" so to speak. They can be located anywhere, moved any where. Look at the USSR, they moved entire factories to the east side of the Urals in WWII.

So the author is missing the point on purpose. This is a classic piss down my back and tell me its raining scenario.

The factories that once supported Americans are moving to Asia for purposes of shaving a few percentage points of of costs and passing it on to the stock holders. The consumer realizes no reduction in cost.

So the idea is to cram everyone into failing cities and service each other as delivery boys and girls. The author is a socialist tool.

Don't fall for this CoC malarky.

16 posted on 10/06/2015 8:37:41 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Dr. Pritchett

We live in the sticks, an undesirable location for lots of
people. Retired. Lived here 30 yrs. Had all the “town” we
could take before this. Way off the road. Big dog. Mean cat. Armed. Old & cantankerous. I guess we “went Galt” years
ago; but didn’t actively seek “Galt”. - Organic gardening.
Resent what little yard-cutting we have to do in order to
keep it from getting snakey. - On the river; lots of deer
(who would faint if we suddenly had to start hunting them).
Going in to “town” almost depresses me. Walmart’s 12 miles
from us. Still too close. - What is everyone else doing to
reclaim their lives?


17 posted on 10/06/2015 8:46:33 AM PDT by Twinkie (John 3:16)
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To: SeekAndFind

I don’t feel better off than I was in 1990.


18 posted on 10/06/2015 8:50:10 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Red Badger
I spent most of my life in San Diego, but I had some perspective after living in Federal Way, WA/Honolulu, HI/Springfield, VA. In 1999, I evaluated alternatives and moved to the Pocatello, ID area. I have a much larger, nicer home than what I had in San Diego. Cost of living is lower. Better 2nd amendment laws. It's a much better setup for eventual retirement. Until recently, I was debt free. Replacing a vehicle with 105,000 miles on it was the alternative to purchasing a replacement one repair at a time.
19 posted on 10/06/2015 8:50:19 AM PDT by Myrddin
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To: SeekAndFind

Best thing you can do is take a drive around the country to see the opportunities. I know people back in my home state that still are complaining about the same things they were 30+ years ago. If they just moved to a better location or gotten a better job. Some people like being in a rut.


20 posted on 10/06/2015 9:00:07 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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