When you consider the high cost of living, the lack of modern housing and air conditioning, extremely large homeless populations, the poor economy outside of Seattle and the Bay Area and the fact California has more poverty than any state including Mississippi would you say it’s fair to say the West is poorer than the Midwest, South and the Northeast?
Portland, Oregon has 65 miles of unpaved streets (!!!) which blows my mind.
Deep South, hands down.
Have you (the OP) ever been to the West Coast?
Poorest parts of the US can be found along the Mississippi river (and 50-100 miles E-W of it) S of Quincy, IL to NOLA, and the Appalachian mountains. While other places are poor (and you can find rich places in these areas), these two geographical regions really take the cake in terms of overall crappiness.
Just saw this NYT map
Essentially, Appalachia is the worst, followed closely by the deep South.
Most of those Portland streets are graveled roads in upscale suburbia. It’s caused partly by political jurisdictions which haven’t gotten up to speed vis a vis population growth of what were recently rural areas. The city itself? No way.
California may have more poor people, but that has to be to some extent a function of just having a whole lot more people period. I don’t know where you get this “lack of modern housing and air conditioning” thing. Never heard that before. The urban areas do have homelessness issues, mostly that is due to the climate (political and otherwise).
This is the strangest OP I’ve read. California alone (if it were a country) has a big enough economy to rank as the 8th largest economy in the World.
And Portland has some unpaved streets, but I can’t imagine anyone who has been there (I lived there for several years) who would consider it “poor.”
If you go by ‘net income per square mile’, then that’s probably true…at least for the *vast *areas of the West which have a population of 0.
But in terms of ‘real numbers’, I think you’re looking at the rural Deep South and/or Appalachia.
1.) High cost of living - due to intense concentrations of wealth, nice environments and desirable amenities. Does not exist in a vacuum.
2.) “Modern housing” I don’t get. If anything modern housing is too damn prevalent in CA. Mind-numbing tracts of cookie-cutter homes everywhere ;).
True, air conditioning really isn’t common where I live. Because we don’t need it - the weather in my microclimate is exceedingly mild. Where it gets hotter, as in a lot of those modern housing tracts inland, central air is common.
3.) Large homeless populations are attracted by nice weather ( see above ) and arguably tolerant communities that have the money to provide services.
4.) Though there are indeed large pockets of poverty throughout the west ( as everywhere ), I’d say there are certainly more economically productive regions than just the Bay Area and Seattle. Los Angeles, San Diego and Portland for example may beg to differ :).
Hey, I was driving around in Vermont yesterday and saw a run-down mobile home. Clearly, then, we can conclude that all of New England is made up of dirt-poor hillbillies!
I take it the OP has never been to the Delta of northwest Mississippi, the Appalachian counties of eastern Kentucky, or the near-ghost towns of the Great Plains.
Even rural Alabama felt better off then the Bootheel area of southeast Missorui.
In the spirit of pedantism, I’ll point out that the poorest parts of America are in the West. The absolute lowest per capita income counties are on western Indian Reservations and parts of the Texas border region that are practically Mexico. Of course, a whole lot more people live in the poor parts of the South, but they’re technically not quite the poorest of the poor parts of the country.
Not that this has anything to do with the OP’s bizarre theories about the West Coast states.
Well, that confirms what I came to speculate.
–G.
Parts of Portland undoubtedly feel poor, don’t you agree? What about 82nd street with all its used car lots and run down apartments? The North and far East of Portland feel very rough in parts and access to transit, the police and yes paved roads are limited.
California has a huge economy but it’s also very unequal.
I live in Oregon. I don’t have AC because I don’t need it. There are maybe two weeks in the year that are in the high 90s to 100s.
While the 7-11 on the corner of 82 and Sandy Blvd has a a clientele that makes you hum dueling banjos it is far from crushing poverty.*
I have seen worse in LA, Seattle, St. Louis, and a number of other cities.
*If you are in the area the Cameo Restaurant 1/2 block east of 82nd on Sandy makes a superb breakfast.
Personal Income Per Capita, Mississippi is dead last. And thery’re lastin a lotof other waystoo.
Sounds like every city in the world. Have you traveled much?
Part of why there are more homeless people in the NW is that the climate is temperate, the drug laws are loosely enforced, there are good baseline social/medical services, and a live and let live attitude.
I live on an unpaved road!!
in a perfectly nice middle-upper-middle-class community.