Has Your Hometown Improved or Taken a Turn for the Worse?

Mine hasn't declined that much, but it has gone down hill too.

My hometown is truly pitiful. The entire county became very depressed with the loss of textile manufacturing in the 80s and 90's. It has never recovered.

It doesn't help that the city council is all geriatric and puritanical. They have held back progress, but the populace is too stupid to vote them out.

My town hatched a bunch of openly racist, anti-science, fascists. I don’t know when they became pod people, but they definitely live in fear of everything. What was a Midwest solidly middle class suburb, is now Stalag 13.

Name.That.Town!

Mine is fine, but went from a village of 1000 to a village of 2000. Just homes. No industry to lose.

"Name.That.Town!"

Florissant, MO.

upturn, largely b/c of flight from NYC since covid

I would say taken a turn for the worse. Average middle class homes that were reasonably priced when I was a kid are going for over one million dollars but the city has a major drug problem, homeless encampments, lots of crime and several halfway houses and “rehab” facilities in what were once quiet family neighborhoods. The public schools suck. Would not raise my kids there even though it was great when I was young

Mine has become impossibly upscale and expensive. Filled with Wall Street assholes (many of whom I know from high school)

My hometown has improved. It's a suburb and there are more (and better) places to eat there. Nothing fancy, but good, non-chain, takeout places as well as little sit-down places. The roads have improved, including the highways that take you to the larger city.

I live in a city that was named one of the best places to live in America just this month. It does have a lot of amenities, etc... if you make at least 6 figures. As bougie as this place is, we are seeing more homelessness, struggling retail, and economic disparity. No one around here seems happy. It's as if everyone is waiting for things to get worse.

[quote]It's as if everyone is waiting for things to get worse.

This history of the world.

And the DL.

I’ve been living in a shithole

Mine (pop. 8000) was in it's last throes when I was a young child, by the Bicentennial the vacant shops started, replaced initially by social services agencies. By the 1980s nearly all the commercial buildings had become offices, or say vacant, or were vanity shops for women's fashion that lasted maybe a year and then shuttered. Grocery stores survived but in fewer numbers, and all shifted to the outer edge of town, likewise restaurants, cafes, lunch counters all replaced by national fast food franchises. Beautiful old bank buildings sat empty, replaced by cheap boxes by the highway, with names that sounded like antidepressants or boner pills, parts of huge regional chains -- everyone who worked in a bank was a vice president. So did chain drug stores and a a Wal-Mart pop up on the outskirts (with the three old department stores closed, and only one clothing store survived, also on the edge of town.)

Old families whose members included mayors and governor and politicians and who had their names carved in limestone friezes, families who owned banks and the larger independent businesses shifted, too: from a downtown with several arteries of nice houses to just one, or one and a half. All sorts of ideas for coffee shops and river walks and outdoor markets were tried, but there was little market for them and all failed.

The better public buildings were repurposed multiple times. Once large windows with semicircular tops were stuccoed over leaving little strip windows for a bit of light and, maybe, air. The high school became a middle school became an elementary school. Despite a growing population only fast food joints and the hospital did not shrink.

That was the change that happens from the Late Sixties to the early Nineties. Now there are a handful of coffee shops in the downtown, but for a vehicular clientele, it looks a little more tody and maintained but still fucking bleak. There is not one store that couldn't be found (by the same name) in the next town and the town next to that. By the time I was in high school it's downward spiral was clear, though the lowness of its destination not.

It's just shit and sprawl and a handful of grand houses and historic buildings. In a town where every facade was cheaply rebuilt, multiple times, so that the few small relics of it's past are like three good teeth in a wrecked mouth. And yet real estate prices are wildly better than they should be, tbe town in prosperous by some measures but looks like bomb wreckage decades on

I haven't been there in a decade, but it's not better.

^ is there a Cliff Notes?

It has gone down hill because it has a Real Housewives show. Most people know that reality shows are trash TV that don't reflect people's real lives but the manufactured drama on Housewives shows is ridiculous, especially considering no one from the current cast is from there, I think only one of them actually lives in the town the show is named after, I think only two of them live in the county and some of them live in a different state (this may be typical of Housewives shows, I don't know). Admittedly, I've never watched any of the Housewives shows, including this one, but family members have talked about it and I've read a few articles and compared to the memes I've seen from other seasons I just don't get it... farm land started disappearing when I was in high school but it's still a quiet town full of down to earth people, the only changes are more houses and Housewives.

NYC people moved up here in droves and my rent went up over $150/month. My progressive college town may pass a rent control-type ordinance to deal with this invasion.

It is mostly a blue collar/semi rural area, with low paying service jobs. Now there is a huge housing crisis.

R16 I assume you are talking about Potomac.

Ashley lives in DC

Karen was living in VA

Robyn had to downsize to place outside Baltimore

Gizelle lived in Bethesda

r14 With only minor differences, that could've been the history of my hometown over that same period. Incidentally, I enjoyed your writing.

[quote] ^ is there a Cliff Notes?

Oh, dear!

My hometown (a village in NE Ohio) is better than it was when I graduated high school and left town in 1982. Back then, the population was >99% white, there were ~2000 inhabitants. My graduating class was 61 students. During the 1990's, it got worse – much worse. Almost all manufacturing left the village and surrounding cities. Unemployment was reportedly over 15%. The median household income was in the low-$20,000's. But something changed from 2000-2010. A corn farmer who owned much of the land (fields) that abutted the corporation limit died in 1999. His heirs sold off the fields and developers bought them up, built nice houses, the village annexed the property, and white-collar people working at large companies 30-40 minutes away bought them up. Another developer built luxury homes on another tract of land, which attracted even more affluent families. The village annexed this land too.

So almost 40 years on, the population and the size of the village has nearly doubled. Median household income, according to the 2020 census, is now just under $60K. The 2021 graduating class was 88. It's still a "small town" by most measures, but the amenities have improved since I lived there. Unfortunately, as is often the case when new land is developed for housing, the existing homes from before 1980 are dilapidated. The street I grew up on used to have 17 houses. It now has just nine. Eight have been torn down and are vacant lots. The old trees that lined the streets of the original borders have been taken out. The new developments have buried electrical, while the old parts of town still have power poles. You literally cross one street and it's a new town. But what is left of the downtown still has just two traffic lights!

Mine was a booming car factory town in the 70s-90s but now it’s crackhead central.

I grew up in Charlotte NC. I haven't lived there since age 18 but it has grown by leaps and bounds, barely recognize it when I go back to visit the family.

Yes, R18.

mine went from 50-60s glamour location to urban decay and into ghettto decline for about 4 decades. It is starting to gentrify at a very rapid rate.

My town was a small rural area, but reasonably accessible to Manhattan, more so for weekenders. Development has been slow and steady through the years, and I once again live in the area. Unfortunately, the influx of New Yorkers due to Covid, a glowing spotlight from the NYT in the Living In section, and the general idea that we've been "discovered" has made it nearly impossible to afford for many. We're going to be in a situation sooner or later where the volunteer firefighters, and EMTs, teachers, and many others will not be able to afford to live in the towns they serve. It's happened to adjacent towns, but I didn't think we'd be next.