Port Arthur in decline
One of our good friends and super-member, Jace Deloney, shared these before and after photos of his hometown of Port Arthur. He recommends looking at them while listening to UGK, one of his hometown heroes, for the full effect.
You can also ponder one of the lines I use in the Curbside Chat when showing similar destruction along Front Street in my hometown of Brainerd.
“If you want to understand in one photo why America’s cities are struggling financially, here it is. Where is the wealth that is going to sustain this place generation after generation? How are we going to pay for the roads and the streets and the sidewalks? The pipes, the pumps and the valves?
That wealth is not there.”
Here's the great thing: nothing that is missing in the second photo is difficult to build. We could put this back in a generation and make our places strong and healthy again, we just need to think differently about them.