Have things improved in Longview/Kelso in 2020

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Many parts of rural PNW are truly poor. As poor as parts of Appalachia. What makes Oregon different from say...Arkansas is that it has larger more prosperous cities and suburban areas. But the rural areas are pretty much the same.

Many of them are actually the same people. The PNW was actually settled by different waves of people. There were the more prosperous New Englander types and Nordic immigrants who came around by boat with money and settled in the cities which they made in their own image. So tidy prosperous cities that look like Yankee New England cities. But much of the rural PNW was settled by dirt poor immigrants spreading across via land, and often southern and Appalachian folks fleeing the south in the aftermath of the Civil War. Coming to homestead, but also to work in timber, mining, and other resource extraction industries. That is why rural PNW towns often feel a lot like rural AR or KY towns.

If you want to avoid the poor downscale parts of the PNW then focus on the larger cities, government towns (Salem, Olympia) college towns (Eugene, Corvallis, Bellingham, Ashland) or upscale tourist meccas (Bend, Wenatchee, San Juans, etc.). Stay away from the declining mill towns like Longview, Albany, Aberdeen, etc. They are basically the PNW version of the rust belt. Moving to Longview is more or less the equivalent of moving to Youngstown Ohio or Scranton PA. Sure you might find nice neighborhoods and good people there. But the city as a whole is in decline and not likely to be reversed on your efforts alone.

Good post. Thank you for the additional perspective. And what you stated makes perfect sense. I was going to add to what I stated in my previous post regarding Kelso/Longview:

My observations about these two cities would actually apply to many other smaller, more rural cities throughout the country — so it’s not a knock against Kelso/Longview or Washington specifically. Rather, it’s more a commentary on the realities of rural living in small towns anywhere. I’ve noticed the same kinds of people and the same types of poor infrastructure and dilapidated housing in my dad’s small hometown of Trinidad, Colorado, and in my mom’s hometown of Poteau, Oklahoma. Furthermore, even in Southern California, many areas out in the Inland Empire show the same types of things. Areas such as Hemet, or Rialto, or Perris, or Banning could just as easily double for Kelso or Trinidad or Poteau, or any other more rural, economically depressed area in the U.S.

[Diana Holbrook]

Our timber towns were all hard hit by restrictions and changes to logging and milling in the 80s. Kelso Longview were particularly badly hit because they weren't just limited by the spotted owl, their whole economy was devastated by the volcano that destroyed most of the timber, and timber jobs, on state and Weyerhauser land.

All the lands outside the volcanic monument have since been replanted, and those will be starting to become mature in the next decade. The big question though, is whether the mills will come back in a way that can truly support a wide economy, or whether we will cut the trees and ship them to mills in China and Japan that will sell them back to us as finished lumber or products. It's a major issue throughout the NW. We're sending far too many raw logs overseas, IMHO.

All that said.... It's not hard to find places in Western WA that are not poor, though part of being rural is it's not all uniform. You will see big farms and small lots with single wides. Nice and run down, old and new, kindof mixed together. Many of the small towns up and down the highway corridors are booming now. Maybe there are no longer bargains there, but that's the choice. There are several towns within an hour of Olympia that are cute little towns, all former timber towns getting a second life as bedroom communities for either Olympia or Tacoma. But they're no longer cheap.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Many areas will not be welcoming to that!

"the 5"

I read it as the comment was using "the" to modify "corridor." Not "5."