I live in a small town next to a giant pile of gravel lol It’s probably not free. In my case, the owner of the property was planning on putting in a gravel driveway to a old house he was going to fix up but then never did. It’s been abandoned for years, no idea what’s going on now. But he owns the gravel and taking it would be theft. Although I could probably get away with it if I was in a desperate gravel situation.
In the Great Depression, when people would leave their farms, it was common for their neighbors to strip their house to the foundations. However, if that person came back, it was also common for those neighbors to give most of what they took back, and even help rebuild. I think there’s an argument to be made that stealing something that isn’t being used isn’t stealing in a traditional sense, but more ensuring appropriate usage of resources and lessening waste.
One time, I was driving through one of these old towns, and I got pulled over because I didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign. Admittedly, I was in the wrong, but the judge in town was insane, and coincidentally the father of the sheriff who pulled us over. So the judge tried to have me and the people in the car executed in some crazy deathcoaster contraption unless I agreed to marry his daughter (who bore a striking resemblance to Gus Polinski) but thankfully we managed to get out of there. Also, we got to party with Digital Underground for some reason.
I lived in one of these town for four years. Just before I moved there, they’d made national news for pulling over an ambulance. It was hauling ass taking someone to the hospital, but the local cops felt that issuing a ticket was more important.
The town is also the county seat and regional state patrol center. It’s the highest ratio of law enforcement to citizens in the entire state.
The first day we arrived my wife was pulled over for doing just over 25. Welcome to town!
They still have to follow the rules of the road. In my state legally even running code 3 (lights and sirens) they are only legally allowed to go 5mph over the limit. And if there is an accident the ambulance driver is basically automatically assumed at fault.
There really isn’t. Most of the laws regarding that is “driving with a due regard to safety.” You can’t just blow through intersections willy-nilly. A lot of progress has been made with driving code 3. A lot of studies have shown it honestly doesn’t improve patient outcomes based on the limited time gained. There are exceptions of course.
Got pulled in one of these driving through a small town on a US highway. 55mph road until you hit the town and it’s 35mph. I missed that sign and got pulled for a warning. -_-
My area in New York is like that. It’s like “You will enjoy our scenic views, for as long as humanly possible. I don’t know why you think this state highway that is the only route through our shitty backwater town would ever be otherwise…”
Rural Iowa here, the only one I can’t find within walking distance of me is the bottom middle, and probably because I haven’t walked the entire town yet.
It’s the 1970s car friendly town - so car friendly noone wants to go there anymore, because there is nothing than car infrastructure and car pollution. It doesn’t have to be like this, take back your towns folks!
So once upon a time, America was a place where anyone could come to get a good job. In fact, if you were walking down the street in the middle of the day, someone would stop you and say, “Come work here, please.” Practically begging you to get benefits, a pension, and you could buy a house on your salary.
This is because manufacturing was a huge part of the post-WW2 booming American economy, they needed bodies to run the machines, and you didn’t have to know anything or be specially trained, you could just go in and start being productive on day one. Shows like Mad Men, where a bunch of men were sitting around, getting paid to think, that was far more rare than it is today. Most people did something in a factory or warehouse.
Then, international trade became increasingly cheaper. Then countries with poor human rights (ie slaves) were able to undercut companies who were using an American workforce to produce the same product. As execs cut costs to keep up, the workforce became more opinionated, some forming unions, which increased the cost of labor. So beginning in the 60’s and 70’s, they started moving all the manufacturing overseas to areas with cheaper labor. My parents were from Baltimore, they and their parents and everyone they knew had all worked at Bethlehem Steel at Sparrow’s Point (a mill producing steel) almost their entire lives. In the 70’s they started decreasing the workforce, then it got sold to a German company, who moved most of the operations overseas, and by the 90’s my grandparents were basically forced into retirement with a great pension and health insurance, as guaranteed by their union.
Oddly enough this is exactly what happened with the great recession in 2008: overseas companies started offering less-regulated investment opportunities, this put pressure on our own oversight to deregulate - which they did. Then American businesses started packaging more and more risky home loans (called sub-prime loans), and investors were buying them at prime rates because home loans were such a sure thing.
I remember from my life, in a suburb of DC, when a poor family moved into the neighborhood. They had habits that we were not familiar with, to put it politely, and they kinda stuck out like a sore thumb. They only lasted a few months, then got foreclosed on. Basically what had happened was there was pressure on banks for more home loans, so they started offering loans to people who couldn’t normally afford a house, and probably didn’t fully understand the implications of a home loan. The bank probably just told them “Free Money!” and they said ok. But then they couldn’t pay, and this happened so often everyone probably remembers something like this happening around that time.
So anyway, globalization has caused these small towns that used to house workers for a factory to become frozen. Usually around the time the mill closes or massive layoffs happen, workers will move to greener pastures, businesses that relied on them will close, leaving the town in whatever state it’s in. And that’s why you see so many towns exactly like what OP is describing.
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Hellmans on tap? Where do I have to live to have mayonnaise on tap?
Where I live, some of the gas stations have ranch on tap!
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Chadbourn, NC is like this. My buddy drove over the train tracks too fast and it messed up his A/C for a while.
Coming from Idaho falls, can confirm these are all present.
The pile of gravel got me
So, is that gravel…just free? Like, can anyone just take it?
Is this a free pennies joke from some movie? Sounds so familiar 🤔
I was heavily misquoting a scene from Ted 2 from memory 🙃
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I live in a small town next to a giant pile of gravel lol It’s probably not free. In my case, the owner of the property was planning on putting in a gravel driveway to a old house he was going to fix up but then never did. It’s been abandoned for years, no idea what’s going on now. But he owns the gravel and taking it would be theft. Although I could probably get away with it if I was in a desperate gravel situation.
In the Great Depression, when people would leave their farms, it was common for their neighbors to strip their house to the foundations. However, if that person came back, it was also common for those neighbors to give most of what they took back, and even help rebuild. I think there’s an argument to be made that stealing something that isn’t being used isn’t stealing in a traditional sense, but more ensuring appropriate usage of resources and lessening waste.
Well, if it’s a desperate gravel situation that’s fair. I think we can all relate to that.
Depends on who sees you
100% correct! (Not that I’ve ever taken something just laying there that wasn’t mine.)
😂
Star Spangle intensifies
Fellow midwesterner can confirm
Replace the Pepsi Machine with one that sells Worms and you’ve nailed my area.
Is that where Rubrix Raptors swamp boys get the worms?
love driving thru these and seeing the old signs. hate the fuckin 25mph speed traps
One time, I was driving through one of these old towns, and I got pulled over because I didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign. Admittedly, I was in the wrong, but the judge in town was insane, and coincidentally the father of the sheriff who pulled us over. So the judge tried to have me and the people in the car executed in some crazy deathcoaster contraption unless I agreed to marry his daughter (who bore a striking resemblance to Gus Polinski) but thankfully we managed to get out of there. Also, we got to party with Digital Underground for some reason.
Tupac was involved with this, right?
Yep, his first acting credit.
Did they make you repave the street too with Bessy?
Did the judge have a dick nose? Sounds like something that happened to me once.
Nothing but trouble in that town it sounds like. Best stay away.
I lived in one of these town for four years. Just before I moved there, they’d made national news for pulling over an ambulance. It was hauling ass taking someone to the hospital, but the local cops felt that issuing a ticket was more important.
The town is also the county seat and regional state patrol center. It’s the highest ratio of law enforcement to citizens in the entire state.
The first day we arrived my wife was pulled over for doing just over 25. Welcome to town!
What traffic laws can ambulances even violate!?
They still have to follow the rules of the road. In my state legally even running code 3 (lights and sirens) they are only legally allowed to go 5mph over the limit. And if there is an accident the ambulance driver is basically automatically assumed at fault.
Ah, I sorta just assume they had some kind of wide spread exemption in a lot of situations.
There really isn’t. Most of the laws regarding that is “driving with a due regard to safety.” You can’t just blow through intersections willy-nilly. A lot of progress has been made with driving code 3. A lot of studies have shown it honestly doesn’t improve patient outcomes based on the limited time gained. There are exceptions of course.
Got pulled in one of these driving through a small town on a US highway. 55mph road until you hit the town and it’s 35mph. I missed that sign and got pulled for a warning. -_-
My area in New York is like that. It’s like “You will enjoy our scenic views, for as long as humanly possible. I don’t know why you think this state highway that is the only route through our shitty backwater town would ever be otherwise…”
And these towns tend to have like 2.75 cops per person and they aren’t afraid to pull you over for going 26mph.
In Australia its the same, but only the fancy buildings are brick. Most are asbestos.
My dads town is not rich enough to have a vending machine.
Rural Iowa here, the only one I can’t find within walking distance of me is the bottom middle, and probably because I haven’t walked the entire town yet.
Did you just shit on pretty much the whole UK?
Nope, the American midwest. Most of my state is like this.
Yea imagine buildings being made of bricks and not match sticks
Would you classify your castles as “every building is bricks” or “random pile of gravel”?
I’m not British, but the vast majority of their buildings indeed seem to fall into either the “bricks” or the “gravel” category - not just castles.
All our houses are brick based. Source: own house in UK, made of bricks.
But don’t understand why it’s portrayed as bad here?
I think they might mean bricked up, as in the windows have been bricked over?
Or maybe they’re associated with buildings built during a certain period that are now mostly empty due to a boom and bust cycle?
Its not, its just a common thing.
Baltimore is this but somehow an entire city.
I love Old Style beer.
Old Style and Portillo’s
Only in America
Could really be Canada too :/
It’s the 1970s car friendly town - so car friendly noone wants to go there anymore, because there is nothing than car infrastructure and car pollution. It doesn’t have to be like this, take back your towns folks!
So once upon a time, America was a place where anyone could come to get a good job. In fact, if you were walking down the street in the middle of the day, someone would stop you and say, “Come work here, please.” Practically begging you to get benefits, a pension, and you could buy a house on your salary.
This is because manufacturing was a huge part of the post-WW2 booming American economy, they needed bodies to run the machines, and you didn’t have to know anything or be specially trained, you could just go in and start being productive on day one. Shows like Mad Men, where a bunch of men were sitting around, getting paid to think, that was far more rare than it is today. Most people did something in a factory or warehouse.
Then, international trade became increasingly cheaper. Then countries with poor human rights (ie slaves) were able to undercut companies who were using an American workforce to produce the same product. As execs cut costs to keep up, the workforce became more opinionated, some forming unions, which increased the cost of labor. So beginning in the 60’s and 70’s, they started moving all the manufacturing overseas to areas with cheaper labor. My parents were from Baltimore, they and their parents and everyone they knew had all worked at Bethlehem Steel at Sparrow’s Point (a mill producing steel) almost their entire lives. In the 70’s they started decreasing the workforce, then it got sold to a German company, who moved most of the operations overseas, and by the 90’s my grandparents were basically forced into retirement with a great pension and health insurance, as guaranteed by their union.
Oddly enough this is exactly what happened with the great recession in 2008: overseas companies started offering less-regulated investment opportunities, this put pressure on our own oversight to deregulate - which they did. Then American businesses started packaging more and more risky home loans (called sub-prime loans), and investors were buying them at prime rates because home loans were such a sure thing.
I remember from my life, in a suburb of DC, when a poor family moved into the neighborhood. They had habits that we were not familiar with, to put it politely, and they kinda stuck out like a sore thumb. They only lasted a few months, then got foreclosed on. Basically what had happened was there was pressure on banks for more home loans, so they started offering loans to people who couldn’t normally afford a house, and probably didn’t fully understand the implications of a home loan. The bank probably just told them “Free Money!” and they said ok. But then they couldn’t pay, and this happened so often everyone probably remembers something like this happening around that time.
So anyway, globalization has caused these small towns that used to house workers for a factory to become frozen. Usually around the time the mill closes or massive layoffs happen, workers will move to greener pastures, businesses that relied on them will close, leaving the town in whatever state it’s in. And that’s why you see so many towns exactly like what OP is describing.
Used to have a really nice commuter rail that connected to the city, now there’s a six-lane highway that clogs up twice a day.
Welcome to the American dream nightmare.