Poplar Bluff Hits New Low...
Dec 31, 2015
A story has been posted all over Facebook showing that Poplar Bluff was recently listed at the #1 most Ghetto place to live in Missouri. Citing crime statistics, median family income, graduation rates, and the number of convenience/drug/discount stores along with other data they came to the conclusion that PB is #ghetto-est. The site clearly claims that their scientifically-based opinions are totally for infotainment, but for those who call Poplar Bluff home it is a bittersweet laugh.
I did a search on their site and Poplar Bluff has shown up often. PB is:
#1 in ghetto
#8 in drunkest
#4 in most redneck
#8 in worst places to live
Live here or don’t. I won’t be moving any day soon and it is and always will be my home and the home of my children. Poplar bluff can be great again if we have the right people in play to make it happen. There are a few who need to go find a new job but for the most part, we have great people doing what they can to improve this little town.
I believe that Poplar Bluff gets a bum rap due to gross mismanagement of capital improvements and lack of annexation over the last 30 plus years. Poplar Bluffs statistics are skewed because it is ranked with 17K populations and on any given day we have 75 to 85 thousand people visit our community and as high as 125 thousand.
Just about every home in the city limits is 30 plus years old. A downtown that has all but been abandoned and an infrastructure that is operating with equipment out of the fifties. The previous administration has always claimed we could not annex because we couldnât afford the infrastructure but we can spend millions on a power plant that sits idle, a coliseum that sits empty, prime property for a utility office and $30 million for a shopping complex.
It is sad to witness the state of affairs this natural hotspot for commerce is in. While we have frugal local business people developing thriving businesses the public officials have thrown millions of dollars at outsiders and to pad a few pockets on sorry investments.
Poplar Bluff on a ½ cent sales tax paved Hwy 67 north all the way to Fredericktown. 65 miles of some of the worst terrain imaginable which included building a bridge across Lake Wappapello and moving untold millions of yards of dirt but, we canât seem to pave 15 miles of flat land south. Instead we spend a 1 cent tax to pay billionaires to make an investment and reap the benefits of one of the ultimate natural commerce hot spots in the country and send the profits to corporations far off.
So here we sit in what should be one of the fastest growing technical and economic hotspots but instead we receive ratings such as these. We have gone from the opportunity to be a high-tech community to collecting utility bills out of a trailer with an industrial part that is falling apart. Instead of investing our tax dollars where it benefitted the community they have been wasted to benefit a few.
Need more Rednecks
Oh well. I still like it here.