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‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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The town I grew up in is in the middle of a cancer cluster. The largest factory (where most people work) got caught illegally dumping chemicals in the ground. They were just made to pay a relatively small fine. The corporation was threatening to move the plant somewhere else if it became too expensive to operate there, and all lawsuits were dismissed.
That factory, and most other factories in the area primarily just hire "temp" workers that they keep as temps for years, never actually hire them full time, and pay them near minimum wage with no benefits. Many young people who do end up staying in that area become drug addicts and die in their 20s or 30s.
There's a lot of corruption in the local government and police as well. The police harass anybody they don't like, and they know pretty much who everybody is and what they drive. A few people in government got caught embezzling money. A sheriff tried to frame somebody for murder. Also, I think the people in the courts have some kind of deal with the juvenile detention center, because they give kids very long sentences for minor things (6 months for being 10 minutes late to school while on probation in my case).
Small towns, in my experience, are shitholes with corrupt and authoritarian local governments, and are exploited by corporations in ways similar to third-world countries.
How are they becoming heavy drug addicts by being exposed to chemicals in a factory?
Also you talk about small towns being run by corrupt and authoritarian governments like you live in an anarchistic country.
Just listing reasons why small towns are shitholes... or at least that particular small town. People there are at a high risk of drug addiction because of "shit-life syndrome," (which is arguably caused by the low wages of the factories).
But that's a whole different reasoning than sticking it to "chemical factory work"