My Beloved College Town Has a Problem: It’s Too Popular

These articles only ever seem to be from the perspective of other affluent people who resent newcomers encroaching in their own "slice of heaven". They rarely mention what happens in our less affluent communities.

I grew up in Northeastern coal country. It wasn't glamorous, but it wasn't a horrible place to live. Over the past two decades, nearly everyone I know has been supplanted by refugees priced out of housing in the big cities through gentrification and rising cost of housing. What I remember of my hometown is long gone. It's riddled with weekly shootings, drug overdoses in public bathrooms, and other problems seemingly brought in from the big cities.