Originally Posted by claudicici http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/dete.../PMREGVA/tran/ ....then again,for such a small place there's a lot of immigration stuff going on also... |
Petersburg, like Richmond and many other important East Coast cities is on the fall line. There's a good description of that here, so look it up if you don't know what that means. Wikipedia (Links)
Fall_line
Shipped goods were transfered at the fall line from flat bottom boats to steam or other power driven boats. During the Civil War, the Northern army destroyed Petersburg as a port and it went in to permanent decline with effects upriver.
As the river trade died out the trains moved in and Farmville survived. Look at a map of the town and you will see lots of evidence of train yards with warehouses for some manufactured goods and farm products, particularly tobacco, going out and trade goods coming in.
Now, if you look closely at the map, you can see the railroad is gone and the highway rules. Farmville is growing towards the highway now. That is where all the new development seems to be happening. The pattern is the same as in the past.
The problem this time is that manufacturing jobs have all gone overseas and the tobacco farming economy in Southern Virginia has been almost completely destroyed. Twenty years ago, there were tobacco farms everywhere down there. A lot of people relied on tobacco income to make ends meet. Now there are empty tobacco barns everywhere instead. If you look at the google street view of the road where Sam was found, you can see a few.
Stuff that comes into town still costs money. They produce less of value there to trade. Having two colleges employs some people, but a lot of other people needs jobs too. To bring jobs and money in, some towns build trash facilities and take trash from NYC. Some fight with other towns for WalMart distribution facilities or something similar and "win" one. Some build prisons and take people from NYC. Farmville chose the latter.