Baseball’s Fading Gems: Rickwood Field, Birmingham, Alabama
Lost Americana is going a bit off the topic from looking at fading small rural towns, for a brief few posts to explore the few remaining old ballparks in America.
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Alabama
Alabama, The Cotton State
According to census estimates as of 2018, forty-five of Alabama’s 67 counties saw population declines from the previous year. Since the last full census in 2010, only about 22 counties actually saw population growth. Most of the growth was in counties with suburban and college areas.
As with so many states, rural areas are losing their populations as residents leave in search of jobs as the needs for agricultural labor has diminished since the 1950s and the retail landscape has vastly changed in that time too.
Alabama’s rural areas, like a few other states in the south, differ from what is the typical view of small rural farm communities, because a vast portion of these counties are primarily African American. Access to capital and government programs to help farmers had traditionally been hard to come-by for many black farmers, placing them at a disadvantage.
Posts about Alabama
Population Decline; The Hardest Hit Counties In Each State Since 1990
Since 1990 These Counties Are The Hardest Hit By Population Decline In Their State The 1990s are a significant time for Lost Americana, which goes beyond the fact that during that decade
Lost Americana is about telling the stories of the people who live in rural America.
•Have you lived in the same rural area since the 1970/80s?
•Were you the last class to graduate from a rural school before it closed its doors forever?
•Do you know of a small town (under 2,000 people) that is a shell of it’s former self?
•Do you just what to give me some feedback on the topics we cover?
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