PINE BLUFF: The SHOCKING Condition Of This DYING City - 4th Highest Crime Rate In The Country

all right everyone i am in pine bluff arkansas they've got a bit of a waterfront here to the right is downtown so i'm going to drive into it right now look around a bit i will probably get on foot um i'm just going to take a quick look in the car see what else here wow there's a theater right there i'm not going to uh mince words here i read some pretty terrible things about this town coming in i was wondering wondering if it's true yeah certainly doesn't look that good right now does it huh he's trying to sprinkle on me i'm gonna turn around huh uh let's see this looks like some taller buildings here well we got something going on here we have police that's something going on down here looks like some kind of uh food thing huh that's pretty cool man a little bit windy wow well uh i want to find a place to park and uh just walk around a bit now i'm um what i'm guessing is the heart of downtown tallest buildings are here that's the tallest building there this is uh let's not kid ourselves post-apocalyptic looking wow i had read that it's pretty bad and uh pine bluff i'm still not sure if i'm prepared at just how bad it is i'll just walk around downtown a little bit here but um home of the historic hotel pine i guess there are plans to refurbish this building i should hope so a little information on pine bluff in 2020 the population was 41 253 it has been losing population every year since 1990 when its peak population was fifty seven thousand one hundred uh 2021 the population was 40 244 so it lost a thousand people in that one year um crime is high here very high uh 1098 crimes per 100 000 people that's three times higher than the u.s average uh pine bluff last year 2021 ranked fourth in violent crime in the country number one was memphis number two was monroe luzi uh louisiana and number three was anchorage alaska of all places and then pine bluff was fourth the mayor the mayor of the city commenting on the crime explains that is or for that to be the reason of the massive population loss between the census of 2010 and 2020 pine bluff lost 12.5 of its population that was number one the highest in the united states so this city in the decade leading up to 2020 lost more population than any other city in the u.s you can see it here in the infrastructure i mean buildings are empty everywhere here when i drove in uh i'm showing you a little footage from about three miles out of town when i was driving in and immediately you were seeing like this parking lot full of trash and debris closed uh businesses they're everywhere this place looks really bad i'm not going to mince words here really bad driving in um some of the other numbers of the city poverty rate is 25.4 percent versus the u s average of eleven point four percent so the poverty rate is really high here yeah whatever that is down there there's some people there uh others than that you can see for yourself there's no one here but it is pretty early in the morning it's about 11 00 on sunday i guess uh you could blame that i don't know if you can blame that let's not kid ourselves this is not a place where people are coming to hang out and enjoy social activities i mean it just isn't there's just no way you can see that for yourself let's see what are the some of the other numbers the median household income here is thirty four thousand four hundred uh as opposed to the u.s uh national average which is 64 900 so the average citizen here makes or yeah the average household here makes around half of the income that the u.s as a whole does and the per capita income is 19240 versus 35 400 for the us so those are grim numbers high poverty low incomes people fleeing the city and droves and of course as a result of the dwindling tax base you can see what's happening here not just here in downtown but all over this town all over the city i'd read that uh the city leaders are doing their best to combat this but uh it's been an uphill struggle hey there's another busted out window you can just see the boarded up glass and just the general poor condition of the buildings here you can see that for yourself you see broken out glass and uh somebody had a couple bottles of wine it looks like yeah indeed yeah broken glass everywhere looks like this might have been uh maybe an ice cream shop not sure nothing happening there now every one of these uh businesses these buildings that i have walked past are empty uh as i walk through and drive through i'm guessing roughly eight out of ten of the businesses here are uh our buildings here are are empty maybe two out of every 10 has an operating business this street is zero every one of these are empty broken out glass masonic temple i mean that's at one time was beautiful you can tell uh not now let's see what's over here yeah nothing over here nothing but this big building here you can see a uh an air conditioner there and broken out glass wow i'm gonna head to a uh another area of town all right i'm up here by the tallest building in town real quick take a closer look at god's hospital but uh it sets empty right now now this hotel i guess it's going to be refurbished there's a sign that says it is you can tell it was magnificent once so not much to say really you'll just walk along these sidewalks and see broken glass fair amount of trash uh the men's outlet warehouse open tonight until 6 pm somehow i doubt that it closed at 6 pm at some time in the past and never reopened our goal always your goodwill i don't know if you want to put that sign here maybe you do if he's saying he will help fix this city everything's just torn out and boarded up [Music] for sale by owner appointment only look they even have a place where you can uh look out over the street the one window not boarded up all right it just smells dusky and damp this building has sit here like this for a very long time this broken glass i guess people may have tried to get in all right i'm going to head up a few blocks up let's give you another look at a look at this i'm thinking there was a building here at one time and it has been torn down you can see that the remnants of tile here yeah i was just over that building a second ago and now you can see through the windows that there's nothing inside it's been torn completely torn out hmm i am continuing my walk uh on what looks like main street here again building storefront after storefront and just empty there's some life over there some kind of shop there and people have gathered to get something and they've got a police presence here so i don't know if it's police related or just simply police are here keeping an eye on him another closed building debris inside and there's a smoker over there so something's going on yeah police are here like i said yeah i got my huh all right well there's uh a mural here that's actually real nice main street 1888. so yeah cool and i'll step back a little bit but this is main street pine bluff i guess in 1888 the trolley and uh horse uh pulled wagons and you see that building at the end of the street has a gold dome on it let's go see what this looks like right now from the same spot it's you can see that from over here anyway so i'm gonna get out in the middle of the street and look from that same place yeah there's that gold dome building i'm gonna walk down there in a bit right now actually but that's what it looks like now got a few cars here but uh they're only here because of what's going on right there in that corner store or restaurant so okay i'll walk up this way now you can see the tallest building there giving you an idea where i'm at again boarded up storefronts it's the name of the day here another one here i mean they all are it's not kid ourselves there is nothing nothing happening down here i believe this may be a store that opens up at times does that say birds i could be wrong cool uh mural here though so yeah i'd read that there's some artwork in town here that it's uh one of the attractions of the city i'm seeing a little bit of that see upscale sports bar they must have uh came up with that name on opposite day because that's anything but upscale upscale sports bar and uh uptown salon and boutique it's got lights flashing so that one that uh business is an operation anyway this building where the uh mural was bert's i don't know if that's open or not a boy he's got some heavy duty uh protection here [Music] a lot of iron bars well slowly but surely i'm getting to that uh big white building there has been an uh an attempt at revitalization here you can see because look here the sidewalk is manicured there's not a lot of weeds growing up between the cracks like the rest of downtown but nobody has occupied this building or any of these buildings yet it doesn't look like they look to me like they're just sitting empty that looks nice it's the same way on the other side i guess you got to start somewhere i don't know what they want to do with that this rj's [Music] it might would behoove them to open a doorway there and make this some outdoor patio see seating in this section that would be pretty cool pine bluff tidal co it's moved somewhere else wow [Music] uh here's an operating business downtown ben's bail bond u-ring we spring 24-hour service wow got a sheriff's department patrol division there rest of them are empty this is the county courthouse by the way i looked it up real quick that's a pretty beautiful building it's actually really beautiful and um looks like it has been kept up and maintained which it should be of course if it's a county courthouse but yeah it looks real nice i do like that [Music] you can see some more work into revitalizing the downtown here right there is their riverfront a riverwalk that's the arkansas river again it's been landscaped looks like new concrete uh baruch or barack plaza but sadly many of these buildings are empty that engraver shop looks like it's open on this side it's boarded up it's really quiet down here except for that train now this building here that has been well at first glance i thought it had been restored it looks like the bottom half is restored but look at the top half boarded up windows the building's old 1883 it says looks like it was a hardware store at one time hmm yeah see the bottom half looks pretty nice at the top no glass looks like over here again from across the street and get out of that little area and revert to the old sidewalks with weeds growing up between the cracks and then yeah i just see the uh the effects of abandonment and lack of uh investment so many people leaving the city um that's just a lot less people as customers a lot less tax revenue pine bluff has got their work cut out for them they're going to try to save this town but right now uh it is dying that is uh just simple fact deathly quiet this is of a downtown good sized city listen to the silence we stop walking so you don't hear my feet yeah up here comes the car now if they really wanted to really rejuvenate the town this would be one of the first buildings a community theater and this whole area just sits empty here comes another train about to go by there she goes up just two engines [Music] that's uh pretty much the only traffic this was a grand beautiful building at one time yeah just that's empty boarded up that door is open up there [Music] looking at that i'm thinking this was formerly a theater again a structure and building that should be one of the first in line for renovation this is the kind of place that people will come down to and gather at which is what you want in your downtown your people gathering here that is the hallmark of a vibrant downtown [Music] i can't get over how many of the buildings just set empty [Music] this is boarded up and this wood is rotting so it's been like this a long time uh you can see up in there and uh yeah the roof it's not even there anymore or it's in shambles trash everywhere something in it and the spilled in here yeah it's just gone wow yeah there was something here at one time but uh clearly it has been torn down and there's no more another empty building over there wow okay i'm gonna head back to the uh bronco uh i'm gonna drive around some of the immediate area neighborhoods for a little bit this video i can tell is already gonna be long so i want to try to start cutting it short a little bit but um yeah there's just so much fascinating imagery here yeah this entire pretty much entire street has been raised uh there are buildings all along here that one there's the only one left standing on this side too it's been cleared off torn down you can see there were signs here or posts maybe this one is still here though and here's a sign i want to look at you are being watched that's true there are surveillance cameras all over tucked away in little corners you see him every now and then as usual i go to like a local cities reddit boards read what the citizens say i go to youtube channels on these cities and read what the people who live there post in the comments and then i go to other websites and most of the time people are saying good things about their town but this is maybe the first time where 8 out of 10 people locals who post say this is a horrible place on reddit a guy posted uh i got a job offer in pine bluff show to move here huge response from locals saying don't of course they pointed to the many reasons uh high crime uh poor job prospects even though this guy apparently had a job waiting for him but i was a little bit struck by it yeah people down there on that corner still enjoying themselves anyway for real i'm getting into bronco now go take a look at a couple neighborhoods okay here's pine bluff uh you can see the blue arrow where i am looks like the majority of the city is right here as far as housing so i guess i'll take a little bit of a drive down there uh yeah and see what happens so i'll just go up here cut a left go a few blocks and cut another left and that should put me into that uh area there i'll drive by these guys one more time as they uh enjoy i guess a sunday brunch of some sort smoker and all kinds of stuff going on there looks pretty cool all right so there's the county courthouse so i'm going to head this direction looks like directly west go a few blocks and head south and it should take me right into a nearby residential area more empty buildings windows down looks like i'm hitting residential already so uh i'm gonna explore this neighborhood a little bit that is potentially an absolutely beautiful home look at that huge porch but uh i don't think it's occupied a lot of the glass is broken out i'd hate to see that a lot of empty houses here uh you're seeing or i am seeing abandoned homes it's quite a high percentage uh you can't expect that though when a city is losing population like this and nobody is buying the houses that they leave and this is what you get i had read somewhere that some people call pine bluff little detroit because of the sheer amount of abandoned homes that are in the city and it makes sense you know that's why detroit has so many homes that are just sitting there rotten because that's that city lost three quarters of its population and those homes just sit there disintegrating where they stand anyway all right so uh yeah i'm still up here downtown's right there i haven't got very far i know i don't want to do too much more of this but i'm just seeing so much so many interesting things that i just keep filming another one here this one is um occupied though i mean that's architecture you do not see anymore just ran across this one that's a beautiful home or the architecture is beautiful again like many of the others it does need some tlc but the potential there is incredible this one looks like it's a historical home that has been taken care of hmm uh wow the sounds of pine bluff many of the people on those message boards nicknamed the city crime bluff uh pretty sure that's a moniker that many here do not care for but i read it many times another abandoned empty house gonna guess this one is too that's i mean it gotta be condemned it's gonna need some serious work and this one too it's just a big house that house renovated anywhere else in the country uh you're gonna get 700 000 for it depending on where you are yeah one of the stats that i was going to start adding to my statistical report if you will is home value i forgot to mention it earlier the average home value of each city that i visit because that's interesting uh aspect and especially compared to where you may live but the average home price here 173 thousand 173 000 it's got to be one of the lowest in the country that is a huge home too bad about all the trash in the front and the street but wow that's nice look at all those flowers that is kind of beautiful isn't it that's kind of awesome i like what they have done there huh i just want to drive through this neighborhood and that one's for rent so it's empty yeah it looks like looks like a fire that's a damn shame yeah you see this all over the place in this town driving around uh businesses that have closed down a lot of them these are being reclaimed by nature pretty soon it will be completely swallowed up and nature will take back over another empty house now you see this all over here another abandoned home there are numerous abandoned homes here uh yeah there's one up here that is uh being reclaimed by nature like so many of the others here it is won't be long until you can't even see that house anymore another empty home i'm gonna guess this one is empty too that's just so much of this here yeah that is a beautiful place all right uh i think i've looked around enough this video uh in terms of the footage i've shot is getting out of control uh everything's open though as they perhaps may be in the process of renovating that one that's a beauty though anyway um yeah i'm going to wrap it up here one more house i want to look at up here i kind of got down there a little bit south of downtown not too far a few blocks ah i just saw this house here wow there is some impressive houses here on this is olive street real beauties a lot of square foot in some of these or a lot of square footage gosh but again they're in such bad shape that's damn shame all right anyway that's the end of this video i'm gonna wrap it up we're gonna continue heading east i'm actually not sure where next so uh when you see that video you'll know all right until then sayonara

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 572,527

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Id: INuyNR2kvSo

Length: 43min 57sec (2637 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2022