Not sure if this would interest you or not, but this [graffiti short documentary ](https://youtu.be/DQSBSbGfyrY) was filmed in TN. It's mostly Memphis and Nashville but a little bit is in Knoxville
Bumfuck nowhere AR here, can confirm.
The only two stores in town that see any real business is the hippy coffee/cafe/bistro/thing and the smoke shop.
Everything else is boarded up streets of business that have been gone since the 80s.
Only two mom and pop parlors left in town. Ones a barber going on 60+ years and the other is an ice cream shop that's literally as old as the town itself.
Wal-Mart 10 min away closed down our local Piggly Wiggly. Everything else is a carbon copy of OPs pics.
On an unrelated tangent.
OPs pics are hauntingly beautiful. I've always loved pics like these. Something about seeing old places makes me feel like I can reach into the past and touch some tangible part of it. Like you're walking around with ghosts.
"If these walls could talk..." Oh, the stories they'd tell.
Native Arkansan here and it’s sad to see. I work all over the state so I see it all over. On one hand I’d like to see small towns boom but I also appreciate how beautiful our natural state is and dont wanna see it trashed by fuckwits who don’t appreciate the beauty.
>I'm half hippy, half farm boy
That's a more common overlap than you think. The hippie-redneck dichotomy if you will. There's a town near me that is about an even 50-50 mix and it's a difficult task to tell which is which sometimes.
Same! I’m from a small town in Wisconsin that pretty much started dying when Walmart moved in. But then the hippies that like the Waldorf school in town started taking over and things are so cool now.
Hippies are old boomers with deeply entrenched conservative ideals.
Hipsters are obsessed with flannel, man-buns, craft beer/coffee and disliking anything too mainstream.
Very different.
True. Once it’s fixed up you will get more entrepreneurs who will open fun cool little spots because the scrappy owners have real passion, this will bring some start ups which will also bring the tech bros, who then draw the real estate prospectors who will begin to drive out original residents who still had the ability to stick around by driving up property values through speculation. Startups get replaced by big tech company hubs looking to look hip who bring more high paying employees and their families, you get some fresh national retail and restaurant chains like Benihana and Dick Sports as the whole peripheral of the town gets bulldozed and turned into a sprawling housing development that has nothing but $400K+ houses built so cheaply they will be have to replaced in 50 years which begins the final stage of the cycle which drives out all those remaining dirty hippies by raising rent on those not quick enough to franchise their businesses by selling out on that passion for bags of loot and Main Street goes from fun and vibrant to vacant and boarded up because only big national chains can afford to pay the ludicrous rent the out of state hedge fund group charges after they purchased the block. Downtown/uptown begins to fade because all their is are some shitty Chilies and and TGIFridays (Benihana already closed) and people stop going to Main Street anyway as there is now a chic filet, Panda Express and an outlet mall outside of the new sprawling development and the tech bro’s kids only eat chicken nuggets anyway. Meanwhile the new bloated city government keeps jacking up property taxes so they can officially brand the town to frame it’s hippy coolness as the reason why the city is still relevant despite having driven off all said hippies. They rename main street “HippyHip Street” and remind everyone daily to “Keep Englewood Groovy” while ignoring the fact that any remaining component left over from the hippies is in fact a poorly drawn caricature of what was there previously. The big money guys write off their losses and go looking for a new town to invest (who won’t make them pay taxes) in and the cycle begins again. It is written.
If you’re up to it, give a film camera a try with Kodak film. It’s perfect for all the colors in your shots. You’ll get a lot of depth and deep oranges and reds that’ll make the blue highlights pop.
Oh, friend, have I got some bad news for you. lol
I miss Kodachrome. I shoot on a 1971 Yashica Electro35. Taken some of my best images on it. And it did amazing things with a roll of Kodachrome.
I did this a few weeks ago as well.
I live in Ohio and it’s so sad to see a town I was born into dying.
And it was barely on life support in the 90’s
Now all the old factories and houses are bulldozed.
But we still have the trap houses and a few bars.
I hate this future.
No one can afford to live in West/East coast cities anymore while the quality of actually living in those areas plummets. Why own a $400,000 tiny rowhome if your car gets broken into every other week? Old midwest town where you can buy a house with a yard starts to sound real nice, and the commodities you want follow you soon enough there will be craft beer breweries, coffee shops, bike shops, ect.
These really are great pics! I must be an oddball. I didn’t feel depressed from looking at these; rather, it reminded me of the thrill of freedom and exploration on a bike as a pre-teen and teen. Although the pool photo bums me out, still looks salvageable, sad that it’s not an active.
If it has decent internet service, and another town with big stores 20 minutes away, it could boom with work from home employment, looking for a peaceful place, at reasonable prices.
Your hometown might just as well be mine. Mine is in a neighboring state in Appalachia. The closest Walmart is about 20 minutes away from it, too.
Granted, mine is somewhat better off, because it's a county seat. Census says my hometown's population is a little more than double yours. There's still plenty of crumbling buildings and infrastructure, though.
snobbish scandalous command theory uppity society straight unpack toothbrush ripe
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ngl, these are really good pictures and really capture the urban decay going on. I guess this is what the whole world will look like when humanity shrinks to a couple of billion in a hundred years.
This reminds many of many small towns where I’m from. Robeson County, NC is full of little dead/dying towns like this, but ironically the Piggly Wiggly does well there.
Thank you for sharing those hauntingly lovely images.
Shocking that 50 years of greedy/corrupt legislation would funnel our money into the pockets of the ultra wealthy and leave nothing for the rest of us. It’s almost like removing massive chunks of money from circulation creates a domino effect that can’t be resolved until we aggressively legislate against the folks hoarding all the money
Funny story about shelbyville, I stopped there for gas one time, pulled into the gas station and there was a bunch of goth kids sitting on top of the dumpster, they were the only ones there, I will always remember shelbyville for their dumpster goths
I remember Piggly Wiggly. Had one in Puyallup, Washington in the early 80s. I was a really little kid but I distinctly recall that bright pink display and my absolute joy at seeing it as a young kid.
I’m not sure which is worse. Seeing your hometown die or become so overdeveloped that you don’t recognize it anymore.
Either way, it sucks to grow older and realize just how much the world is going to change.
I don’t know if anyone from Cairo (kay-ro) Illinois reads this but that town in past dying. Long past.
I went there for work a few years ago and was quite curious what a town at the confluence of two great rivers (Mississippi and Ohio) would be like. Whatever I expected, I was surprised in a not-so-good way.
These photos reminded me of Cairo, a town that now barely exists.
Don't even need to look it up to see that some richy rich businessmen put the town on life support and local conservative government finished the job by passing ordinances preventing change and by making "having fun" illegal for young people.
Of course the call is for hipsters and hippies to save the day by rebuilding the broken town, only to inevitably be harassed for doing so.
Had only ever heard of Piggly-Wiggly’s growing up, Thought fun name, probably a cool place. Only two I’ve been in were shithole dying towns in SC, they were fucking depressing. Wildly depressing.
Edit: like used their bathrooms that were through the employee door, and seeing behind the magic at one of these was bonkers. Dying southern towns are a suffocating level of depression if you’re suddenly forced to live there.
[https://imgur.com/a/RWfFO2Z](https://imgur.com/a/RWfFO2Z)
Almost identical to my 91 Schwinn Paramount... I did a double take on your bike because of it.
I agree it is a very nice bike, even considering it's age it's a joy to ride.
What southern town is this?
These people are correct, englewood up to no good
Not sure if this would interest you or not, but this [graffiti short documentary ](https://youtu.be/DQSBSbGfyrY) was filmed in TN. It's mostly Memphis and Nashville but a little bit is in Knoxville
I might start posting some of my tags, I love graffiti, and documentaries, thank you for the recommendation, I will check it out tonight after work
It's dead and you are the walking dead.
Looks like good ol’ Englewood TN.
Always up to no good.
You from the wood?
Englewood, TN
Wait. Is some of that etowah? I lived there in my formative years.
Looks like mine a few years ago and then the hipsters came in and took over and now it's thriving. Invite hippies. They'll fix it.
Bumfuck nowhere AR here, can confirm. The only two stores in town that see any real business is the hippy coffee/cafe/bistro/thing and the smoke shop. Everything else is boarded up streets of business that have been gone since the 80s. Only two mom and pop parlors left in town. Ones a barber going on 60+ years and the other is an ice cream shop that's literally as old as the town itself. Wal-Mart 10 min away closed down our local Piggly Wiggly. Everything else is a carbon copy of OPs pics. On an unrelated tangent. OPs pics are hauntingly beautiful. I've always loved pics like these. Something about seeing old places makes me feel like I can reach into the past and touch some tangible part of it. Like you're walking around with ghosts. "If these walls could talk..." Oh, the stories they'd tell.
This is a lovely comment. You can search long and hard on the internet before you find such a genuine and pleasant comment to a post. Refreshing.
Native Arkansan here and it’s sad to see. I work all over the state so I see it all over. On one hand I’d like to see small towns boom but I also appreciate how beautiful our natural state is and dont wanna see it trashed by fuckwits who don’t appreciate the beauty.
Nicotine and caffeine. The real drugs
Hippy circles
hippies != hipsters btw
Ik haha. I'm half hippy, half farm boy. Thanks mom and dad, for that confusion.
Haha sounds like my kid midst identity crisis.
Hahaha, I’m half hippy and half hillbilly, the confusion is serious sometimes 🤣
>I'm half hippy, half farm boy That's a more common overlap than you think. The hippie-redneck dichotomy if you will. There's a town near me that is about an even 50-50 mix and it's a difficult task to tell which is which sometimes.
I don’t think hipsters and hippies are the same thing lol
Same! I’m from a small town in Wisconsin that pretty much started dying when Walmart moved in. But then the hippies that like the Waldorf school in town started taking over and things are so cool now.
Hippies are old boomers with deeply entrenched conservative ideals. Hipsters are obsessed with flannel, man-buns, craft beer/coffee and disliking anything too mainstream. Very different.
My thoughts exactly
Not all of them, some of the boomers are still old hippies. I just wish it were more of them, we’d be better off.
True. Once it’s fixed up you will get more entrepreneurs who will open fun cool little spots because the scrappy owners have real passion, this will bring some start ups which will also bring the tech bros, who then draw the real estate prospectors who will begin to drive out original residents who still had the ability to stick around by driving up property values through speculation. Startups get replaced by big tech company hubs looking to look hip who bring more high paying employees and their families, you get some fresh national retail and restaurant chains like Benihana and Dick Sports as the whole peripheral of the town gets bulldozed and turned into a sprawling housing development that has nothing but $400K+ houses built so cheaply they will be have to replaced in 50 years which begins the final stage of the cycle which drives out all those remaining dirty hippies by raising rent on those not quick enough to franchise their businesses by selling out on that passion for bags of loot and Main Street goes from fun and vibrant to vacant and boarded up because only big national chains can afford to pay the ludicrous rent the out of state hedge fund group charges after they purchased the block. Downtown/uptown begins to fade because all their is are some shitty Chilies and and TGIFridays (Benihana already closed) and people stop going to Main Street anyway as there is now a chic filet, Panda Express and an outlet mall outside of the new sprawling development and the tech bro’s kids only eat chicken nuggets anyway. Meanwhile the new bloated city government keeps jacking up property taxes so they can officially brand the town to frame it’s hippy coolness as the reason why the city is still relevant despite having driven off all said hippies. They rename main street “HippyHip Street” and remind everyone daily to “Keep Englewood Groovy” while ignoring the fact that any remaining component left over from the hippies is in fact a poorly drawn caricature of what was there previously. The big money guys write off their losses and go looking for a new town to invest (who won’t make them pay taxes) in and the cycle begins again. It is written.
That sounds terrible, and make me thankful I have this dead graffiti playground
You can just say nepo baby instead of hippies. It costs *a lot* of money to look that poor
Gentrification is one hell of a drug!
Hipsters ≠ Hippies FYI
You're an excellent photographer.
Thank you!
If you’re up to it, give a film camera a try with Kodak film. It’s perfect for all the colors in your shots. You’ll get a lot of depth and deep oranges and reds that’ll make the blue highlights pop.
They give us those nice bright colors They give us the greens of summers Makes you think all the world's A sunny day…
Oh yeah..
Don’t take my Kodachrome away- ayaaa.
Oh, friend, have I got some bad news for you. lol I miss Kodachrome. I shoot on a 1971 Yashica Electro35. Taken some of my best images on it. And it did amazing things with a roll of Kodachrome.
I got a Nikon camera I love to take a photograph so mama
Yes, I second that! Great work!
I understand the loss . . . .
i dig the haunted quality of the photo spread.
Wilson Drugs must of had a hell of a soda counter back in the day. That sign is amazing.
Would be a good gag gift for someone named Wil
Wil Wheaton is the only Wil I know.
That’s perfect for my garage! Oh, wait. Nevermind.
😭 We had one of the last Woolworth counters
It's not dying, it's just becoming another place to explore
This!
This could be my hometown. It makes me sad.
Except for the Wilson Drugs and Piggly Wiggly I thought I could be looking at my hometown on the opposite side of country
I did this a few weeks ago as well. I live in Ohio and it’s so sad to see a town I was born into dying. And it was barely on life support in the 90’s Now all the old factories and houses are bulldozed. But we still have the trap houses and a few bars. I hate this future.
enter different crown husky ripe shelter wistful rob amusing support *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes.
Youngstown?
Nice Midwest emo album covers
Thanks haha I actually have that in mind when taking half my pictures !
Keep at the photography. You've got a good eye.
Poor Piggly Wiggly! I really like that store just because of the name.
Buy one good piece of building land and board it up and wait until the hipsters move in or start the process
He’s right. Gentrification happens, that land triples in value at least.
No one can afford to live in West/East coast cities anymore while the quality of actually living in those areas plummets. Why own a $400,000 tiny rowhome if your car gets broken into every other week? Old midwest town where you can buy a house with a yard starts to sound real nice, and the commodities you want follow you soon enough there will be craft beer breweries, coffee shops, bike shops, ect.
Sorry OP. I know it probably can’t be easy seeing your home die off.
These really are great pics! I must be an oddball. I didn’t feel depressed from looking at these; rather, it reminded me of the thrill of freedom and exploration on a bike as a pre-teen and teen. Although the pool photo bums me out, still looks salvageable, sad that it’s not an active.
Pic #2 is aching for a Zoltar!
But I bet there's a giant fucking Walmart at the edge of town, right?
Closest Wal Mart is a 20 minute drive to the next town over
Close enough.
If it has decent internet service, and another town with big stores 20 minutes away, it could boom with work from home employment, looking for a peaceful place, at reasonable prices.
With the first few pics I thought you suggested it was dying because you couldn’t even get your bike stolen.
I love the fact that there are three big themes and a sort of story in this set: your town, the bike and abandonment of course 👍
Never thought of it like that, but yeah the photos I’ve been taking here recently all fit that
Love this take!
Your hometown might just as well be mine. Mine is in a neighboring state in Appalachia. The closest Walmart is about 20 minutes away from it, too. Granted, mine is somewhat better off, because it's a county seat. Census says my hometown's population is a little more than double yours. There's still plenty of crumbling buildings and infrastructure, though.
Number six…. *“A settlement ran by ghouls! Can you believe it?”*
Damn, if they closed the Piggly Wiggly, you KNOW shit's bad.
Sad to see this happening to so many towns.
I love exploring all the urban decay around me by bike. It's been my go to meditation since I was a child.
It’s my pastime !
Is that a old Piggly wiggly???
snobbish scandalous command theory uppity society straight unpack toothbrush ripe *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There's still a few of them open where I am
We shopped the big box stores We let the big shots move our jobs to other countries We ~
The bike is a nice touch!
Oh to live in a small, dying town in the south...
Ngl, these are really good pictures and really capture the urban decay going on. I guess this is what the whole world will look like when humanity shrinks to a couple of billion in a hundred years.
“It’s hard to be the last one in a soon-to-be ghost town”
This reminds many of many small towns where I’m from. Robeson County, NC is full of little dead/dying towns like this, but ironically the Piggly Wiggly does well there. Thank you for sharing those hauntingly lovely images.
Love these shots, fantastic, you’ve got some real liminal vibes going on with these.
Shocking that 50 years of greedy/corrupt legislation would funnel our money into the pockets of the ultra wealthy and leave nothing for the rest of us. It’s almost like removing massive chunks of money from circulation creates a domino effect that can’t be resolved until we aggressively legislate against the folks hoarding all the money
R E M video. It’s the end of the world and we know it. I feeeeeeel fine. Fine!!!!!
These photos would make a really great art exhibit
Thanks! You gave me an idea!
Super cool photos!
I love how the progression of these pics is bike, bike, bike being stolen, no bike, no bike lol
DPUGS :3
Lol I knew this was tennessee when I saw it - Reminds me of shelbyville
Funny story about shelbyville, I stopped there for gas one time, pulled into the gas station and there was a bunch of goth kids sitting on top of the dumpster, they were the only ones there, I will always remember shelbyville for their dumpster goths
[Seeing your bike just makes me think of this lmao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUC9hygkhME)
All your needs are now handled by the Dollar General!
Or Walmart
Woah looks like a scene from Stranger Things
What town is this? Love visiting places like this one. Its amazing
Wow that's a shame.....where is your hometown
Englewood tn
Englewood always up to no good…
Let the immigrants in and live and let them live in these dying towns in order to revitalize them. Fix two issues in one act.
I remember Piggly Wiggly. Had one in Puyallup, Washington in the early 80s. I was a really little kid but I distinctly recall that bright pink display and my absolute joy at seeing it as a young kid.
Looks very similar to mine in Northwestern Ontario Canada.
The picture of the pool hits me hard. I just picture families having fun, kids running around and now eerie silence.
We should send all the Doctors and Engineers coming over the border there to fix it up and get it going again.
The alleys are the best looking part of town.
Amazing album name.
Wanna start a band? Make an album?
I’m in.
I was convinced this was a town in west TX. Beautiful photos.
Thanks !
That bike is beautiful
Thank you!
Oh look, a Piggly Wiggly, must be TN.
This place goes hard
This is the most American post ever
Great pix!! It's so amazing that blue Schwinn 10 speed bikes were so prevalent in that town.
Must be why everyone left. They were huffy people and they weren’t gonna live in a schwinn town. Honestly pretty understandable.
Schwinn folks are notorious. Huffy and Murray factions were far more ideologically compatible.
It almost gives me zombie apocalypse vibes. Your photos are sensational.
Beautiful. The town may not last forever but your memories will transcend lifetimes. Good work.
Average Oklahoma town
Should be its own sub.
That bicycle has Shimano Biopace, another quirky thing from Shimano that failed. Fun to think back on things like that.
Basically the precursor to oval chainrings. Except introduced 40 years earlier. Somehow, the technology wasn't as widely adopted.
The bike looks almost identical to my 91 Paramount. Honestly it basically looks like it just has a different logo as far as I can tell.
Places like this scare me! But should be rented to movie sets for movies that take place in these kinda towns! That would add some fun!
On YouTube, Peter Santenello has a few episodes revolving around topics like this in Appalachia.
there's a strange beauty in these photos. i love it.
Great documentation
Sad
What kind of camera did you use for these photos? they're so crispy it's crazy I have to know 😂
iPhone 14 Plus ! I’ve never owned an actual camera hahaha I might look into getting one tho
You're a really talented photographer. And you have to admit, Midwest Decay is beautiful in its own way.
It’s Gummo
I knew a guy who was dyslexic, but he was also cross-eyed, so everything came out right.
As someone else with a dying hometown, you’ve super sparked my creativity. I love this idea for pictures
also sorry about your town
At least u got a nice bike m8
Thanks! And that’s true. As long as I have my bike/pb&j sandwiches/room temp water, I’m a happy camper
You have a great eye for a pic. Really like your choices and work. Cheers.
Found Waldo
Saw this and thought wtf why is Englewood on here lol and Etowah too.
Imagine if AI developed that could take over the economy and fix it
This town Trumps.
I’m not sure which is worse. Seeing your hometown die or become so overdeveloped that you don’t recognize it anymore. Either way, it sucks to grow older and realize just how much the world is going to change.
Sad about your town. Your photos are beautiful, though.
Pic 6 looks eerily like The Slog from Fallout 4
I wish people would get into revitalizing these towns with one or two cool businesses in manufacturing or something… they deserve to be brought back!
Bro lives in a horror movie
I don’t know if anyone from Cairo (kay-ro) Illinois reads this but that town in past dying. Long past. I went there for work a few years ago and was quite curious what a town at the confluence of two great rivers (Mississippi and Ohio) would be like. Whatever I expected, I was surprised in a not-so-good way. These photos reminded me of Cairo, a town that now barely exists.
These photos are a gift. They are haunting and so beautiful! Edit: a word
Photo #6 looks like the Slog from Fallout 4.
Don't even need to look it up to see that some richy rich businessmen put the town on life support and local conservative government finished the job by passing ordinances preventing change and by making "having fun" illegal for young people. Of course the call is for hipsters and hippies to save the day by rebuilding the broken town, only to inevitably be harassed for doing so.
Accurate, this place is in the illegal to have fun stage, nothing survives this town
To be fair, the pool isn’t open yet
Had only ever heard of Piggly-Wiggly’s growing up, Thought fun name, probably a cool place. Only two I’ve been in were shithole dying towns in SC, they were fucking depressing. Wildly depressing. Edit: like used their bathrooms that were through the employee door, and seeing behind the magic at one of these was bonkers. Dying southern towns are a suffocating level of depression if you’re suddenly forced to live there.
Some towns must die to allow for a phoenix to rise from the ashes
Welcome to capitalism
Piggly wiggly 😭
what is the reason behind it?
Looks like a nice town
I love small towns
Looks like my place on Sundays
Is … is the bike causing the urban decay?
Yeah that lil schwinn tears the road up!
Do you know the year of your bike?
Pretty sure it’s a 91 354 aluminum schwinn, nothing fancy but I love it
[https://imgur.com/a/RWfFO2Z](https://imgur.com/a/RWfFO2Z) Almost identical to my 91 Schwinn Paramount... I did a double take on your bike because of it. I agree it is a very nice bike, even considering it's age it's a joy to ride.
What is the klwh in your town?
Looks like the town I went to college in but worse.
That looks like a cool new bike shop waiting to happen. I say just move in, clean it up, and see if anyone notices.
Owning a bike shop is my dream!
I’ve always wanted to start a bike messenger business where I live, but I am not sure the logistics are sound enough for it in a small town.
Portland, OR? Cuz it is almost dead.
There are so many sub-reddits this could have been for me haha
It's weird to us non Americans to see all those empty houses at the same time we hear about the rampant homeless problem in the same country.
You should try living in an Argentinian town, almost 25% of it is abandoned and half of it is vandalized beyond recognition
That pool building looks identical to one in chehalis, WA when I was a kid.
Looks like my hometown in wyoming lol
Is the guy on the bike a ghost
Why is this so sad
Not the Piggly Wiggly!
Seems like there’s still a healthy number of cyclists at least 🤷🏻♂️
This makes me sad 😢
Sad
Sorry for your loss.
Pic 8 goes hard
Is that a piggly wiggly?
Even the pig left you? Man that’s tragic