There was much debate over this week over the fact that some obscure website named Yazoo County one of the top 10 worst places to live in the country.
The report was produced by a website known as Roadsnacks, and most people around here wouldn’t have even known it existed if some of the Jackson television stations weren’t so desperate to pick up traffic on their social media pages that they shared it.
Of course some people took it as the gospel. Some said it confirmed what they already suspected about their hometown. Most of these people usually have negative perceptions of everything anyway.
Others took it as fighting words.
Former Mayor Wardell Leach visited with me the next morning to express his disgust for the report. I assured him that I feel the same way, and that it wouldn’t take long before the report was forgotten and Roadsnacks returned to its previous status of being completely irrelevant.
It was good to see local residents disputing the report on the evening news, even though the television station conducting those interviews was partly responsible for bringing the report any attention in Mississippi in the first place.
The next day Roadsnacks doubled down and placed Yazoo City in the Top 10 Dumbest Places in America.
I hated to give this website any of the traffic that its producers are obviously so desperate to attract, but I decided to take a look to see what Roadsnacks is all about.
The website has apparently produce reports on the “dumbest” cities in just about every state. They also rank the “drunkest,” “snobbiest” and “most ghetto” along with other riveting reports.
In case you haven’t already reached the conclusion that these aren’t exactly prestigious studies, Roadsnacks describes its reports as “infotainment.”
In addition to being mean spirited, these reports are just plain dumb. Yazoo County’s employment rate was inflated, and factors like the comparatively low cost of living and other things that contribute to quality of life weren’t considered.
Yazoo County isn’t in the top 10 worst places to live in Mississippi, much less the nation.
Sure, we have our share of problems. Many of them are documented each week in this newspaper.
But Yazoo County is still a great place to live. I live here because I choose to, and even with the flaws that exist in our community there is no place I’d rather be.
Of course we should all work to make Yazoo County the best it can be, but don’t let your image of your community be shaped by some moron writing for a website you’ve never even heard of. Ignore them, and they will go away.
