Live Footage In One Of The Worst Parts Of Arkansas 

Me and my husband took 6 months and drove all the way across America. We live in WA. and got all the way to Florida. We returned home in February 2020 just before all the mandatory seclusion. Would never try that these days. We hated how so many states were already turning into neglected cities/states. California was the worse for hospitality and cleanliness. Still, we had more positives than negatives, but don't think it would be that way these days. So sad how fast we are degrading our society. What have we allowed our own Govt. to do to us all. It seems like it is no longer Left against Right, but more now Good against Evil.

Thanks Nick. As a non-American who has become interested in US geography because of sports, I love seeing the less televised and more under the radar parts of the US. You’re channel has been one of the few I have found that’s covered less famous state’s brilliantly.

I worked for Russell mills in Alabama and NAFTA killed them. Ross Perot warned what would happen and they called him crazy. Ok maybe the alian abduction thing was crazy, but he was spot on with that one.

Nick, It’s so sad to see the steady demise of so many areas all across this nation.

This might explain: The racial makeup of the city was 75.6% Black or African American, 21.8% White, 0.2% Native American, 0.63% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.68% from other races, and 1.1% from two or more races. 1.5% of the population were Latino of any race.

U are going to find these kind of towns in every state not just in Arkansas the loss of industry and jobs has caused a decline in American communities it sad what's becoming of this country As for the drug problem you find that everywhere also

You know it's a bad city when even Mappy doesn't make an appearance.

The slide started before NAFTA. Kaiser Steel in Fontana, CA was sold to China and shipped to in it's entirety, including the buildings. Good jobs were eventually replaced with Walmart "associates." That was in the late 80s and early 90s.

One of the most interesting voices on RU-vid. The sarcasm is awesome.

Pine Bluff is 78% black. Homicides are ten times the national average. Many majority black cities have serious crime, drug use, poverty.

love your work kidding aside as a older American It makes me sad what has happened form the days of my youth n the 60's

“Be poor and be clean”, reminds me of the saying, “Even if you have a dirt floor, sweep it.”

Even Bill Clinton left Arkansas! I considered Arkansas as a retirement state but, once I saw the crime stats moved on. Seems like most of the major cities are crime infested nowadays.

I drove through Pine Bluff back in june of 2018 on my way to Louisiana from Central Missouri to visit my mother one last time. My GPS wasn't working right and the sun was going down and my vision was getting blurry. I decided to stop in Pine Bluff. It wasn't what I expected for a town with that much population. I drove around in disbelief because just about the whole place looked like an abandoned mess. I went to Walmart to chill out and map out a route, but I never could get a good enough signal and the parking lot didn't feel safe enough to chill out in for a while.

It doesn't look that bad? It looks green and lush and there are no homeless encampments? Cities in California look way worse than that and are way more dangerous.

Not a fan of the big cities anymore myself now either. It's why I really jumped at the chance to move out of California to Iowa. Had quite a few people questioning my own personal sanity but I stayed true to myself and my cat and took that huge jump to move out to Iowa. I love having peace & quiet. Usually it's that way here. But certain ones who have a problem with this get put away somewhere eventually. They don't play around here in Iowa. They just really have a hard time believing it's happening here in Iowa now. I don't blame them at all. But what's happening here really is going on across the USA now not just us here in Iowa.

You don't think that the non-criminalization of drug users only made society worse and much worse, because I think that here in Brazil it got worse.

You know your in the hood when there’s a dollar store on every other corner.

Let's start taking the initiative individually to make the change, all it takes 1 person to start in any comunity, c'mon we can do it and I already started here in Riverside CA. Stay positive my beautiful America.🙂🙂👍👍

I was in the Army with a guy from Pine Bluff. He was 23 years old and had already been stabbed and shot. This was in the early 90s. Of course, it was the predictable demographic that had done that to him.

When Ross Perot was running for president against President Bill Clinton he told the nation exactly what would happen to U.S. jobs if Clinton became president. He said that manufacturing jobs would be eliminated and they were.

Ya know I'm in New Jersey born & raised. We absolutely have our crime ridden area's, as well as just shitty towns. I dream of selling my home ( in my nice middle class neighborhood) and moving to a place that's affordable & has some sort of property. My husband is a hard working manufacturer supervisor, but who wants to work hard & live in a shit hole?

used to deliver office products there. It's a small town with big city problems. so beautiful by the river.

About a decade ago, I lived in the small town of Star City Arkansas when the 30-mile road connecting the city to Pine Bluff was completed. I used the road to drive to Pine Bluff to shop. The road, which was completely rural between cities, quickly became a dumping ground for unwanted pets. The number of dead dogs and cats that had been hit by cars and were lying along the road was discouraging.

"Be poor, but be clean." YES!! Thank you so much for that. I live in a transitional neighborhood... It's newly wed or nearly dead... I'm in the middle. I cannot stand watching decent houses collapse due to laziness. I have the benefit of living in Utah which is a generally decent place... that being said,; Jesus just clean up. It does not take money to keep a decent house. Nobody has to be fancy, but throwing the trash out, goes a long way.

Ross Perot asked “do hear that sucking sound? That is your jobs going to Mexico”

I am from Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is another city which has been on a decline, but not like to the extent of Pine Bluff. Pine Bluff didn't always have such a bad reputation but even in Arkansas, which has many bad places, most folks wouldn't even drive through Pine Bluff! Bill Clinton did NOTHING to help the majority of Arkansas cities. The only area of the state that is thriving is the northwest part and that is very sad.

I grew up there, but like everyone else I grew up with, we are mostly in Northwest Arkansas now where the jobs are. Pine Bluff will always be home. My grandparents talked about how great it was in the 40s and 50s. My parents talk about how it started getting bad in the 70s. Growing up there in the 80s and 90s, I remember lots of shootings. I wasn't allowed to go to the mall anymore because of the shootings, or the skating rink, or the teen club. There are some really great people in Pine Bluff and it still has potential if more jobs would come to the area. Arkansas is home to Walmart, JB Hunt, and Tyson. They pump money into Northwest Arkansas but leave areas like Pine Bluff and Jefferson County out. UAPB is a historically black college and it needs to be lifted up along with the community. The Walton Foundation should offer their help and money to Jefferson County, not just Benton and Washington Counties. Pine Bluff is full of good people and there is so much potential there. I love Pine Bluff. I just could not raise my children there and it breaks my heart.

As if someone wants to pay for a house in pine bluff to get inundated with drugs and crime.

I relocated to Arkansas from coastal WA (Aberdeen) and really love it down here. Contrary to what some in the chat were saying, there are plenty of jobs down here. Granted most aren't high paying, and you'll have to bust your butt, but they are jobs. If you work hard you will get ahead here, and there is way more opportunity here than WA St for sure. The only real problem I see down here is the work ethic, the place I work for in LR will have twenty applicants, and easily half will be no shows for interviews, and then half of those who did show would be no call, no shows their first week of work and they will still expect to keep their job after not showing. Also telling someone to be at work at 0800 usually means 0830 or 0900 here, tardiness seems to be the way things are here. Fix the shitty work ethic and you'll fix a lot of problems here.

I've seen worse. Stockton, CA is a garbage hole, for example.

I grew up in NOLA and have watched the decline over the last 50-`60 years, The one common denominator is Democratic rule. Black or White doesn't matter, These politicians feed off the misery and ignorance of many people in these cities. I now live in the northern suburbs of NOLA and our schools are very good , crime is low and there are tons of police. They don't mess around in my parish ,if you do the crime ,you do the time. Liberal / socialism has ruined the fabric of most major and now small cities,it is truly sad! You get what you vote for,wake up people!

“Everyone likes to see me run red lights.” 😂😂😂😂 We cracked up! Good one Nick!

Random trailers and homes with explosion holes = meth lab gone bad 😂

Way to stop for that red light!!!! 😂😂😂. You take of yourself on these journeys! You’re doing an excellent job of raising awareness of the work that needs to be done.

Dig this channel. I'm going to ramble so I don't care if anyone reads this. I watch videos, jot down my thoughts, copy to word doc before I post and it's a bit like my journal. I definitely want to go to Roosters in Tennessee. So, what I'm noticing as you tour the country is that cities suck, small towns suck, mid sized cities suck, San Bernadino really surprised me. Used to fly to Vegas and drive from my uncle's place in Vegas through SB all the time as a teen in the 80s until just a few years ago on our way to a place we had in Escondido. Never stopped there but assumed it would be fine, just like any CA big LA suburb. So, here's what I've noticed. I grew up west and south of Yellowstone a bit, really cold obviously but everyone had a house, couple cars, food, etc. City metro probably 100k, has since grown a lot, but things were prosperous in a no one seemed totally broke kind of way. It's way more expensive now, I live in the same state but larger city and again, the city is pretty prosperous with a few obvious rich and poor but most people in the middleish. That type of wealth distribution is getting super rare. Here's the problem, my two oldest are now in their early 20s and houses are way out of control expensive. I downsized house size when they got on their way in 2018 and for a bit last year my dumb little abode had doubled in value in 4 years. They want to live around here but how will they ever buy a house? An entire generation forced to choose between never owning a home or living in a place like Pine Bluff that should be nice but there are no real jobs. Can't we just quit this massive rush towards massive urbanization and megatropolis cities and sort of spread out a little bit? With a town of 40k population if an employer of 1,000 people paying $15 an hour would revolutionize an entire town and region. This is totally unsustainable as a society. You have places like Pine Bluff and Detroit metro that within my parents' lifetime was probably pretty liveable and now you can't give a house away. It seems like more and more of America is either Pine Bluff or super expensive mega cities with people who sleep in bunkbeds in a studio apartment in a disgusting crowded city like SF or NY. To live in our major cities if you make less than $250k you're pretty much out of luck. There's been some seriously crappy management of whoever has been in charge of stuff in America over the past 3 or 4 decades because this just shouldn't be the case.

There are good people everywhere.

Pine Bluff isn’t good… neither is West Memphis and Little Rock. If you are in Arkansas, you need to check out Eureka Springs, Mountain Home, Mena, Fayetteville, Cade Gap

At least they have a lot of beautiful trees.

easy fix take the trillions of dollars they send to other countries for them to have nice towns and send some to Arkansas for they can have a nice place to live.

👋I appreciate you folks who drive around like this through these smaller towns because I am checking out the southern parts of the States. I'm a West Coast lady and I'm totally alone now and my only point I can go is to Long Island to live with a lifelong friend but I want to see if I can possibly find a postage stamp-sized a dirt with a small place to live for myself. These videos give me food for thought. Be safe and thank you for doing these videos. I'm taking a trip in April to Alabama to visit some friends after this last tornado and try to help them out a little bit.

Remember when Elvis moved back to Arkansas? Exactly.

NAFTA was the beginning of the end for many

Like it or not, it's called "White Flight". Pine Bluff, Osceola, West Memphis and several others.

Thank you America for sacrificing your towns, cities and prosperity so that other countries can flourish from the jobs you've sent them. Your politicians are noble, global-minded leaders that deserve all the kick-backs they get for selling your jobs to foreign countries. We will miss you when you're gone, but the world thanks you for everything you've done.

This is one state I'm unfamiliar with. Love your work. Cheers from Toronto Ontario Canada!

Thanks Nick. Considering other eras in the U.S., this is the new normal for the 21st century.

Boy, that was sad as hell. Whenever you take us through these ruined towns I see the rundown houses and see how pretty they must have been, think about how that downtown must have been when it was bustling and it really makes me sick what the government has done to our country.

Those roads are as smooth as glass. I live in Massachusetts with lots of potholes due to the salt and harsh weather. I don't see anything wrong with where you are driving the first 10 minutes of your video.

Fascinating stuff nick. Thank you👍

Suburbs were lovely but the centre had strong Fallout vibes.

Looks SO much better than North Vegas and way way cheaper, just saying.

Hey Nick hate to bother you just wondering if we can get a pt.2 of Little Rock if possible… great content and great info as well thank you

Bringing jobs back to America is the answer.

Remember in 1992, Ross Perot said about NAFTA : If NAFTA is passed, That loud noise you will hear is sucking sound of American manufacturing jobs disappearing “…

I can't believe that Nick went live from my hometown and I missed it!

I don’t know why anyone would be surprised, we now live in a third world country. We are trillions in debt. Our government is corrupt and our future is bleak. There are cities such as this in all states.

You do a very good job letting people know where not to go,be careful 😉

I've never even been to the USA but Nick's films really paint a depressing picture - is it really all on the slide as much as we see or does Nick just show the bad stuff?

I live in NW Arkansas, from Rockford Illinois. NW Arkansas is amazing! Can’t speak about anywhere else in Arkansas. But from the looks of this video. Pine bluff looks safe compared to Rockford.

Weather looks nice in pine bluff AR

I theorize that the prisons release the felons and they must stay in pine bluff. It's just a really rough place.

Thanks for all the work you do to bring this info to us.

I’ve heard Hot Springs is beautiful, but think that’s more of a summer type spot. If you wanna go total sh*thole give Little Rock a try, it’s right up there with Oakland and Detroit.

Demographics do not favor recovery in these areas.

I live in Bossier City. Shreveport is a lot worse. Think it's #5 on the worst list. People will shoot you at a red light in Shreveport. Seriously. Will you be going to Hot Springs? I have always loved it there but haven't been since 2009. Stay safe, 🙏

I normally don't comment but you drove by so many childhood memories. I grew up in Pine Bluff in the 90s and 2000s when it was really bad before moving out for a better job. All of my family still lives there and you actually drove through the better parts of town starting in the Watson Chapel area then over in Dollarway but I don't blame you about not wanting to drive through the rougher parts at the time of day you were driving. The big vacant building in the downtown that you thought was an apartment was the old Hotel Pines which was Pine Bluff's finest hotels until the 70s when it closed. Packingtown over towards the railroad yard, the neighborhoods around 17th and Cherry, and the area north of the Martha Mitchell Express way between UAPB and Dollarway are a few of areas that you wouldn't want to be hanging around at night. Anyways, great tour! - Jason

Great vid. I hope you do one of atlanta and georgia one day. We got small towns here like that.

Well, this is a terrible representation of Arkansas. I lived in the northwest and central area for decades and love it. WalMart headquarters is in Rogers so the area has jobs. There’s also Tyson and JB Hunt. Living in the Ozark Mountains was incredible and I love the people there. You should now do a video around Rogers and fayetteville to show how nice it is. It’s usually on short lists of best places to live! ❤️🤟🏻

I’m a regular always watching your videos. I know your from San bernadino, I’m from Huntington Beach. Just a heads up Huntington Beach just purposed a plan to rid of homelessness in 90 days, I really want to know what the results going to be after this

Drive safe Sir. Enjoy your content. Very thoughtful about keeping the Sun out of our eyes.

America 2023, keep throwing more $$$$$$$$ at Ukraine, it's all "good" here...

When you look at the demographics of Pine Bluff (specifically the racial makeup) it becomes clear why the crime rate is so high.

peoples not complaining about housing being to high people are complaining about housing being to high in any areas that are not shit holes

Here in LA (Lower Arkansa), we refer to it as Crime Bluff. It was also the place to murder a SO & get away with it. The sad part is that you can still see, sometimes barely, how majestic the city once was. The doorway to the Delta.

What strikes me, is just how empty the streets are

DOING CITY TOURS IN So Cal.....stop by for some FUN.....SHITEHOLE TOURS.

It's too bad these properties can't be used. You would think with the transition to remote workers being nomads, these ghost towns would revitalize. Have you ever done a tour of a ghost town coming back to life with incoming people?

It used to be a decent town. You should head up to Austin, AR. My dad lives there and it’s pretty good little town. North Little Rock is my hometown. You should do a drive thru!

Pine Bluff was even bad 34 years ago when I lived 12 mites north of it we use to shop there I move from Oregon and the south was so different there are a lot of good people in Arkansas

Wow! I think I would be getting pretty depressed if I were you. You mention towns that are being developed and are pretty and many of us wouldn’t like that either. Well, I know it probably seems that way but the problem with too much developments the explosion of too many people and the rubbing out in some cases of the whole culture of a place before poverty set in and re-development started. Plus, another thing about development NOW is that it also makes everything in an area extremely more expensive. It blows your mind how much nowadays that new development devastates an area in another way. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium. It’s either total poverty or too much overblown development which sometimes erases history as well. I really do appreciate your videos though, Nick. I actually do want to know what other parts of America are experiencing. Your videos are important.

Some of those derelict homes have great bones. Its a shame to see them destroyed. Once upon a time they were beautiful well kept treasured homes.

I live in Fayetteville. Beautiful town, but bring lots of money because the price of housing and rent is sky high!

Knew where he was before he said it. 😅

50 thousand is an amazing deal for a house! Almost hard to believe they could be that cheap! :)

I’ve been a Realtor since 2002. I’m from Sunny Southern California. I moved to Bakersfield, Apple Valley, Banning, Hemmit, Victorville, San Bernardino California after 2008. Unemployment was 45%! No jobs, No Hope. Things finally turned around.

True statement that the law enforcement is struggling. We get what we pay for folks. Good people can only do so much. Social Services need funding. Let’s take action. Get involved. Locally.

If you go to Little Rock, go to West Little Rock, as it's the best part of Little Rock, and not the source of all the bad crime statistics. The Fayetteville, Rogers, Bentonville area in N.W. Arkansas is the best part of Arkansas.

E St Louis to Pine Bluff: Hold my beer...

People need to see this. Stay Free

When I was young we moved from Jonesboro, Ar to Pine Bluff because my dad was a Conductor for the Union Pacific RR and it meant he would be home each night during the week by us moving there. Needless to say we lasted one year and packed up and moved back to Jonesboro. We did live in the Watson Chapel area which was a nice area back in 1977.

I mention Louisiana in one of my novels. Baton Rogue and such for a major climatic battle.

Mappy needs to tell us the demographics of these towns.

Hasn't Sarah HUCKERBEE solved all of those problems yet?

I used to frequent Pine Bluff as an ex worked on the railroad there; spent many a weekend there. I always stayed at the hotel right across the street from the mall. There is a nice area over on the other side of Pine Bluff, where Chef Lee and Wal-Mart is.... but anyway, yeah all the footage you were showing was extremely familiar and sad. Thanks for being brave enough to go into these areas. Really enjoy watching your content. You were in Shreveport, you should have come east to Monroe/West Monroe; it's pretty bad here too. Look up our statistics; all the gang shootings and lack of jobs and people leaving in droves.

Come up to newton co.,buffalo river area ,just the opposite!

That’s my hometown, born at the JRMC hospital. It is honestly such a shame to see how bad it becomes year after year. I so wish that it could have a renaissance of quality jobs, and good honest people to invest in it.

Come on, Nick. I love your videos and, as a lifelong Arkansas-an, I’m not going to argue with anything about what you’re showing or saying. But the other end of the State is completely different. NWA was rated as #7 of the top 150 metro areas in the United States. Come check us out!

It's like an Armageddon film set... so very very sad.....no wonder the ones who cared or bothered slowly gave up.. ..

Thanks Nick for doing what you do.👍