- [Briggs] Are you thinking about moving
to rural North Carolina?
Did you watch our "Best Rural Towns
in the Tar Heel State" video?
If you did, today we're looking
at the other side of that Tar Heel coin.
That's right, we're looking at the worst
rural towns in North Carolina.
Whenever I post a best rural towns video,
I get a flood of emails and comments
that normally start with, "What about this town?"
And then they go on to list some random rural town
that in most cases isn't really
a great town to live in.
Like I said in the last video, I thought I should start
listing the rural towns that you should probably avoid.
Are these towns the worst place on Earth?
No, they just have some bad stats,
a bad location, things like that.
These towns have high crime, high unemployment numbers,
and more than enough poverty to go around.
One thing I do need to say.
When you look at small rural towns anywhere
in this country or other countries,
90% of the people are some of the best folks
you'll ever encounter.
Small town people are like that.
They're always willing to lend a hand, help you out.
They just have that 10% screwing up a really nice place.
That's usually the scenario
with any rural or small town.
Got it? Get it? Good!
Let's take a look at North Carolina.
Number six, Ansonville, North Carolina.
Ansonville sits about an hour east
of Charlotte, North Carolina,
just a little west of the Pee Dee River
where you could do some fishing
and try and figure out why someone named
an island Buzzard Island.
This is the type of place
you don't wanna be stomping around the woods
without knowing where you're going.
You might run into someone's moonshining operation.
Just kidding, that's not as much of a thing
as it once was here in the South,
but it's not out of the realm of possibility.
Keep that in mind.
The good news about Ansonville
is they got a Dollar General last March.
It opened up, which, a Dollar General is great.
You don't have to get all dressed up
like you would if you're going to Walmart.
Ansonville has a livability score of 55.
Like I said in the last video,
if you're above 85 or 90,
it's a really nice place to live
and it's probably a gated community.
When you get around 80 to let's say 75,
it's a normal, middle class, blue-collar place.
When you start getting below let's say 70 and 65,
it starts to suck pretty good.
Ansonville is 55.
They've got a population of just about 700 residents
and they're continually losing some,
just a few every couple years,
but they're not growing.
They also have a little good news in their stats.
Their cost of living is 15% below the national average.
Like we've all learned,
if nobody wants to live some place, it's pretty cheap.
Housing is 49% below the national average.
And here's where it starts getting bad.
Their crime rate is 76% higher than the national average,
and their violent crime rate's 69% higher
than the national average, so they're getting
after each other there.
Their poverty level is almost 20%
above the national average,
19.9% to be exact,
and their unemployment numbers,
72% higher than the national average.
If you decide you want to buy a home here,
the homes are pretty cheap.
I was looking around, nothing for sale right now,
but in June of this year and May,
they sold some homes that are livable that normally come
on like 1/2 an acre or something like that.
You can get 'em between $150,000 and $200,000.
That's not bad.
If you need a doctor, they're doing pretty good there, too.
They got a clinic in town
and a family practice, so that's legit.
If you need anything more, you can go
to Charlotte or Monroe.
They have full-blown hospitals.
It's like I said, an hour or 45 minutes
away to Monroe, and then Wadesboro has
some bigger facilities than Ansonville has.
Number five, Garland, North Carolina.
Garland is a rural small town, far away from everything.
The nearest major city is Wilmington,
about an hour to the south.
Fayetteville is a little bit closer to the north,
but I have a policy about Fayetteville.
Never suggest going there to anyone
unless I don't like 'em.
If you were ever stationed at Fort Bragg,
you know exactly what I'm talking about.
This is a little out of the way farm place.
It's really around nothing,
just other little small rural towns.
One cool thing I did read about Garland
is last month, they played "Wizard of Oz"
at the local theater
on what would have been Judy Garland's 100th birthday.
Garland doesn't have any good fishing or golf.
They do however have a lot of homes in the area
that use their front yard as a salvage operation.
This place has a livability score of 50.
Remember what I said, anything below like 65
starts to suck, yeah they're at 50.
Garland has a population of about 552 residents.
Their cost of living, here's another bonus.
Again, like we've learned, if you don't want
to live there, it's cheap.
17% lower than the national average.
Housing is 61% lower than the national average.
There's nothing for sale right now
except for a few lots, and depending on the acreage
that can be anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000.
In the last few months, though, they did sell some homes
that needed a little work
and they were a little bit older.
They were like under $70,000.
That ain't bad. Now here's where it is bad.
Their total crime rate is 68% above the national average.
Violent crime rate is 61% above the national average,
and your stuff is definitely not safe here
because the property crime rate
is 70% above the national average.
They've got a poverty rate
that's almost 19%, 18.8%.
Their unemployment is 15% lower
than the U.S. average.
That's weird, they actually have jobs here.
They can't be good paying jobs,
'cause the median household income here
is $30,000, that's 45% lower than the U.S. average.
Now they have a Garland Shirt Company
that pretty much employs most of the town.
They did shut down during the pandemic,
which sucked, but they have since re-opened
and hired new employees.
This Garland factory has been making shirts since the 1950s.
Garland's not doing bad when it comes to healthcare.
They've got a medical center in town.
It's small, but, you know, it might suit your needs.
But if you need a full-blown hospital,
you got about a 20-minute ride
to the southwest, to Elizabethtown,
which is the next on our list.
Number four, Elizabethtown, North Carolina.
Like I said, 20 minutes southwest of Garland,
you have the town of Elizabethtown.
Elizabethtown is a great place if you do like to fish
and go to Walmart.
They have both, they have the Cape Fear River
running right alongside the town
and they got a Walmart in about the center of town.
This one's a little bigger than most of the towns
on this list, but it is definitely a rural small town.
There's a couple theories on how this place got its name.
One believes that this English nobleman,
his wife's name was Elizabeth,
and they named this town after her.
And then the other one is a local landowner
had a mistress, and he named the town after his mistress.
Elizabethtown, though, is a good-sized place.
Has things like Pizza Hut, Domino's,
"Lion King", it's like a little city
but it is definitely rural.
There's nothing around this place.
I should say nothing outside of town,
other than wooded areas, a river,
a few lakes and farmland.
Like I said in the last one,
Elizabethtown does have a hospital.
It's a good size, so just about anything
you're gonna need is gonna be done there.
You need anything bigger, you might have to go
to Lumberton, which is only about 35 minutes away.
But really, Wilmington is your best bet
for a legit hospital with everything you're looking for.
Lumberton's 35 minutes to the west.
Elizabethtown has a livability score of 60.
Like I said, this is kind of big.
They've got about 3,500 residents here,
so that's a little big for a rural town,
but it's definitely rural.
The overall cost of living here is 12%
below the national average, and housing
is 44% below the national average, so that's solid.
What sucks is their crime rate
sits about 95% above the national average.
Violent crime rates 146% above the national average.
What is going on here?
Are they having like surprise fight clubs
behind the Walmart or something like that?
Go back behind Walmart, maybe you're looking
for cardboard and next thing you know
you're involved in a fight club or something.
Your stuff ain't safe, either.
That's 85% above the national average for property crime.
And nobody's got jobs because their unemployment rate's
about 25% higher than the national average.
The people that do have jobs aren't making much,
because their household income is $21,000.
That's the median, that's 62% lower
than the national average.
But they got hospitals in town and fishing.
Number three, Rosman, North Carolina.
Rosman is a nice little western North Carolina town
just south of Asheville, North Carolina.
This is a great town if you like to do fly fishing
or really any kind of fishing.
You like rafting, kayaking, things like that.
The town sits right on the French Broad River
about an hour or so north of Greenville, South Carolina.
Rosman is actually growing.
In the last three census, they gained 120 people.
That doesn't sound like a lot,
but the town has under 700 residents,
so that's a good jump in population.
If you're in the French Broad River,
watch out for snakes, that's one thing I can tell you.
If you don't like snakes,
don't go in the French Broad River.
This whole area has a whole bunch of creeks,
and the river there, it's a pretty interesting place.
What's really interesting is their livability score.
It's 56. That's not good.
Like I said, they've got a population of under 700.
It's actually 673.
Their overall cost of living, which we've learned
if a place isn't that great,
the cost of living is pretty low.
Theirs is 13% below the national average.
Housing is 39% below the national average.
The total crime rate is 57% above the national average.
Violent crime rate is 50% higher.
And property crime's 58% higher
than the national average.
Those aren't good numbers.
Their poverty level is pretty scary.
It's 29.4%, so yeah.
Almost 30% of this town lives below the poverty line.
The median household income here is less than $25,000.
That's 56% lower than the national average.
This place is kind of strange when it comes to real estate.
They've got a lot of really rundown places
you don't want to buy, and that helps bring down
our median home value.
But they've got a lot of really nice places
in and around the river that are pretty expensive.
I'm talking $440,000, $855,000,
$420,000, it can get pretty pricey here.
I wouldn't say it's a resort town.
It's kind of an outdoor adventures type of go to place.
Beautiful country around here,
they just don't have the best stats at all.
As far as healthcare goes, they don't have anything in town.
So if you get bit by a snake,
you better have someone such the poison out.
The good news is right up the road you got
the Transylvania Regional Hospital.
That's like 15 minutes away.
Number two, Sunbury, North Carolina.
Sunbury is a census-designated place
and an unincorporated community in Gates County.
This one's on the eastern side of the state,
a little less than an hour from the coast.
This is also a great place to move to if you think hanging
out at a gas station on a Friday night sounds like a hoot.
You should only move here
if you're completely out of options.
With a livability score of 47,
you have to try to suck to get that bad.
They have a population of about 265 residents
and their overall cost of living is even
with the national average.
The place isn't great and they're the average.
That doesn't make sense at all.
You're supposed to get a discount
for living in a place like this.
Housing is only 14% below the national average.
What is high is their crime rate.
It's actually 45% higher than the national average.
And 12.1% of their population lives
below the poverty line.
The unemployment rate averages
about 219% above the national average.
The people that do work aren't doing terrible.
Their median household income
is $40,781, that's only 26% lower
than the national average, which is still better
than a lot of other places, like we just talked
about Rosman, that one was $24,000.
I was reading they had a special meeting
because some of the municipalities,
and this one included, has failing water
and sewer infrastructure,
and they're in desperate need of fixing that.
If you wanna buy a house here,
the only thing they have going right now
is, it's okay, but it's $370,000
which for this area you'd expect it
to be a little bit cheaper.
In recent months, back in May
and April of this year though,
they did have some ones that need a lot of work
and they were going for under $100,000.
Kinda looks like anything that's decent's
gonna be around $250,000.
Little less, little more.
As far as healthcare goes, they got nothing in town,
but they got a couple places
like Gateway Community Health Center
in Gatesville, which is about 15 minutes away.
That's not terrible but still nothing in town.
All right, before we get to number one,
don't forget to hit that like button,
hit that subscribe button if you already haven't.
It doesn't cost you a thing,
and you'll subscribe to On This Day, our other channel.
There's a link down below.
All right, on to number one.
And number one, Oxford, North Carolina.
Oxford sits about 30 minutes northeast
of Durham, North Carolina.
It's home to Revlon's largest manufacturing facility.
Revlon, the makeup people, yeah it's right here.
Their largest facility.
It's also home to Hannah Cifers.
She is a UFC fighter, actually she's an ex-UFC fighter.
She just got dropped from the promotion recently.
You lose four fights in a row,
that type of thing happens.
But I still liked watching her fight.
This one almost didn't make the list
because it's a little too big.
But a lot of the residents live
in the rural areas around the town,
so we included it.
They have a livability score of 50.
That's not great, and then population
of about 8,700 residents.
Their overall cost of living
is 13% lower than the national average.
So that's not bad, it's a good size rural town
or small town, whatever you want to call it,
and they've got a pretty low cost of living.
Housing is also pretty low, 27%
below the national average.
The downside is their crime is 46%
above the national average.
Their violent crime rate is 163%
above the national average.
That ain't good.
25.8% of their residents live below the poverty line.
That sucks.
If you got some health problems,
this is probably a really good place to live,
because down in Raleigh Durham,
you have some of the best healthcare we have in the country.
Now they don't have much in and around town.
They got a couple clinics and things like that
and a couple doctor's offices,
but if you need anything big, you're gonna head down there.
Like I said, their homes are a little bit
below the national average, but really they're not,
they just have a lot of really rundown cheap places
that brings down the average.
Realistically, if you wanna buy a home here,
you're looking at a minimum $250,000.
Anything below $200,000 probably isn't
gonna be worth your time.
But it goes all the way up.
They have a lot of new construction
for close to $400,000, $500,000.
They even have some with lot of acreage
that are going for over a million dollars.
But you'd better bring some horses,
because those are usually horse farms
or ranches, whatever you want to call them.
All right, that's today's video.
I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Hope you got some information out of it.
Now go out, have a productive day
and be nice to each other.