Why So Few Americans Live Along The Mississippi River, Especially In The South

I saw this topic and said, to myself since nobody else is here, 'Easy, flooding."

Another historical consideration along the southern Mississippi would have been the prevalence of mosquito born diseases like malaria, Yellow Fever, etc. People didn't really understand why they were more likely to get sick in those areas but did understand that it was unhealthy land.

Americans compared it to the Nile because it's a long river that supports an entire country. That's why it has cities named Memphis and Cairo.

Little known fact, the widest navigable part of the Mississippi River is Lake Pepin at two miles wide.

As someone who lives near Memphis I don't have to even watch to tell you its flooding. The river goes above its flood plain down here almost every single year, sometimes more than once. Its the levee system and flood control reservoirs of tributaries the corp of engineers maintains that keeps it from being a major disaster every year. That said in 2011 it came just a couple of feet from over topping those levees. I was there at ground zero for work and it was some pretty wild scenes. I uploaded a video of it on here.

I work on a towboat. We regularly travel the lower Mississippi River. This man is correct about the population. Basically nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.

I grew up in Memphis. I'm telling you, the Lower Mississippi area is one of the most deprived areas of the country. But aside from the poverty and infamous crime that results from said poverty, it also gets really hot in the summer thanks to the humidity being near a large river carrying most of the rainfall in North America in the South. And the mosquitos are terrible are a result. Ugh. But Memphis isn't so far south so it also gets really cold and breezy in the wintertime thanks to the flat landscape which is also made worse by the humidity. Wet cold is worse than dry cold. Oh, and the spring time, it's tornado season because it's smack dab in middle America, aka Tornado Alley. It's just not a pleasant place to live. I have a lot of good memories growing up there, but I have to admit it. it's a challenging place to live. No wonder the blues found a home there. Memphis was at least blessed with a bluff (hence its nickname the "Bluff City") that shielded it from flooding unlike other cities on the Lower Mississippi like Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Great video though. Also, just a note, Cairo, Illinois isn't pronounced like the city in Egypt, it is "CAY-ro." ;-) Cairo, IL is an interesting town historically being at the intersection of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers but a very sad place as well. It's virtually a ghost town now but declined over the decreasing importance of river transportation vs. the railroad and highways plus racial tensions and strife.

The city of Winnipeg is built at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. The area was a meeting place for Native populations for thousands of years, but they never built a permanent city there. When European explorers showed up, they asked what the forty foot high wooden pole that had been erected there meant. The Indians told them that marked the height of spring flooding in bad years, and that was the reason that there was no permanent Native settlement there. Did European settlers listen? No. That is the reason that there is a flood diversion ditch east of the city that required more earthmoving than the Panama canal.

The advantage Minneapolis and St Paul and surrounding suburbs have is that, while they do have issues with regular flooding, the vast majority of their population and businesses exist high atop bluffs over the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Those bluffs were carved out by massive flooding at the end of the last ice age.

You'd think Cairo, Illinois would be pronounced Kai-roh like you did, but the locals actually pronounce it Kay-roh.

Just a note: Cairo, Illinois is actually pronounced like "Cay-roh." I always got it wrong too (pronouncing it like Cairo, Egypt) until a local told me how they pronounced it in the region.

The Mississippi is hard to tame, she takes what she wants. I recall seeing at least a few then boomtown getting devastated by flooding, with Cairo being one of the best known examples of that

"No major US cities" except Memphis and New Orleans.

I grew up in Minneapolis and live in St Paul today. Essentially right on the Ole Miss near downtown. I love everything the river brings and how our metro area makes use of it.

My first thought was aren't St.Lous, Memphis and New Orleans fairly large cities? Maybe he means just south of Memphis

I live in Natchez, Mississippi. The oldest settlement on the Mississippi river. Pretty cool small town. More of a retirement town now. Use to be a very rich town. Now not so much. Will never understand how anyone lived here before the invention of air conditioning. Don't really have to worry about flooding seeing how the majority of the town sits on a 200 ft bluff.

Growing up in Harahan, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, I could hit the River with a rock. It was an incredible place to be a kid. Watching the ships go by, etc.

I’m from Louisiana in an area along the river, it’s industrial use keeps people away, a lot of chemical and oil refineries, the stretch from Baton Rouge and past New Orleans is called “cancer ally”

You completely left out a half a million people living in the Quad Cities. The Quad Cities straddles the river; half in Iowa and half in Illinois. The Cities have survived majored flooding since the beginning. It would have been worth mentioning how they handle development and flood management.

I think it’d be cool to see a video on why the Phoenix metro has grown to be so much larger than Tucson or Las Vegas