I live in the economically depressed area south of Atlanta. It’s been dying out for quite some time. As businesses shut down, the empty buildings are inevitably taken over by lower-quality businesses, and most of them lately are payday loan stuff.

I have a ten mile run on surface streets to hit the interstate (and on an unrelated note, if the city’s mass transit system actually extended this far south, in the way that it extends far, far further north, the decay might not be so pronounced). This morning, after a couple of those miles, I decided to count the payday loans, check cashing, and title pawn sites I could see from the road. 

There were 16. Assuming (roughly correctly) that I only managed to count 8 of those miles, that’s two per mile. And that doesn’t include pawn shops which may offer similar services, because I counted only the distinct buildings and strip mall sites I could see with the terms “title”, “payday”, and “check cashing”. There may have been more under other names, and several of the larger intersecting boulevards probably had plenty more to add to the count, which I missed. 

Anyway. Thought I’d share that observation.