Opinion of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi

[Del Tachi]

Welcome to Oktibbeha County Mississippi!

Oktibbeha County is...

• Home to Mississippi State, the state's largest and most selective university and the SEC's premier agricultural university.
• Where you'll find the Cotton District, North America's oldest New Urbanist community.
• Mississippi's most "progressive" county, where the mayor and 6/7 city councillors are Democrats and the county voted for Obama even though its 62% White VAP in the Deep South!  It's also the only place in the state where you can buy liquor by the glass on Sunday.
  

Thoughts?

Here some pics for y'all...

[7,052,770]

If I could live in any county in the USA, it would be Oktibbeha.  Hands down.

[Flake]

The best county in Mississippi.

[ElectionsGuy]

Freedom County.

[Franzl]

The best county in Mississippi.

Yeah, but that's like saying a meal was Bushie's healthiest of the year.

[Alcon]

Not to beat up on Mississippi, but I don't understand what makes the place much more than a second-rate university town (the town, not the university.)  Just looking around:

1. Yelp lists like ten good restaurants, which isn't much for a college town.

2. Other amenities (entertainment and nightlife) seem even thinner on the ground.

3. All of the amenities basically seem to be in the college strip.  Speaking as someone whose closest entertainment hub is the University District, sometimes it's nice to have the option to get away from college students.

4. Not much of a downtown.  Besides the college businesses, the place looks a little depressed.  For a college town, it doesn't seem particularly vibrant or pedestrian-accessible.  It gets very suburban very quickly, and although the suburbs look pretty, again, they look pretty standard for an average college town.

5. The Cotton District has a really cool history, but as new urbanist communities go, it's fallen behind by modern standards.  It doesn't appear to have its own grocery store, for instance.

I'm not big on Mississippi for totally subjective reasons, but looking objectively, I don't really see why Starkville is a particularly great place.  It certainly has some interesting-looking festivals and other things going for it (low crime rate, the university obviously) but...meh?

[minionofmidas]

Most southern states have their librul college town.

Can someone explain to me why Tuscaloosa is so Republican?

[kcguy]

My college best friend is a prof at Miss State, so I vote Freedom County.

[minionofmidas]

Not to beat up on Mississippi, but I don't understand what makes the place much more than a second-rate university town (the town, not the university.)  Just looking around:

1. Yelp lists like ten good restaurants, which isn't much for a college town.

2. Other amenities (entertainment and nightlife) seem even thinner on the ground.

3. All of the amenities basically seem to be in the college strip.  Speaking as someone whose closest entertainment hub is the University District, sometimes it's nice to have the option to get away from college students.

4. Not much of a downtown.  Besides the college businesses, the place looks a little depressed.  For a college town, it doesn't seem particularly vibrant or pedestrian-accessible.  It gets very suburban very quickly, and although the suburbs look pretty, again, they look pretty standard for an average college town.

5. The Cotton District has a really cool history, but as new urbanist communities go, it's fallen behind by modern standards.  It doesn't appear to have its own grocery store, for instance.

I'm not big on Mississippi for totally subjective reasons, but looking objectively, I don't really see why Starkville is a particularly great place.  It certainly has some interesting-looking festivals and other things going for it (low crime rate, the university obviously) but...meh?

Also, they arrested Johnny Cash once. That's got to count against the place.

[Del Tachi]

Not to beat up on Mississippi, but I don't understand what makes the place much more than a second-rate university town (the town, not the university.)  Just looking around:

1. Yelp lists like ten good restaurants, which isn't much for a college town.

2. Other amenities (entertainment and nightlife) seem even thinner on the ground.

3. All of the amenities basically seem to be in the college strip.  Speaking as someone whose closest entertainment hub is the University District, sometimes it's nice to have the option to get away from college students.

4. Not much of a downtown.  Besides the college businesses, the place looks a little depressed.  For a college town, it doesn't seem particularly vibrant or pedestrian-accessible.  It gets very suburban very quickly, and although the suburbs look pretty, again, they look pretty standard for an average college town.

5. The Cotton District has a really cool history, but as new urbanist communities go, it's fallen behind by modern standards.  It doesn't appear to have its own grocery store, for instance.

I'm not big on Mississippi for totally subjective reasons, but looking objectively, I don't really see why Starkville is a particularly great place.  It certainly has some interesting-looking festivals and other things going for it (low crime rate, the university obviously) but...meh?

Also, they arrested Johnny Cash once. That's got to count against the place.

Johnny Cash was arrested in seven places.  He only wrote a song about one. 

[minionofmidas]

There's a reason for that, presumably!

[7,052,770]

Also, they arrested Johnny Cash once. That's got to count against the place.

You've got it backwards. The city is very proud to be associated with him as had (still have? I'm not sure) a Johnny Cash Festival a few years ago: http://www.festivals.com/viewevent.aspx?eventid=lcjDvD3GtnY%3D

[WalterMitty]

a place that only stands out because it is a small beacon of light in an otherwise benighted place.

overall freedom county.

[angus]

I posted about Starkville a few times.  The first time was when I noticed that you can only buy hot beer there.  I think my most recent about Starkville was on Harry's 21st birthday. 

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday old man.  I notice that you can actually buy cold beer in Starkville now, even though Oktibbeha's elected board of supervisors had made it illegal for many years for liquor stores to sell cold beer there.  I always found it weird that you could get a case of beer anywhere in Oktibbeha county, but they never refrigerated it.  It's a good thing that the Mississippi State Supreme court ruled in 2004 that there was nothing in the state's constitution that allowed the Oktibbeha county board of supervisors to regulate the temperature at which beer is sold.

There's also some discussion of Starkville in this thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=27467.0

And this one:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=35210.msg796849#msg796849


I can't seem to find the post I made about meeting god in the Dollar Tree in Starkville.  She was a black woman.  I was really struck by the encounter.  I don't even really believe in god most of the time but there she was, brightly-colored kaftan dashiki dress, matching hat, golden halo and all, giving me advice.  I never was really totally convinced that it was god, but then I was never totally convinced that it wasn't.  I must have made a thread about it. 

Anyway, I'll have to abstain from voting in this thread.  I'm not really crazy about Oktibbeha county, and it's not a place I'd go out of my way to visit, but the supreme court of the state of Mississippi keeps them from getting too weird with their laws so it's not downright horrible.  Also, as I mention, god may well live in Starkville, Mississippi, which probably also keeps it from being horrible.

[7,052,770]

FWIW Sunday alcohol sales were legalized in Starkville in 2009ish, and it's one of just a few cities in Mississippi to allow it.  I'm not sure when cold beer was legalized, but I know it was available while I was there.

Starkville was also the first Mississippi city to enact a public smoking ban, which I believed happened in 2005ish.

[7,052,770]

Boom! Starkville becomes the first city in Mississippi to officially adopt a pro-LGBT rights stance:

http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=30540&TRID=1

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Alcon]

Boom! Starkville becomes the first city in Mississippi to officially adopt a pro-LGBT rights stance:

http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=30540&TRID=1

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't think you need to convince us that Starkville is the most socially liberal city...in Mississippi