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Good Yankee started with a TikTok video about what it means to be a “Good Yankee” in the South. “Yankee” is a term Southerners use either lovingly or condescendingly for Northeastern transplants. In my case, I embraced the slang — along with everything else about the Southern culture that made the town I now call home so special.
After COVID, I watched more Yankees move into my small Upstate South Carolina town. Unfortunately, many seemed more interested in complaining than adapting. They arrived disappointed that this wasn’t New York with a better view. At the same time, I saw developers and a system of elites move in and begin upending our small main streets, turning them into uniform pieces of urban sprawl. Terms like “wasted space” and “progress” were used to justify the endless new housing developments popping up across our Southern states.
It is obvious to me that this isn’t organic growth — it’s engineered change. The middle class is being squeezed. Homeownership is becoming harder. Blue-collar rural communities are being pushed aside. We’re told it’s progress. We’re told it’s inevitable. We’re told everyone will be happy in the end...
"You'll own nothing, and you will be happy about it."
That’s the plan — at least.
After hearing stories from across the country including small rural areas like mine in the south, in the Midwest, and even New England, I realized this is an issue that affects all American working-class and middle-class communities. It is not just a Southern issue, but an American one.
My goal is to create a grassroots movement to push back against reckless gentrification and overdevelopment in rural towns, blue-collar areas, and coastal communities that do not need it. Growth can be good. But this post-COVID, rapid, inorganic expansion is not sustainable, and it is not benefiting the families who already live here.
However this is not a system I can fight alone, I need your help.
This page exists to connect our towns — not just today, but for the future.
If you have a story, a concern, or a plan you’d like to share, I want to hear from you. Right now, your stories help us raise awareness, build credibility, and connect like-minded communities across the country. In the future, with enough support and participation, this will become a network where farmers, landowners, small business owners, and concerned residents can ask for help, share strategies, and organize effectively.
The more we communicate — and the more we build a system of people committed to protecting local farmland, blue-collar family communities, and small coastal towns — the greater our chances of becoming loud enough to be heard nationally.
This is how movements start.
With stories.
And with people willing to speak up.