Beattyville is near&#x2F;in the Red River Gorge area, depending on exactly where you draw the boundaries. I&#x27;ve spent a lot of time nearby on climbing trips, and yes, the area is astonishingly poor. Climbers rarely get that far south of Mountain Parkway, but the whole area is in pretty rough shape.<p>I think one of the things that&#x27;s interesting to consider about this is that there is a large stream of people coming into the area, and it isn&#x27;t just climbers. The area is full of recreation opportunities. What isn&#x27;t clear is how to ensure that the money works its way out into the communities. In all of the trips I&#x27;ve made, I&#x27;ve spent money in just a handful of businesses: 3 campgrounds, 1 pizza place (which also happens to be a campground), 1 other restaurant, the much loved beer trailer, and the Shell station in Slade.<p>It&#x27;s not clear that tourism is a viable replacement for resource extraction in an area where there are established communities. Tourism, and eco-tourism specifically, is something we see pitched as a way to save undeveloped land in the developing world, but based on what I see in the Red River Gorge area, it hasn&#x27;t brought much prosperity to the region as a whole. Perhaps if there isn&#x27;t an established economy and population based on resource extraction it can be made to work, but the hard reality seems to be that resource extraction employs a lot more people.<p>I love getting outside, and the Red River Gorge area is a beautiful place to do it. I want to see the country (and the world) make a shift towards renewable energy. I work to reduce the amount of waste I generate. But when you get right down to it, there are a lot of places where the economy is based on resource extraction, and I have a hard time envisioning what the people living in those places are going to do if the brighter, greener future comes to pass.<p>Beattyville may be struggling because the cost of coal mining locally can&#x27;t compete with the cost of coal mining in Wyoming, but making a shift towards greener energy is going to put a lot more communities in a similar situation.