In Branson, Missouri, a Two-Wheeled Fix for the Commuter Blues
WHY WE’RE HERE
We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. In this Midwest tourist town, a housing crisis has led to creative transportation solutions.
June 17, 2023
Christie Schubert fired up her new motor scooter — Taiwanese-made, with mod midcentury Italian lines — and zoomed off to work on a Friday night in Branson, Mo., the ultraconservative tourist destination in the Ozarks that touts itself as one of the most “patriotic cities in America.”
It was here, amid the brassy country-music variety shows with their tributes to the troops and salutes to the flag, that Ms. Schubert, 43, once blazed a path of excess and poor choices. Eventually, she was evicted, her car was repossessed, and she found herself living at first in the woods, and later in one of the old motels around the city’s gaudy entertainment strip.
By some estimates, close to 20 percent of the people living in Branson are homeless or staying in motels. They are workers and drifters, service industry strivers and worn-down honky-tonkers, some struggling with addiction, some raising children under trying circumstances.
Source: The New York Times
