The View From Her Recession

Christina Davidson is traveling across the country, filing recession stories as she goes. The latest dispatch is on Rebecca Polston:

Her husband Charles lost his job as a heavy machine operator last summer after the slowing real estate market put the brakes on new construction. The couple spent a few fruitless months job hunting near their home in the Charlotte, NC metropolitan-area before accepting that they would need to make some major changes if they were to survive the recession.

Charles's family in Great Falls, a hardscrabble town of 2,000 about an hour south of Charlotte, found a 4-bedroom house renting for $325 a month--$200 less than the Polston's were paying in Rock Hill. So just before Thanksgiving, Rebecca packed up their life in the city and moved to the country with her husband, three young children, and the 23-year-old brother she has cared for most of his life.

"We thought coming down here close to family we could pool our resources. Live close together. Help each other out. Make it a little easier for everyone. We did what we thought was best to survive and get through this recession," she says.

Check out a map of Davidson's trip and other recession stories here.