There were only a few scattered cities – small courthouse towns serviced the farm population. Local politics revolved around the politicians and lawyers based at the courthouse. Mill towns, narrowly focused on textile production or cigarette manufacture, began opening in the Piedmont region especially in the Carolinas. Racial segregation and outward signs of inequality were everywhere, and rarely were challenged. Blacks who violated the color line were liable to expulsion or lynching. Cotton became even more important than before, as poor whites needed the cash that cotton would bring. Cotton prices were much lower than before the war, so everyone was poor. White southerners showed a reluctance to move north, or to move to cities, so the number of small farms proliferated, and they became smaller as the population grew.