This is going to be completely anecdotal and something I’ve heard second hand, but I remember being told that there’s a place where there’s a Christian and Muslim community are right next to each other in Thrace with an old Roman road between them. My friend was complaining that the road in the Christian village was completely in disrepair and overlooked, but then he praised the Muslims for preserving the road and taking care of it.

My speculation would be two fold, and I’d love to be corrected by someone more familiar. My expectation is that on one hand Greek villages in western Thrace received a lot more state support until recently and this may inspired a more localist and self sufficient mentality in the local community. That or it’s generally easier for Christian Greek communities to integrate into the major metropolitan areas of Athens and Thessaloniki of which we’ve seen essentially desertion of villages for over the decades, or to just leave the country entirely. This again could raise the value of preserving and investing locally over just leaving for better prospects.