Why West Virginia Can't Get Better

West Virginia is the only U.S. state with fewer residents today than 70 years ago, and one of just three states to lose residents since 2010. That's to say West Virginia is having a difficult moment, that has already lasted nearly a century. While West Virginia nearly leads the United States for mostly the wrong reasons. The state of West Virginia has a weak economy, problematic geography, few amenities, failed infrastructure, and an aging yet shrinking population.

A big thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and the GEOlayers 3 application

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[SomethingDifferentFilms]

Thank you for watching my video on the many problems of West Virginia, if you would like to see a video on how West Virginia could turn things around please let me know here.

[schrodingersmechanic]

This Texan wants to retire there. My grandmother lived in 40 acres in Appalachia and we'd go there every summer when I was a kid, drinking straight from the spring, walking in the woods with dad and grandma's supper. God I miss those days.

[Evil-drbn]

"Profitability for the owner class, while pushing workers off the table they helped build." The truth everywhere, not just WV. That needs to change.

[Mantisman]

It's strange how it's losing population yet the price of property has skyrocketed. Other than run down houses in small towns, acreages are eye wateringly expensive. My wife's family is from Greenbrier County and we looked at moving there to a little "town" called Auto. A .25 acre lot was $250, 000. 4 and 5 acre lots were $400k-500k. And it was that way everywhere around Greenbrier County, despite the county losing more than 25% of its population since 2000. (Primarily) New York speculators are driving up prices, making it unaffordable for average folks to move in to replace the lost population. Right now, today, it is almost single-handedly NY speculators keeping rural West Virginia from coming back.

[sknowman]

One of the most accurate you tube videos on WV, I have watched. I have lived in WV my entire 60 years. Everything was spot on, especially the woman at the close of the video.

[AppalachianHistoryDetectives]

Eastern WV is booming and out of staters are moving into the Eastern Panhandle in droves. I live in Virginia near WV and we vacation there. My Texan wife wants us to retire there. Poor people arent the problem, rich people are.

[billbergendahl]

West Virginia is my home and I can't imagine living anywhere else.

[alabamaal]

My wife and I recently drove through the southern West Virginia coal country, including McDowell County. In all too many places it was pretty sad; many remnants of better times now apparently abandoned.

I suspect one reason why more people haven't moved from this section than have is property ownership. Most of the small homes that nestle between the road and the mountain immediately in the back are likely owned by their inhabitants, perhaps first acquired by the current inhabitant's parents or earlier. This is a very great advantage, illustrating the distinction between having money and having wealth. The homes, in relative monetary terms, may not be worth much, but they are a great source of true wealth. Not having to pay a mortgage or rent, having a modest but secure home enables people whose incomes are well below the poverty line to more capably sustain themselves. When you saw an abandoned home, likely the residents died and only Nature wanted to take it over.

Driving by closed schools and observing the apparent median age of the small towns we visited in the coal country indicates that most of the younger generation is not staying. While driving down the roads, many of the billboards either touted church congregations or law offices specializing in claims regarding pensions, disabilities, Social Security, or Medicare. You only see a abundance of advertisements like this in deeply economically troubled areas.

[deanosmith]

Monongalia County seems to be doing well...every time I go through there, they seem to have added more stores, businesses, and restaurants. Of couse its close proximity to Pittsburgh, PA and West Virginia University being located in Morgantown, helps.

[gregorall]

I moved to WV around 1998, and the one thing I learned was that in spite of the state putting all their eegs in one basket when it comes to how the state would profit, they never seemed to see the writing on the wall and kept spiraling down the drain through the inability to diversify and encourage different options. WV has the mentality of circling their wagons and turning away help that would only benefit them. I left WV 5 years ago and haven't looked back. I think they prefer to put their head in the sand.

[matthewtravisano]

California has a very diverse economy. It’s not singly dependent on tech.

[bighoss]

West Virginia and her people are some of the best this country has to offer. I've been all over this country and BEST Virginia is by far my favourite state to visit.

[ntatenarin]

This is really interesting! When I moved out of state, I had to pass West Virginia, and saw the beautiful hillsides and the gold domed-capitol. I should visit it one day, although I'll admit it's a far travel for me.

[Veretax]

WV also saw a lot of the chemical industry consolidate (union carbide is gone for example)( a lot of jobs outsourced to other states)

[danp]

I'm an Oregonian who spent a few years in DC. I didn't get to explore WV as much as I'd have liked, but what I saw of it reminded me very much of the landscape of the Northwest quadrant of Oregon. The culture reminded me of Northwest Oregon in the 70s and early 80s.

[jamesskinner]

Best white water rafting in the country is in that state... Like the slogan says wild wonderful and fun

[Milarz]

Good neutral analysis.
Now for my political point: Good thing that Trump kept his promises in 2015 and completely revitalized the "beautiful clean coal" industry [digging motions]. Not like that bummer Hillary Clinton pointing out that WV needed to diversify and required federal funds to retrain their workers and invest in small businesses.

[betube]

Partial solution: strong taxation on the resource extraction assets - use this to create a sovereign wealth fund to make a future for WV. The coal can't leave so the companies need to stay despite taxes. Maybe look into an AI-robotics company with the government as a major shareholder.

[firefalcoln]

I wonder if West Virginia could lean into tourism like Nevada as a viable industry. The trees and mountains are very pretty, and it’s just a few hours drive away from a lot of wealthy regions.

[thecheese]

As a West Virginian, the biggest impediment to change in this state IMO is a culture of dependency. Poverty and broken lives are job security for state level agencies. I say this after working 20+ yrs in the field of mental health and working closely with social services. WV is a bizarre expression of cognitive dissonance as policy: Mountaineers are always free! Now, give us more money from the productive elements of society to sustain our welfare state. Plus, our politicians are posturing blowhards intent on maintaining the good ol’ boy status quo.
Beautiful place, horrible state government.