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I personally don't see how South Carolina is growing for it to be included with Texas, Florida, and Georgia. It really should be just those three cities together, and no one else.
1. NC - A beautiful state with the largest concentration of intellectual capital in the south at the Research Triangle. Has multiple metros all of which give a distinct QOL and opportunity.
2. TX - Massive growth, everyone is moving to TX and its 5 major hubs around the Triangle will do well. I'm including College Station just in case you were wondering what is the 5th.
3. GA - Has Atlanta the behemoth and a small but nice Savannah.
4. TN - Nashville is definitely a winner
5. SC - definitely a dark horse as someone previously mentioned. 3 good metros with the state capital having a university.
After these there is a big drop-off. Why didn't I include Florida? Because Florida hasn't produced a major metro with intellectual capital which is incredibly important to the 21st century. It's growing fast but the type of growth is with older people and lower wage sectors. This combined with the fact that it is the most disaster prone region with both hurricanes and rising seas make me wonder whether or not this is sustainable. I think a decision needs to be made about this quickly.
The geography isn't really that much of a problem anymore. Other states comparable to WV's terrain have managed, as well as some small European countries. If terrain remained a definite killer of economy, a good portion of inner New England would be a total wasteland.
The problem is more to do with demand and funding for the required infrastructure. Terrain presents challenges but they are challenges that can now be overcome in a myriad of ways. Plus, there are a lot more level-gently rolling areas in the state than people realize, they are just generally very rural.
WV has obstacles, yes, but it also has more potential than it is given credit for.
It will take time, but it has more going for it than some other states. It comes down to the people in charge, in the end. It also needs to overcome its issue of reputation, which is equally on the shoulders of the rest of the country.
I appreciate your optimism. Let's hope that is the case because West Virginians have a knack, and history, of cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Actually the WV split wasn’t arbitrary at all. What is now WV was more industrial than VA. It’s trade was along the Ohio River and it’s tributaries (and on to the Mississippi of course). Eastern VA’s focus and economic center was the Chesapeake Bay (and out to the Atlantic Ocean of course). George Washington had a plan to connect the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River with a series of canals. The project was never completed though.
The political class was focused on the existing trade routes in the east. Tax money collected from the western counties was spent developing the eastern part of the state (dredging rivers, building ports, digging canals, building bridges). The western part of the state wasn’t receiving the financial support necessary to grow its trade (it needed roads/ mountain passes which are expensive whereas it’s virtually free to just float a barge down the Potomac River). It was easy to sow the seed of discontent.
Actually the WV split wasn’t arbitrary at all. What is now WV was more industrial than VA. It’s trade was along the Ohio River and it’s tributaries (and on to the Mississippi of course). Eastern VA’s focus and economic center was the Chesapeake Bay (and out to the Atlantic Ocean of course). George Washington had a plan to connect the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River with a series of canals. The project was never completed though.
The political class was focused on the existing trade routes in the east. Tax money collected from the western counties was spent developing the eastern part of the state (dredging rivers, building ports, digging canals, building bridges). The western part of the state wasn’t receiving the financial support necessary to grow its trade (it needed roads/ mountain passes which are expensive whereas it’s virtually free to just float a barge down the Potomac River). It was easy to sow the seed of discontent.
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. There was no statehood movement in West Virginia in 1861, not one single group organized to have a new state before the war began. Half of the counties in the new state had voted for secession from the US along with the rest of Virginia but were forced into the new state against their wills. The Union "governor" Francis Pierpont, pleaded with Lincoln to sign the statehood bill and said "The Union men of West Va were not originally for the Union because of the new state." Even the Union men did not want to separate from Virginia. The statehood bill received only 18,408 votes in WV out of a pool of 79,515 voters. This is why ex-Confederates had to be eliminated from the new state voting rolls, and this is why when they couldn't be excluded any longer they threw out the former legislature, wrote a new state constitution, and elected former Confederate officers to state and Federal offices in 1872.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Originally Posted by Bobilee
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. There was no statehood movement in West Virginia in 1861, not one single group organized to have a new state before the war began. Half of the counties in the new state had voted for secession from the US along with the rest of Virginia but were forced into the new state against their wills. The Union "governor" Francis Pierpont, pleaded with Lincoln to sign the statehood bill and said "The Union men of West Va were not originally for the Union because of the new state." Even the Union men did not want to separate from Virginia. The statehood bill received only 18,408 votes in WV out of a pool of 79,515 voters. This is why ex-Confederates had to be eliminated from the new state voting rolls, and this is why when they couldn't be excluded any longer they threw out the former legislature, wrote a new state constitution, and elected former Confederate officers to state and Federal offices in 1872.
It's true. Even unionist West Virginians still had no desire to be anything other than Virginians. Virginia had a very powerful identity of itself, that which has been immortalized in the words of Robert E. Lee, who fought for Virginia above all else. Had VA been Union, so would he have been.
I believe Lincoln's cabinet had once suggested the name Kanawha for WV, but its people still wanted to be Virginians and so the name was rejected.
1. NC - A beautiful state with the largest concentration of intellectual capital in the south at the Research Triangle. Has multiple metros all of which give a distinct QOL and opportunity.
2. TX - Massive growth, everyone is moving to TX and its 5 major hubs around the Triangle will do well. I'm including College Station just in case you were wondering what is the 5th.
3. GA - Has Atlanta the behemoth and a small but nice Savannah.
4. TN - Nashville is definitely a winner
5. SC - definitely a dark horse as someone previously mentioned. 3 good metros with the state capital having a university.
After these there is a big drop-off. Why didn't I include Florida? Because Florida hasn't produced a major metro with intellectual capital which is incredibly important to the 21st century. It's growing fast but the type of growth is with older people and lower wage sectors. This combined with the fact that it is the most disaster prone region with both hurricanes and rising seas make me wonder whether or not this is sustainable. I think a decision needs to be made about this quickly.
Virginia is the best educated, wealthiest state in the south bar none. Now that sequestration is winding down the states trajectory will start to blaze. Virginia is by no means a "big drop off" from 1-5.
Virginia is the best educated, wealthiest state in the south bar none. Now that sequestration is winding down the states trajectory will start to blaze. Virginia is by no means a "big drop off" from 1-5.
Means nothing without that education being converted to capital across varied, sustainable sectors (NON military) ... But I think South Carolina is a real dark horse, too.
Some are leaving Florida out of the top 5 and I get what Logicist is saying .... however, isnt the sheer number of incoming residents and its population rank (which will continue to climb) enough to have it in the top tier?
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