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Wouldn't it also be true that your reliance on historical data that fails to take into consideration major changes in underlying factors would likely lead to flawed conclusions? This is not the same area it was in 1960 ... totally different industries and economic foundations, and frankly a very different population with which to begin. The economic underpinnings and foundations are vastly different than they were 40 or 50 years ago. There are PhD level researchers who have come to the same conclusion that growth will continue without interruption here. Their conclusions would hold as much weight as any other in my opinion.
Of course all data sources on this sort of thing are in question. Projections are little more than a best guess based on selected factors. Please note, that is not all factors. Everyone that does such projections, does so from a hand picked set of data points and works from there - they call that the model. In weather forecasting it is much the same. Being able to predict tomorrow's weather is pretty easy; later this week a bit less so, next week? Who knows? Next year, why bother; 20 years from now; who believes that? Yet we have a huge global debate about such things and they have no more validity than population projections do and for the same reason - limited data points.
Morgantown's future is tied lock, stock and barrel to WVU and to a vastly lesser extent Ruby Memorial, which is also tied to WVU to a reasonable extent. To determine the future of the MSA, you have to find out what WVU plans to do. Based on what Presidents Clements & Gee have put forth, the growth of the main campus student population is nearing the planned ceiling and if that is the case, then the growth in the local population is also nearing its ceiling. Currently, WVU's main campus has roughly 28,000 and the growth seems to be slowing to the target of 30,000.
I think as demographic trends change and technology offers the ability to telecommute to more and more strata of the working population, people will move out of rather than into MSA's such as the one in Morgantown. But, that time is not yet in Monongahela County because of the ruggedness of the terrain and the lack of feeder high capacity roads into the heart of Morgantown. People still need to be close to the amenities in other words but that will change and the population will spread out and outside the MSA.
This happened to both Charleston and Huntington.
There are a good many people that live in Boone, Logan, Roane, Clay, Putnam, Jackson and Lincoln county that work each day in Charleston but those people are not included in Charleston MSA. Part of Clay is included but mostly, Charleston's MSA is just Kanawha County after Putnam was moved to Huntington's MSA. In decades past, those people had to live in Kanawha County because there were no roads to places like Spencer, Ripley, Logan and Madison. Now people can live there and shop and work in Charleston. This is going to happen in Morgantown too.
For Huntington it was even worse, those people not only moved out of Cabell County they moved out of West Virginia, but for some reason the Huntington MSA has been expanded to reach well into both Ohio and Kentucky so they have not lost them per se. But, they have lost them as a source of city, county and state revenue.
I do believe that Morgantown is going to gain more population but I think that is going to slow shortly and the level off for a decade or more before another small rise. It is the trend there and that trend crosses over many technological and cultural eras.
20 years is a long time in the business life cycle, and projections are, by definition, just guesses. Sometimes guesses are right, sometimes they are wrong.
Coming from the census, I think we can call them data-based educated guesses, but I know first hand that the official census population projections from 20 years ago were not accurate for my county. The thing with smaller metros is that there is less wiggle room if one part of the economic engine stops working, or fails to start back up (in Allegany County, MD's case.)
I think greater Morgantown has a lot going for it, and having a University as your major economic driver is a major plus and good cause for optimism. But in smaller communities all it takes is a few whacks on major employers to see hard won gains stall out, or reverse.
While that is true, our community has a diverse set of drivers. The University employs more than 6,000 people. WVU Medicine (a different but related entity) employs around 7,000 people here in Morgantown. Mylan employs between 3,500 and 4,000. The Federal government also employs thousands locally... Bureau of Prisons and Department of Agriculture employees. Our mining industry is down a bit, but it still employs thousands in our area including limestone mining operations that are immune from the current energy debates. Research is a growing presence here... NIOSH, NETL, and Protea employ hundreds of workers. Med Express and Gabriel's both have their headquarters here employing hundreds. Stone Energy now operates out of the Morgantown area. FedEx just opened a new distribution center here that employs hundreds.
We have more wiggle room here than any other area in our state, with the possible exception of the Eastern Panhandle where DC/Balto spillover will not stop any time soon.
Nothing is impossible, and the loss of any major driver would hurt... no doubt about that, but there are no signs that we are losing any of those here at this time. There are rumors that we have another one poised to move here.
Morgantown's future is tied lock, stock and barrel to WVU and to a vastly lesser extent Ruby Memorial, which is also tied to WVU to a reasonable extent. To determine the future of the MSA, you have to find out what WVU plans to do. Based on what Presidents Clements & Gee have put forth, the growth of the main campus student population is nearing the planned ceiling and if that is the case, then the growth in the local population is also nearing its ceiling. Currently, WVU's main campus has roughly 28,000 and the growth seems to be slowing to the target of 30,000. There is a lot of positive momentum here, and they're not going to be able to stop it.
I think as demographic trends change and technology offers the ability to telecommute to more and more strata of the working population, people will move out of rather than into MSA's such as the one in Morgantown. But, that time is not yet in Monongahela County because of the ruggedness of the terrain and the lack of feeder high capacity roads into the heart of Morgantown. People still need to be close to the amenities in other words but that will change and the population will spread out and outside the MSA.
This happened to both Charleston and Huntington.
There are a good many people that live in Boone, Logan, Roane, Clay, Putnam, Jackson and Lincoln county that work each day in Charleston but those people are not included in Charleston MSA. Part of Clay is included but mostly, Charleston's MSA is just Kanawha County after Putnam was moved to Huntington's MSA. In decades past, those people had to live in Kanawha County because there were no roads to places like Spencer, Ripley, Logan and Madison. Now people can live there and shop and work in Charleston. This is going to happen in Morgantown too.
For Huntington it was even worse, those people not only moved out of Cabell County they moved out of West Virginia, but for some reason the Huntington MSA has been expanded to reach well into both Ohio and Kentucky so they have not lost them per se. But, they have lost them as a source of city, county and state revenue.
I do believe that Morgantown is going to gain more population but I think that is going to slow shortly and the level off for a decade or more before another small rise. It is the trend there and that trend crosses over many technological and cultural eras.
Well, it's nice to know you have your opinion, Grace. Our situation here is very different than what you have in either Charleston or Huntington. In the interest of fairness, allow me to point out some of the differences. You want to compare us to what happened in the southern tier, but that is off base on a number of fronts. Our economy is not based on heavy industry (other than our mining component, which would fall into that category). You missed out on the primary economic driver. It is actually WVU Medicine, which, although it is affiliated with the school is a different entity. WVU Medicine is in serious growth mode... hiring more than 700 new workers during the past year alone. They look to continue expanding here with construction of a new Children's Hospital and a new Outpatient Surgery Center, both of which will employ hundreds. Charleston and Huntington were both far more dependent on heavy industry for employment than was ever Morgantown. When heavy industry started to depart for cheap labor countries when the open borders crowd took control, the fate of those communities was largely sealed. When DuPont sold out and severely downsized it's presence in Kanawha, that was a serious blow to that community which now is mostly state government based for an economic driver. State government is not real reliable as a driver since it has a few dozen people who are paid like Wall Street bankers, and a workforce that is the lowest paid of any state government workforce in the country.
I know that WV Steel is still in Cabell, and they have Marshall as the prime economic driver, but the disappearance of most of the heavy industry in that area was very much felt, and while the area has recovered from that to a degree, it is a long way from recovering to where it was a couple decades ago.
Your guesses as to where WVU is going I find a bit perplexing. They expect to grow on the Morgantown campuses to 32,000 students (not 30,000) with most of the growth being in graduate level students. They are setting the groundwork in place for that to happen and it is proceeding according to schedule. WVU is eliminating underperforming programs, and preparing to focus assets and efforts in programs with greater growth potential. Total enrollment for all campuses is anticipated to be around 40,000 counting those who take online programs. This year had the largest freshman class in the school's history in spite of the fact that reduced state appropriations meant less subsidy for state residents, but a $1 billion fund raising effort was successful resulting in part, to many scholarships being available to attract the best students to WVU. They are working on expanding that effort even further. I mentioned it in another post here, but I'll again call your attention to the fact that we have a number of major economic drivers here... the Federal Government is an entity employing thousands in our area, we have Mylan, Protea, NETL, NIOSH, Raese Industries, a growing hospitality industry, WVU Athletics, Med Express, and Gabriel's to mention just a few that distinguish us from other areas.
You mentioned folks who live elsewhere but commute to both Charleston and Huntington. I know that happens, especially with Putnam County, and we have lots of folks who commute here too from Clarksburg, Fairmont, Uniontown, Greene County, PA, Garrett County, MD and so forth, and while our little city has many of the amenities of larger cities, it doesn't have as many of the negatives that cause folks to want to leave in the first place. You can go on this site and compare our crime rates per 100,000 to other small cities, for example, for an idea of what I mean. Our infrastructure inadequacies are mostly purely internal to our specific area. We already have good highways leading to other NCWV towns as well as southwest Pennsylvania and western Maryland. We also have commuter bus transportation available to all of those areas to and from Morgantown. There are plenty of commuters, but not many folks leaving town.
You mentioned data points, but the data points you are using to make your less optimistic projections are basically ancient history. Academic projections take into account more data in terms of trends relating to current assets. The Morgantown of old, when WVU employed 3,000 people and the economic underpinnings were only mining, glass factories and Sterling Faucet are things of the distant past. Are we as diversified as a really large city? No. But, we are way more diversified than most cities of this size, and there are no cities in West Virginia that come even close to the diversification we have in place here.
That said, I will agree that anything can happen including bad things, but we are pretty optimistic here about the future and I suspect if you take a look at our circumstances you will have to agree. State government can not continue to retard our growth, as they seem intent on doing, indefinitely. Along with our growing population, is coming a growing political prowess. In the meantime, we have mechanisms in place to pay for things ourselves the state should be covering in the most important areas.
Some national publications project out to 20 years. WVU researchers only go out 5 years with projections, but here is what they have to say about going forward:
Prognosticators also thought Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election in a landslide.
No they didn't. They knew better. They simply tried to influence the outcome by providing false, misleading data. It didn't work. In fact, it backfired. There is simply no way they could have been that far off base.
I appreciate this thread as it adds value to relocating for folks but the segways can be done without. Who cares re the election -- its over & we need move on whether your side won or lost. We need pull together as M-town is a prosperous place but w/ attitudes vs one another how can it continue as so? Ok, had to settle the troops.
But the growth, though many think is good, can backfire as too many communities experience exponential growth yet cannot handle it, & also, crime ALWAYS goes up regardless of the reason for growth, be it jobs or gold discovery, haha, factitious yes, but you know what I mean I hope.
I appreciate this thread as it adds value to relocating for folks but the segways can be done without. Who cares re the election -- its over & we need move on whether your side won or lost. We need pull together as M-town is a prosperous place but w/ attitudes vs one another how can it continue as so? Ok, had to settle the troops.
But the growth, though many think is good, can backfire as too many communities experience exponential growth yet cannot handle it, & also, crime ALWAYS goes up regardless of the reason for growth, be it jobs or gold discovery, haha, factitious yes, but you know what I mean I hope.
I agree. There are always growing pains and adjustments. Notice we aren't experiencing Las Vagas type growth here. Our growth is averaging a fairly steady 1% to 2% per year in line with national averages. It is not exceptional in relation to most of the rest of the country. It only stands out in our state because most of the state is on life support economically but our area, along with the Eastern Panhandle are growing (although for very different reasons). Many believe much of the growth going forward will take place on the West side of I-79 between Morgantown and Fairmont.
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