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I'd consider WV as a place to have a summer home. I'd likely be bored silly if I had to live there year-round, but I agree that the peace and quiet might be nice in my older years. I've only driven through and yes, the trees and mountains are beautiful.
I lived there for a year.
There are some places which are fairly nice. But much of it has been dug up and poisoned. You don't know this until you live there. You could be driving by a mountain and commenting on how nice the view is, but the other side of that mountain may have had a couple square miles dug away (strip mine) and the runoff poisoned all the watershed.
IMHO, the nicest parts of WV are right along the VA. border....and the nicer valleys near the intersection of MD, VA and WV. Not much mining there and some nice valleys and farmlands in between the hills.
(I lived in Camden-on-Gauley in the Richwood area as well as Ireland, which is South of Weston). Both areas are subject to mining rights (you don't own what is under the ground) and they can strip mine right across the road if they like...and maybe even on your land.
Robber barons wrote the contracts long ago...and the people who signed them usually could not read.
Thank you for the additional information, as it's very helpful. I'm sure there are many environmental problems in WV, particularly mountain top removal. As a Republican and as an avid outdoorsman, I believe such practices should be regulated and banned, btw.
However, that does not negate the point of this thread. I myself would never live there, as I would never leave Colorado, but the fact is that many people in places such as California or NY believe everyone in places like WV or MS are toothless rednecks, which isn't the case at all.
That sort of thinking shows the ignorance of people who hold such views and in fact people from every state are pretty much the same as people from every other state. Some of us happen to live in places where living is a bit easier financially because of a less burdensome government.
I concur with your sentiments against stereotyping based upon where they live. The environmental issues of places like West Virginia don’t have easy solutions. If you have no environmental standards it negatively impacts everyone living there; if you lose jobs due to closures due to raising environmental standards that hurts too. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. As the article I linked said, West Virginia can’t hold onto its college grads. They leave for better opportunities. As the industrial plants close down due to environmental or declining plant cost effectiveness, your left with large areas blighted with pollution and little to attract new workers. At the same time, in another part of the state, you have the New River Valley and the Greenbriar resort.
I concur with your sentiments against stereotyping based upon where they live. The environmental issues of places like West Virginia don’t have easy solutions. If you have no environmental standards it negatively impacts everyone living there; if you lose jobs due to closures due to raising environmental standards that hurts too. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. As the article I linked said, West Virginia can’t hold onto its college grads. They leave for better opportunities. As the industrial plants close down due to environmental or declining plant cost effectiveness, your left with large areas blighted with pollution and little to attract new workers. At the same time, in another part of the state, you have the New River Valley and the Greenbriar resort.
I don't live there and have only drive through the state, but I can say, I can believe what you state based on what I've read. We need to all be willing to pay a bit more to have better regulations on plant emissions and ending mountain top removal, and yes I'm a Republican, but I'm also an environmentalist who spends a great deal of time in nature.
The vast majority in NYS who don't own their own homes live in NYC or the burbs and rent in apartment buildings.
That bit of information only helps to add to the original point, which is that people in NY, not owning their own homes are not as financially stable as people in WV.
I concur with your sentiments against stereotyping based upon where they live. The environmental issues of places like West Virginia don’t have easy solutions. If you have no environmental standards it negatively impacts everyone living there; if you lose jobs due to closures due to raising environmental standards that hurts too.
Too late now.
The initial problems were caused by the same forces in play today "excess capitalism". Every single tree in WV (except for 14 acres) was cut to the stump and ALL the coal mined for the benefit of corporate interests in Wall Street, London, Pittsburgh and similar (Carnegie, Frick, etc.). Keeping it short and sweet, the Robber Barons came in and gave illiterate people a few dimes per acre for the mineral and timber rights...forever. State and Federal laws allowed the complete raping of the land for these resources....AND, there was no plan in place to distribute the wealth. As you know, residents of Alaska get a check each year for oil revenues. Not only do those in WY and KY not get a check, but WE (taxpayers) have to pay for the people living there....in effect, we allowed the corporations to privatize the gains and socialize the losses (as usual).
We met and lived with the locals. Even in the 1970's the young people were leaving in droves. We met all types...you name it, we met 'em. I have stories.......here is a taste.....
A friend about our age had a little ranch house with a wood burning kitchen range. He was having trouble starting it one day so he brought a gas can inside and poured just a tiny bit of gas into the stove - the can burst into flame and he threw it across the room and ran out....house was ashes the next morning!
Another friend invited us over for a meal one day. Nature called and I was directed to the outhouse. When I looked down into the hole I saw the creek running directly below...full time flush, I guess! (imagine drinking from it downstream tho)....
We needed a chain saw but didn't have the money. We walked into the power equipment store and the man showed us what he suggested - a nice Stihl (made in Germany at the time). We really liked the saw and told him we'd dig up the $$ to obtain it. He pushed the saw towards us.....people he didn't know from Adam....and said "just pay me $20 a month toward it". Later he invited us to lunch and served us pinto beans and told us the right way to eat them was with chopped onions and a little mustard (it's really good). He was also a beekeeper and sold us large honeycombs that we extracted the honey from - dirt cheap.
I could go on, but that is a taste of WV. I remember our first day in the "holler" walking down the dirt road and old men were out on their porches on a swing watching Televangelists. Also, the first day we crossed the high mts from VA. into WV, we came down into a valley near Richwood and crossed a small river with a metal frame bridge under it.....people were being baptized in the River!
When we went into Richwood and stopped in a little lunch place "Almost Heaven" was playing on the Juke box.......
That bit of information only helps to add to the original point, which is that people in NY, not owning their own homes are not as financially stable as people in WV.
Economics isn't your forte, I guess?
If the people in WV were "stable", they wouldn't have the largest percentage (over 1/4 of ALL income) paid by FEDERAL taxpayers. Period.
According to your outlook, the people in homeless tents are really financially stable since they own their cardboard boxes, tents and condemned motor homes.
Repeat after me - "financially stable means you pay your own bills. "
If the people in WV were "stable", they wouldn't have the largest percentage (over 1/4 of ALL income) paid by FEDERAL taxpayers. Period.
According to your outlook, the people in homeless tents are really financially stable since they own their cardboard boxes, tents and condemned motor homes.
Repeat after me - "financially stable means you pay your own bills. "
Care to show the stats on that claim? Notice I'm not attacking you personally, as you do.
Of course neither of these points, nor does your point refute the original message of this thread, that home ownership is higher in WV than NY. Actually, people are financially better off in places like WV or MS than NY or CA.
Financially stable in WV means people can count on their monthly disability check to show up on time. I read an article recently that described a very active underground economy in Mountain Dew and other sodas. The people use their food stamps to buy soda and flip it for cash for cigs, meth and opioids. Sounds like a great place to live for a tweaker, normal people not so much.
There are poor people in every state. To claim that all West Virginians are on welfare is elitism at the highest levels and you're showing your ignorance by claiming otherwise.
If you ever travel out of your own state, you will see that people in all 50 states live very similar lives.
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