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Old 10-20-2020, 02:52 PM
 
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I would still rather live in WV than A LOT of other richer states. And I'm not poor! Also, many richer states have many cities and pockets within their states that I would not want to live. Although their state may be richer overall, the violent crime in many pockets & urban areas of those states is much higher than anywhere in WV. I don't mind poor, I just do not like living places where poor brings high violent crime rates. Also I think some rural states may see their fortunes change a little the next decade vs. the last.
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Old 10-22-2020, 09:28 AM
 
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I would think the income stat is less about the average person being poor and more about the lack of super rich people residing in WV. That stems mostly from a lack of larger metro areas. If instead of having a handful of small cities WV had one metro area the size of Knoxville TN it would rank very differently. From an outsiders perspective I'd think WV should try reworking it's state taxes to become more business friendly and invest heavily in tourism and its universities. Even if coal came back it would not have the number of jobs it used to. Time to move on.
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Old 10-23-2020, 05:20 PM
 
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Another thing is the WV has two small separate airports for both Charleston and Huntington. A single airport serving both regions would have more direct flights and enough cargo capacity to attract more logistics jobs.
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Old 10-27-2020, 12:40 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by imbobbbb View Post
I started my response with the phrase,"a large portion of the state".In some parts of the state people are doing fine but that often doesn't help the state as a whole.I live in the eastern panhandle and a very high percentage of people here work in the Wash DC/Baltimore/No Va areas.This brings income tax in to the state but mostly benefits businesses in other states.Most shopping/eating out/ and medical stuff is done in MD or VA.

The same thing happens in the northern part of the state.People live in WV but work/shop/eat/go to the doctor in MD/Ohio/PA.

Most industry is in the north or eastern panhandle where transportation is easy but much of it is on the wrong side of the border.
I get the sense you are correct about shopping and the like, with Pittsburgh and DC - Baltimore being so close to those areas, but I'm reading there is a massive healthcare industry in Morgantown which employs more than 10,000 people combining all the resources, and actually attracts a lot of patients from other states. That said, it would seem a lot of folks in that region wouldn't be going out of state for healthcare.

People I've talked with from the eastern areas echo what you are saying about shopping, dining and the like but mention a large industrial growth there to compliment the commuter jobs in DC and Baltimore.
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Old 10-27-2020, 12:57 PM
 
Location: Kirkland, WA (Metro Seattle)
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Seattle was all about Boeing and Weyerhaeuser, primarily, for decades. Big planes and big forestry. Well, both went out of favor in the 1970s and this town was on hard times. Aircraft manufacturing is definitely cyclical, and reacts elastically to world events. Sometimes, drastically and immediately: You can bet they didn't build many 737s and 787s during COVID in 2020, for example, due to (non-existent) demand. Other macro trends affect it, too. Well, that's been going on for decades and largely a function of oil and consumer confidence to travel, "usually." Military trends affect them, too.

Forestry suffered due to environmentalism pressures and foreign competition. It's still a big industry, but has been on the ropes occasionally too. So, both are still here, both major players, but guess what: times have changed, due to long term planning.

Through various means, the area started to attract at least a couple industries: big tech and big biotech. The market cap on the former is tens or hundreds of billions in infrastructure and subsidiary businesses to current, it's the sole reason I migrated here 22 years ago. Amazon, Microsoft, and so much more and quarter million strong local workforce, most well-compensated. Biotech I'm learning more about but there is a massive infrastructure and (ditto) for that here, too. They were lured in by various business methods around quality of life, access to resources, friendly taxation, and more. Other industries have a heavy presence here, too, that were either small in the 1970s or barely existed. They're congreating here. Despite social problems this is a highly prosperous area. The skyline (was) filled with cranes and will be again, a sure sign of what is going on.

It isn't impossible to do that kind of planning for a Huntington or Charleston WV, but takes political will and time to shift away from X and into Y.
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Old 10-28-2020, 11:02 PM
 
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Originally Posted by ctr88 View Post
I would still rather live in WV than A LOT of other richer states. And I'm not poor! Also, many richer states have many cities and pockets within their states that I would not want to live. Although their state may be richer overall, the violent crime in many pockets & urban areas of those states is much higher than anywhere in WV. I don't mind poor, I just do not like living places where poor brings high violent crime rates. Also I think some rural states may see their fortunes change a little the next decade vs. the last.
It isn't poverty that causes violent crime. It is the attitudes of residents in some communities. There are plenty of places with poor people that have next to no violent crime.
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Old 10-29-2020, 07:31 AM
 
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By no means am I an authority, I am just a guy that has lived in WV for almost 40 years and have some observations.

- We are a lawless state. Big business does not want to invest a large amount of money because of our lawlessness. Note, I'm not talking about criminal law. I always felt we should model our state code/regulations/etc on Delware. Tie it directly to Delware, so if they make a change - the change is automatically in effect here.

- A small population paired with shrinking population AND our best and brightest typically leave the state. The investments we make in education bare fruit outside the the state. A not insignificant proportion of our population is old and sick, or drug addicted and can't hold a job. Case in point - in the film 'Heroin' Cabel county spend almost $100 million on drug related health care. One county out of 55. We are throwing good money after a lost cause.

- Our road system. Millions spent on roads to no where - yet, the Northern part of the state (the economic engine of the state) has roads worse than the roads I drove on in Iraq.

I guess that's probably the top three in my mind. Though, the corruption in the southern part of the state definitely warrants a mention.
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Old 11-01-2020, 11:59 AM
 
Location: pensacola,florida
3,202 posts, read 4,417,448 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diddlesquat View Post
I get the sense you are correct about shopping and the like, with Pittsburgh and DC - Baltimore being so close to those areas, but I'm reading there is a massive healthcare industry in Morgantown which employs more than 10,000 people combining all the resources, and actually attracts a lot of patients from other states. That said, it would seem a lot of folks in that region wouldn't be going out of state for healthcare.

People I've talked with from the eastern areas echo what you are saying about shopping, dining and the like but mention a large industrial growth there to compliment the commuter jobs in DC and Baltimore.
I'm not sure 'a lot' of people from other states travel to Morgantown for healthcare.What I do know,and it isn't a good thing if you are sick,is that medicaid patients with cancer and other serious problems in the eastern panhandle have to travel 100 miles each way,sometimes several times a week,to Morgantown for treatment,rather than 30 miles to Hagerstown Md or Winchester Va like those of us with insurance can do. A lot of people on medicare don't even own a car.It must be great fun finding someone willing and able to drive you 200 miles a day,twice a week for chemo-therapy.

It is true that there has been some decent industrial growth in the eastern panhandle in recent years that helped offset the huge loss from General Motors mostly shutting down their large operation here and a few other big things that closed.There are numerous jobs here that don't require a lot of education and offer a decent starting salary and benefits.Of course there are also many just across the border in Md and Va too.
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Old 11-04-2020, 09:45 PM
 
75 posts, read 74,463 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by imbobbbb View Post
I'm not sure 'a lot' of people from other states travel to Morgantown for healthcare.What I do know,and it isn't a good thing if you are sick,is that medicaid patients with cancer and other serious problems in the eastern panhandle have to travel 100 miles each way,sometimes several times a week,to Morgantown for treatment,rather than 30 miles to Hagerstown Md or Winchester Va like those of us with insurance can do. A lot of people on medicare don't even own a car.It must be great fun finding someone willing and able to drive you 200 miles a day,twice a week for chemo-therapy.

It is true that there has been some decent industrial growth in the eastern panhandle in recent years that helped offset the huge loss from General Motors mostly shutting down their large operation here and a few other big things that closed.There are numerous jobs here that don't require a lot of education and offer a decent starting salary and benefits.Of course there are also many just across the border in Md and Va too.
Why would they have to drive 100 miles each way for chemo when WVU Medicine shows an infusion center in Martinsburg, which is in the Eastern Panhandle, is it not? Your state's medicaid would surely cover treatment there. What I'm seeing is a significant WVU Medicine presence in two counties in Pennsylvania, one county in Ohio, and a county in Maryland. Their primary referral hospital is the closest for patients in those counties. I have a hunch they travel to Morgantown for some treatments. I see the other Morgantown healthcare system also has a clinic in Maryland.

https://wvumedicine.org/berkeley/ser...cancer-center/
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Old 11-05-2020, 10:15 AM
 
84 posts, read 81,398 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diddlesquat View Post
Why would they have to drive 100 miles each way for chemo when WVU Medicine shows an infusion center in Martinsburg, which is in the Eastern Panhandle, is it not? Your state's medicaid would surely cover treatment there. What I'm seeing is a significant WVU Medicine presence in two counties in Pennsylvania, one county in Ohio, and a county in Maryland. Their primary referral hospital is the closest for patients in those counties. I have a hunch they travel to Morgantown for some treatments. I see the other Morgantown healthcare system also has a clinic in Maryland.

https://wvumedicine.org/berkeley/ser...cancer-center/
Lol. To be blunt, no one outside of Morgantown gives a **** about WVU Medicine. I guess surrounding areas that have no access to easily accessible hospitals might too but it's silly to paint that place as something it's not. Especially anyone that lives in the north, they just go to the hospitals there or Pittsburgh since any of those places are 20 minutes or less away.
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