The Pointlessness of Bribing People to Move to West Virginia for $12,000
The Pointlessness of Bribing People to Move to West Virginia for $12,000
Relocation incentives get lots of buzz. Do they work? By Henry Grabar for slate.com Quote:
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I still don't understand why people think the non-poor can be convinced to uproot their families/lives and move across the country/planet to pay a few less in taxes or home prices.
If someone has modest earnings/wealth and happens to be in an extreme high-cost market (say prime Silicon Valley or Zurich, Switzerland), yeah I get moving to a cheaper locale. But, even then, it seems like a last resort, once all other options are exhausted. And this is doubly true if you have kids and/or have a job that doesn't suck. |
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Had to laugh at this one when I read it. But they should be careful what they ask for.
If you have people moving there for this Morning in West Virginia by Harry Carmichael, on Flickr ( view from the finances' porch ) Then you will start getting pushback on stuff like this. West Virginia by Harry Carmichael, on Flickr This is just for an expansion of a Hwy interchange - for shopping malls they will take the entire top of a "mountain" off. |
The eastern panhandle of WV is only 45-55 miles as the crow flies from Washington, DC. Realistically, it would still take 90 minutes to commute to an outer metro station and commute downtown, but that wouldn't be a big deal for someone who only goes in to work 2-3 times a week or month.
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I've known colleagues from my Fed job in the DC area who have lived in places like Martinsburg, WV. It seems like their main reason was to get a big house with lots of land, while still being within 1-2 hours of the DC area. Other than attracting more remote workers to those bordering towns instead of them moving to MD, PA and VA far flung cities, like Hagerstown, MD or the Shenandoah Valley and Gettysburg PA, or the DC exurbs, I don't think their offer will benefit places like Morganstown. I think Northwest AK may be more successful because it has three large employers including WalMart and their supporting industries. NW AK seems like it may be as attractive to retirees as well. Tulsa may also do okay - Elon Musk even considered it for the gigafactory, and maybe it can become more competitive in growth to OKC, which has the advantage of being the capital.
West Virginia cities are fairing poorly in population growth according to Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._West_Virginia |
^Also, Ohio has spent a lot of money in recent decades improving roads through its hilly southeast region, so it's actually possible to super-commute to Columbus, OH now. The 4-lane state route south from Columbus is almost an interstate (it is the future I-73) and 33 from Columbus to Pomeroy saw two fully grade-separated bypasses built in the 2000s plus the "Super 2" highway between Athens and Pomeroy.
Cincinnati is too far away from Huntington for super-commuting, despite the construction of the almost-interstate AA Highway and many upgrades to US 52 on the Ohio side. |
West Virginia, in theory is quite beautiful, but there isn't really much in terms of pristine wilderness. A lot of lopped-off hillsides, poisoned rivers, bombed-out towns and the like.
When I talk to people who moved from high cost/high tax locales, like the NE Corridor, and Coastal CA, the main reasons I here are 1. I'm retired, 2. Weather, 3. Want to be close to grandkids, 4. Too many liberals. Don't think I've ever heard "homes cost too much" (if you own this is a good thing, no?) or "taxes are too high" though I suppose the "too many liberals" sentiments could kind of imply the latter? |
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Similarly, I knew a guy who worked on electronic music, but made his money selling rare stuff on ebay. He decided to relocate to rural NC (despite not owning a car) because then he could just live off of that. The thing is...people like this are not middle class professionals in the Richard Florida sense. They are "creatives" - but not "creative class." Fundamentally they're working class in terms of income. If a critical mass of them forms in an area they might eventually "gentrify" a small town by attracting others with real money, but they won't bring in anywhere near enough by themselves to make up for the money being offered. |
just look at a map of bituminous coal deposits in the appalachians to get an idea of where the worst damage - environmental and social - is. theres areas of eastern kentucky like the red river gorge and similar places in west virginia that have some wonderful qualities. if i were going to move to the region i’d stick with either living in the bluegrass around lexington or going south to north carolina/far eastern tennessee into the higher elevation temperate rainforest.
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I was going to dump on this idea but then I actually looked at Morgantown. It looks kind of nice! I still wouldn't move there for ten grand, but it's not like they're throwing money away getting people to live somewhere they'll never want to stay. Hell, it has me aware of Morgantown WV for the first time in my life.
They have a real-live PRT system from 1975. That's some Logan's Run shit. |
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For what it's worth we also considered Roanoke, Virginia for a while when it looked like a friend might be accepting a job offer up there. It seemed to emanate the same vibes Asheville was giving off twenty years ago before all the rich people piled in and made it boring. If there was somewhere in West Virginia that one, wasn't actively dying, two, had decent food, and three, gave off those same vibes, we probably would have given it a serious look and had their been a $12k incentive... |
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But no one with means is moving to Clarksburg, Weirton, or Welch just because they are cheap. And no knock on Morgantown, it's not a bad place, but I just don't see the incentive to live there beyond a job at WVU or hospital system, which is pretty good by the way. Morgantown has horrendous traffic for a city of its size and the infrastructure to handle the growth that they have experienced is garbage tier. That said, I wonder what West Virginia would have been or could be if its politics were more like Colorado or Vermont? |
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People are always trading space, land, location, whatever, to fit their X budget. We did that when we bought, as we could have gotten less space in a better neighborhood, or more space in a worse neighborhood. But, excepting retirees, or some dramatic change in income/wealth, I don't see people moving to reduce/increase their housing budget, really ever. Instead they'll move to some super cheap locale and then boast that they have 5 bedrooms and 10 acres for the same price as they previously paid. Or they moved to an expensive locale, and sacrificed space and amenities. They didn't change their housing budget, they changed their housing typology. |
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The random family who moves from the Bay Area to Indiana isn't looking to cut housing costs, as they aren't gonna live in the same home they had in the Bay Area. They're looking to change their housing according to their preferences. They're probably gonna trade their little condo or modest bungalow for a McMansion. |
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What was funny though, is that directly across the road from our house, one house had the Biden/Harris signs up while the house next to theirs had Trump signs up. Of the two, the Trump supporters were the ones who came across the street with a pecan pie to say hello. That was a huge surprise. |
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Morgantown would likely remain the state capitol, as I believe it was during the Civil War, since it would be more centrally located in the state. West Virginia would not be an overwhelmingly rural state, but anchored with a major urban area on its fringe (similar to Missouri). |
the west virginia northern panhandle is a bizarre artifact, but i guess no stranger than the fact that west virginia exists at all. it feels more like a vestigial limb of a state than a state in its own right.
i think it would indeed make more sense as a state if it had pittsburgh as its metropolis. i mean even kentucky has louisville. |
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