The Pointlessness of Bribing People to Move to West Virginia for $12,000

[Crawford]

It's the same projecting victim crap. Poor me, no one understands us. Uh-huh.

The Great Society was centered on the Southern Appalachians. The New Deal, the TVA, etc. No place in America has the same degree of highways to nowhere, infrastructure without people, federal projects without purpose, etc. And no one thinks MS and the Black Belt have a good reputation in comparison.

[Centropolis]

maybe its a regional thing but west virginia isnt really on the radar west of the mississippi. primarily arkansas but also mississippi gets punched down on

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JManc

Leaving the car at home and taking the train into the city makes a lot more sense than taking the train out of the city to somewhere more remote. My family take Amtrak into Penn Station all the tune but if it were reversed and I wanted to spend a few days upstate especially camping and/or hiking, I'd rent a car.

Right, but we weren't talking about "is it better to go car-free into the city or the wilderness." Obviously it's better to be car-free in Manhattan than anywhere else in the U.S. My point was that you can very easily access wilderness car-free, which matters for the millions of NY-area residents who are car-free.

And the AT has overnight parking restrictions in many of the entry points in the tri-state area, so if you're planning a camping/hiking trip it can be easier to ditch the car. If you're accessing the AT by private vehicle it's best to be dropped off.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

All of the growth in Tennessee is happening in Nashville. Knoxville and Chattanooga aren't growing (or changing in any pronounced fashion) either and each of them have a far higher percentage of white residents.

If anything, anti-West Virginia sentiment is pretty much the strongest and most acceptable regional and cultural bias in the United States because the name "West Virginia" is synonymous with low-class whites of English, Scottish, and Irish decent. If the state had been a half or majority black or native american place, the national media would run non-stop stories about WV's countless social and environmental problems.

The fact is not only is there a pronounced bias in England against the low-class residents of Northern England, Scotland, and Ireland, that sentiment was absorbed by the descendants of continental Europeans in the United States and continues to be directed toward the descendants of those same people.

It's crazy to listen to BBC radio here in the United States and hear all of the "improper" English spoken by seemingly everyone they interview from the North of England since we get to hear that same improper speech here, many generations after those people took a boat over here.

Yeah, I read a book a long time ago that spoke to this issue. Basically all "mountain cultures" were extremely isolated and in some ways still are today in many parts of the world. The people that immigrated to WV and places like WV held onto many of their old ways more so than others that immigrated to the plains. I believe the proper term is "Cracker Culture." (not kidding).

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Yawn. I don't see stories of Mississippi's Delta Region which is among the poorest in the entire country and mostly black along with much of the south's black belt. Hell, a lot of country don't even know there's a sizable poor rural black lower class.

And how many stories have we heard about the Rust belt now which is the heart of the white lower class and the plight of Trump supporters there.

I agree. I took some friends from the Navy through the Delta when we visited my family for Thanksgiving a few years ago. They were blown away (both of them were Hispanic from CA and AZ) that blacks lived in RURAL areas! Places like Earl Arkansas are eye opening.

There is also the race relations aspect of those areas, it would be a very interesting topic for a dissertation. Very complex and never talked about. We think of poor blacks always as URBAN, but there are plenty of poor blacks and whites in the rural south.

[AaronPGH]

West Virginia is one of the most misunderstood and complex states in the country, and it drives me nuts when people paint it with such a broad brush. I've personally fallen in love with Lewisburg / Greenbrier Valley area over the last few years, and I grew up skiing at Snowshoe, which was built up by Whistler-Blackcomb. It's still Eastern skiing, but it stacks up there with major New England mountains. The eastern ridges that run North/South are very well protected and are an outdoor paradise, not lopped off.

At some point in my future, I will likely buy something in the Lewisburg area but keep a smaller rental in Pittsburgh or another major city.

[harryc]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

West Virginia is one of the most misunderstood and complex states in the country, and it drives me nuts when people paint it with such a broad brush. I've personally fallen in love with Lewisburg / Greenbrier Valley area over the last few years, and I grew up skiing at Snowshoe, which was built up by Whistler-Blackcomb. It's still Eastern skiing, but it stacks up there with major New England mountains. The eastern ridges that run North/South are very well protected and are an outdoor paradise, not lopped off.

At some point in my future, I will likely buy something in the Lewisburg area but keep a smaller rental in Pittsburgh or another major city.

:-) let me introduce you to skiing in the Midwest .....

[kcexpress69]

I have to admit though...for all of its negatives, West Virginia does of a nice collection of building stock for many of its cities and smaller towns.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Crawford

It's the same projecting victim crap. Poor me, no one understands us. Uh-huh.

The Great Society was centered on the Southern Appalachians. The New Deal, the TVA, etc. No place in America has the same degree of highways to nowhere, infrastructure without people, federal projects without purpose, etc. And no one thinks MS and the Black Belt have a good reputation in comparison.

There is plenty, like the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which nobody has ever heard of, despite cost about $2 billion in 1970s/80s money, which would be like $10 billion today.

[themaguffin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Fear of undesirable neighbors > Opposition to higher taxes

There's no lack of available land in TN though.

Knoxville and Chattanooga aren't growing

Nashville is a lot bigger and has more inertia etc., but the other two cities are growing.

The Chattanooga metro grew by nearly 11% in the last Census from 2000. Based on estimates, the rate will lower when the 2020 numbers come out, but certainly not bad for a ~500K metro.

Knoxville is a little bigger and seems to be performing a little better than Chattanooga. But again, not bad.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by themaguffin

There's no lack of available land in TN though.

Right, but Shelby County, TN is a majority black county with heavily black Memphis-Shelby schools. So if you want to live in metro Memphis, and can't afford the rich parts like Germantown, and don't want to live in a majority black area, you're likely headed to MS. There's probably some exurban sprawl in TN too, but MS is right at the city line, much closer to stuff.

And the AR side is basically a wasteland. West Memphis is a dump, and there's not much else on that side.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by themaguffin

Interesting, as TN has no state income tax.

Unless I'm mistaken, Memphis continues to annex it's surrounding suburbs.

It could be a way of insuring you don't move to a town that will be annexed.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, but we weren't talking about "is it better to go car-free into the city or the wilderness." Obviously it's better to be car-free in Manhattan than anywhere else in the U.S. My point was that you can very easily access wilderness car-free, which matters for the millions of NY-area residents who are car-free.

And the AT has overnight parking restrictions in many of the entry points in the tri-state area, so if you're planning a camping/hiking trip it can be easier to ditch the car. If you're accessing the AT by private vehicle it's best to be dropped off.

Your options are dramatically limited without a car..places where there has to be mass transit fairly close by such as NY's portion of the AT. That rules out the other portions of the AT, the ADK's, Catskills and Vermont.

[10023]

Are people who are willing to relocated for $12k really the type of residents that states and cities want to attract? Wouldn't it be better to stimulate some job creation?

[MolsonExport]

Christ that is a sum less than some people spend on their couch.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Christ that is a sum less than some people spend on their couch.

Surely one does not expect his travesty Lord Pretend to grovel before his European superiors on a plebeian couch?

[mhays]

It sounds like most people here believe marketing doesn't work. A commercial (or a rebate) is going to make me buy a car?!

None of that is the point. Marketing is about nudges, and primarily targets the people already leaning in your direction, or who might be easily convinced.

If they can get a small percentage of those easy targets to move to WV, especially those who bring WFH salaries, it's probably worth it.

[pj3000]

I'd do it for $10k and a weekly mountain dew bj.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I'd do it for $10k and a weekly mountain dew bj.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

maybe its a regional thing but west virginia isnt really on the radar west of the mississippi. primarily arkansas but also mississippi gets punched down on

Having been born and grown up on the east coast and even had distant relatives who lived in West Virginia, but now having lived in California for 40 years, I find that nearly all westerners (those born somewhere west of the Mississippi and who’ve always lived there) are abysmally ignorant of the south and Appalachia in general. They basically only know it from news reports about civil rights and racial issues (and news around coal mining in Appalachia) and know almost nothing else about it. I can hardly talk to my good friend who grew up in Washington State about it after he made a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and another to Central Florida and now thinks he’s an expert on the horrors of the southern way of life. It’s like he never saw a rural shack before—and I doubt he’s ever seen what migrant farm laborers in California live in either.

I realize how much fun bashing a place, its people and its way of life can be when you really don’t know much about it. But that’s the point of this thread isn’t it?