I recently visited WV and I found it an interesting contradiction. A lot of the major infrastructure I saw was in perfectly fine condition, even quite good in many places. But in a lot of the little towns the poverty was palpable. Houses in such an amazing state of disrepair with patches cobbled on top of patches. Then you drive into the hills around the town and sooooo beautiful, big houses on big plots of land, etc. It was gorgeous to drive through and see ... from the inside of our air conditioned van ;-).

I wonder how long until someone builds a high speed commuter line into the heart of WV from DC. There is probably an obvious reason not to, but from my west coast perspective it seems like a good idea.

West Virginia benefited for a long time from being represented by Robert Byrd, a powerful and savvy U.S. senator who was adept at directing federal dollars into his state to pay for nice infrastructure and federal jobs (the FBI, among other agencies, has a major center in WV).

At the same time, much of WV's private economy was centered around extraction and manufacturing, both of which have declined over the decades.

There's a big highway under construction into the center of WV, currently called "Corridor H", that is intended to link up with 66, a major artery in and out of the DC metro area.

I think it's unlikely that high speed rail gets built in that corridor any time soon, simply because high speed rail in general seems unlikely in the U.S. right now.

The puzzle piece you are missing is topography. Load up a topo map of the state sometime. Nearly all of it is a twisted, practically fractal landscape of hills/mountains.

And unlike some other regions known for mountains (like New England) there are no (relatively) wide valleys between them.

It's wild, beautiful, and absolutely awful for building even a decent sized town in. It's why the few cities in the states are at the far edges, and even they are hilly. It's also obviously terrible for building transport infrastructure to get anywhere quickly.

That is an excellent point. The topography makes it beautiful, but now that you mention it, I can see how it would make building an expensive hassle.

> I wonder how long until someone builds a high speed commuter line into the heart of WV from DC. There is probably an obvious reason not to, but from my west coast perspective it seems like a good idea.

I grew up in MD and spent a lot of time in WV. It's a beautiful state with a lot of wonderful people. It has a modest crime rate and a murder rate typically 1/3 lower than the US rate. And of course as noted it's quite poor relatively speaking. Sub par economic outcomes is one of the long-term constants of WV. You will often notice the difference in the quality of the roads immediately when you cross into WV from MD or VA.

Here's one big reason why that high-speed line will never happen from DC to eg Morgantown or Charleston WV: the population of West Virginia hasn't increased since the 1930s. 1.8m people in 1935, 1.8m today (and falling). The demand just is never going to be there, given the extreme cost to build infrastructure in the US.

The "second poorest" is likely a misquote. The Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel has a notably high official poverty rate due to the lifestyle of the people living there. This is one village in one county. The entire state in aggregate is not anywhere near the poorest even with NYC removed.

New York has the second lowest purchasing-power adjusted median income. On the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure (which accounts for cost of living), New York is the third poorest, with 17.9% of people living in poverty (versus 14.8% for West Virginia): https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio....

CA does very poorly by that measure. Both of these states have large rural populations (which bring down the median income), as well as large urban centers (which bring up the cost of living).

I've also often driven through both quite a bit when I lived up north.

I'm not sure I could tell you if I was in (non-coastal) rural MD or rural WV (same as I'm not sure I could tell you if I was in Fairmont, Cumberland or Winchester).