Has the ADHS Been Worth It?

[Grzrd]

This article by an intern at the Center for Rural Strategies analyzes the effect of the Appalachian Development Highway System on the region it serves.  One interesting conclusion is as follows:

An ARC report notes the "continuing out-migration of the college and working-age population"  – the very people who are needed to fill jobs that the ADHS was intended to attract are leaving. Another report says that the distressed counties have experienced "significant population losses."  In other words, conditions in counties along the ADHS system may have worsened. With newer roads, it's become just as easy to exit as to enter, and the decline in working-age population seems to indicate that the roads are facilitating the export of people and jobs.

Another conclusion from a joint study by the ARC and the University of Tennessee is as follows:

The ADHS is just one part of a larger picture of road construction in Appalachia, which includes many other local efforts to improve transportation. A joint study between the ARC and the University of Tennessee considers these other regional and local efforts and looks at the region's transportation development as a whole. It concludes that transportation, when inadequate, is a hindrance, but improved transportation does not, in and of itself, promote development.

[cpzilliacus]

An ARC report notes the "continuing out-migration of the college and working-age population"  – the very people who are needed to fill jobs that the ADHS was intended to attract are leaving. Another report says that the distressed counties have experienced "significant population losses."  In other words, conditions in counties along the ADHS system may have worsened. With newer roads, it's become just as easy to exit as to enter, and the decline in working-age population seems to indicate that the roads are facilitating the export of people and jobs.

I'm not sure that measuring population of the Appalachian region is the correct metric.

Even many non-Appalachian rural counties (and non-rural counties) have lost population.

Seems that economic activity might be a better way of looking at the impact of the ADHS network.  And the traffic volumes over these highways (as compared with traffic on the network that the ADHS roads were intended to replace).  A highway engineer and planner that I deeply respect once quipped that one of the primary (if perhaps unstated) reasons behind the ADHS was that they were intended to "induce" demand (an argument that many anti-highway groups use as justification for not improving or expanding the national highway network).

[Road Hog]

Correlation without causation. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Etc.

The economy isn't all that great, in case anyone noticed. Appalachia doesn't have a wall around it. If people feel compelled to leave, the state of the highway isn't going to make a difference.

What might make a difference is corporations quitting closing all those shirt factories and glove factories and moving them to China. After that, industries need to be recruited to relocate to the area. A new highway helps, but governmental and business leaders have to close the sale.

[cpzilliacus]

Correlation without causation. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Etc.

I agree, though the observations in the report form the basis for a good discussion.  Like this one.

A better metric might be the data put out by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which publishes much of its activity data at the county level.

The economy isn't all that great, in case anyone noticed. Appalachia doesn't have a wall around it. If people feel compelled to leave, the state of the highway isn't going to make a difference.

That would be correct.

What might make a difference is corporations quitting closing all those shirt factories and glove factories and moving them to China. After that, industries need to be recruited to relocate to the area. A new highway helps, but governmental and business leaders have to close the sale.

As best as I can tell, most of the textile mills were once in New England, then fled south to North and South Carolina in search of lower wage workers.

And by that I mean the Piedmont,  not the mountainous western counties of North Carolina (though there was some textile manufacturing there as well).

But if you live by low wages, then you die by low wages, as former textile workers (with their jobs exported to Red China) might tell you.

[hbelkins]

If Randy Hersh really is a member here, it will take all the restraint he can muster not to reply to this thread. 

[Beltway]

The ADHS highways have vastly improved transportation in their own corridors.  West Virginia used to be a dreadful place to drive across, and the Interstates and ADHS highways have greatly eased highway transportation across the state.

ADHS has provided many fine highways across the region.

[cpzilliacus]

The ADHS highways have vastly improved transportation in their own corridors.  West Virginia used to be a dreadful place to drive across,

Still is (in places).

Just north of West Virginia, I recall driving U.S. 40 in Maryland, especially between Hancock and Cumberland.  What a miserable and slow and winding trip that was.  That changed once I-68 (ADHS Corridor E) was completed in the early 1990's.

and the Interstates and ADHS highways have greatly eased highway transportation across the state.

The late Senator Robert Carlyle Byrd understood this very well.

ADHS has provided many fine highways across the region.

Right.  I have to wonder if it has given a boost to agriculture in some of the rural counties that have gotten benefit from the ADHS.  Good roads make it easier to get milk and other farm products to east coast urban areas that consume them.

[hbelkins]

Right.  I have to wonder if it has given a boost to agriculture in some of the rural counties that have gotten benefit from the ADHS.  Good roads make it easier to get milk and other farm products to east coast urban areas that consume them.

I think the number of chicken ranches in the Potomac Highlands of WV has increased due to the construction of US 48. Even with the segment from Wardensville to Strasburg not yet finished, it's now much easier to drive from Moorefield to I-81.

[cpzilliacus]

Right.  I have to wonder if it has given a boost to agriculture in some of the rural counties that have gotten benefit from the ADHS.  Good roads make it easier to get milk and other farm products to east coast urban areas that consume them.

I think the number of chicken ranches in the Potomac Highlands of WV has increased due to the construction of US 48. Even with the segment from Wardensville to Strasburg not yet finished, it's now much easier to drive from Moorefield to I-81.

H.B., I think you may be right about that. 

There was a time when large-scale chicken farming in the Appalachians was not common - such activities happened on the Delmarva Peninsula and even some of the counties just west of the Chesapeake (if we go back in time far enough).

Now there are still large numbers of chickens being raised on the Delmarva, but not so much on the Western Shore.  But the dramatic growth seems to have been in eastern West Virginia (not excessively far from I-81) and in certain Virginia counties along the I-81 corridor.  You may be familiar with W.Va. and Va. 259 - plenty of chicken raising going on in Hampshire and Hardy Counties, W.Va., and in Rockingham County, Va.

[SP Cook]

It concludes that transportation, when inadequate, is a hindrance, but improved transportation does not, in and of itself, promote development.

[/quote]

Which goes without saying.  The ARC highway system, togther with the interstates, constitues pretty much the sum total of the "good roads" in most of the region.   Many were needed, if for no other reason, simply because you have to get traffic across the region.

But you can build all the roads in the world and Appalachia still has many problems.

- The primary and secondary schools are generally very poor.
- The college system in some states, such as West Virginia, is awful, and in other states, such as Virginia, the Appalcaian student is not prepared to take advantage of it.
- The culture, in central Appalachia at least, believes that people do their boss a favor by working for him.  The hostile labor/job creator environment is the worst in the country.
- There is not a wall around the place.  Getting out is a viable option for people of all educational levels, throughout their 20s.  Sadly, it is the best and the brightest that leave.
- The business climate in many states, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, is, at best, one that supports crony capitalism, and, at worst, if openly hostile to job creators.
- The EPA. 

Frankly, I think there are some places that simply are not developable.  Bennedum (a Pittsburgh based thinktank) pointed out in a very good study, that the wisest use of development money would be to buy out people and get them to move to town.

[NE2]

- The culture, in central Appalachia at least, believes that people do their boss a favor by working for him.

They're right.

[hbelkins]

Frankly, I think there are some places that simply are not developable.  Bennedum (a Pittsburgh based thinktank) pointed out in a very good study, that the wisest use of development money would be to buy out people and get them to move to town.

Years ago on m.t.r., you mentioned a plan that would basically buy out everyone in McDowell and Wyoming counties and only leave a handful of towns -- Oceana, Welch, Pineville and possibly Mullens? -- as population centers. Was that a pipe dream? Was that proposal a product of this think tank?

[Scott5114]

I think another part of it is reputation. A lot of people think of WV as nothing but backwoods hillbillies. The thought of living there isn't too appealing. If WV found a way to fix its image then people might be more likely to give it a second look.

Another reason people could be leaving is that they simply want to live somewhere where there's more going on. More opportunities for a variety of jobs and recreation. How often do major rock bands include Charleston on their tour?

[cpzilliacus]

- The business climate in many states, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, is, at best, one that supports crony capitalism, and, at worst, if openly hostile to job creators.

There are plenty of other states that do qualify for such criticism.

Two that come to my mind are my home state of Maryland, and also California.  Though for reasons that are sometimes different than Kentucky and West Virginia.

- The EPA.

Agreed.  The EPA seems to take its responsibilities much more seriously in places that need jobs than it does in places where state and local governments are more in favor of economic development.

Frankly, I think there are some places that simply are not developable.  Bennedum (a Pittsburgh based thinktank) pointed out in a very good study, that the wisest use of development money would be to buy out people and get them to move to town.

What to do with the land they leave behind?

One thing that has been suggested (more than once) is that some (rural) counties need to be consolidated, that there's no need for a place like [this is an arbitrary choice] McDowell County, W.Va. (2010 population about 22,000, down from over 90,000 in 1950) to have its own county government.

[SP Cook]

Years ago on m.t.r., you mentioned a plan that would basically buy out everyone in McDowell and Wyoming counties and only leave a handful of towns -- Oceana, Welch, Pineville and possibly Mullens? -- as population centers. Was that a pipe dream? Was that proposal a product of this think tank?

Yes it was a pipe dream, and yes, it was a product of Bennedum. 

They basicly made a series of obvious, but never discussed points.  The main series of points was that before coal, the number of people that central Appalachia supported was very small.  And if you look at places of similar topography, but without coal, throughout North America (northern New England, northern and southern Appalachians, Ozarks, etc), these continue to support a very small population.  So the obvious conclusion is that the high (and it is still high, even after 3 generations of out-migration) rural population is an unnatural condition, not economically supportable.  But for coal, these people would have never been there, because their ancestors would have found work elsewhere and settled elsewhere.  So rather than chase after all manner of harebrained development ideas, we just accept that geography is the key, and use the social welfare and financial system to encourage people to move to places of opportunity.  It was a good idea, but politically, that kind of talk is going nowhere.  People can't handle the truth, and would much rather be told that their Byrdgod somehow tricked the rest of the federal government into spending money on the latest idea.