Life after coal: The decline and rise of West Virginia coal country
In the West Virginia coalfields—on the edge of which my aunt and uncle live, and where I spent holidays and vacations as a kid—the economic mood ranges from depressed to apocalyptic. At one point, more than 100,000 West Virginians worked in the mines that produced well-paying jobs and gave people money to spend. That money spilled over into other sectors: retail, construction, and education, to name a few, and was the backbone of the state's economy. Now, fewer than 20,000 locals work in these mines, and the jobs that do exist pay far less than they used to, thanks to successful anti-union actions by coal companies. As a result, a region that once boomed along with human consumption of fossil fuels is now littered with shuttered mines, shuttered storefronts, and shuttered dreams.