>>149372444>>149372465Yeah here it is.
>>149355126Okay let me explain the Virginia lore on this, anons.
See that weird anomalous Blue and Red dot right by the mountains. That's the New River Valley. That is what happens when you put 2 college cities, Radford and Virginia Tech, in the middle of a bunch of rural Appalachian towns close to the VA-WV border and the results are about as chaotic as you'd expect because both towns where the universities are located developed and gentrified rapidly as a result of them being there which prompted students who graduated to later move out towards the neighboring towns and Roanoke as a means of staying close.
A lot of these students entered government and bureaucracies and the result is that the larger NRV area has access to social programs, an efficient bus system, and all this other stuff that isn't really available in similar areas which basically got it booted out of the "Appalachian" label.
This is where it gets fucking hilarious. Blacksburg, where VT is located, is the only one that really has an economy and tax-paying population to support anything like what the NRV has set up and as a result, pretty much every town in the area is in massive debt and you're seeing all kinds of shit go down hill but since VT and Radford are basically sister universities, Radford inevitably gets whatever VT has. And every town in the area develops accordingly since students stay in the area to open their own businesses when they graduate. So now those same businesses are paying the toll with constantly raising prices.
But the end cultural result is that you basically drive through there and it's literally just driving through weird patches of complete "love is love diversity is our strength", then MAGA country, then back to the former, then back to the latter.