Videos
Destined to Fail
Between 2008 and 2019, the twenty-two counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that produce 90% of Appalachian natural gas badly trailed the nation in key measures of economic prosperity, including growth in jobs, personal income, and population. That’s...
The Centralia Model for Economic Transition in Distressed Communities
A new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute illustrates the real-life case of Centralia, Washington, a chronically distressed coal town that recently lost its coal mine and is now losing its coal-fired power plant. Yet, just five years after negotiating...
How Appalachia’s Shale Gas Boom Became an Economic Bust
If there is such a thing as a "resource curse", this is what it looks like. Between 2008 and 2010 the economic output of 22 Appalachian natural gas producing counties grew at three times the rate of the US economy. But the region's share of income, jobs, and...