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Posts tagged ‘Population’

Hollow: Documenting West Virginia

The HillVille unabashedly loves stories, community building and especially innovative ways to use stories to build community. So when we saw Hollow, an interactive documentary about McDowell County, W.Va., on Kickstarter, we were intrigued. We caught up with project founder and ex-App Elaine McMillion earlier this week to get the scoop.

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Rural Retreat: Why Retirees Are Moving Mountain South

For our Rural Retreat issue, The HillVille caught up with Meghan Dorsett, who publishes The Community Planner, a practical ‘how-to’ planning guide, to find out what trends she’s encountering in Appalachia’s small towns and communities. She wasn’t surprised a bit when Forbes.com recently listed Boone, N.C., as one of the fastest growing small towns in America. Change is here for some areas, she says, and it’s all about the baby boomers.

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Remembering Chicago’s “Hillbilly Problem”

By Niki King

This week chicagomag.com’s Whet Moser contemplated race relations and Southern migration to the Windy City in the years up to and following World War II, a time when millions of Appalachians were moving to Chicago and other Midwestern cities to find work.

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Urban Appalachia: Who, Where and What is it?!

By Niki King

Say the word “Appalachian” and many images come to mind.  A city skyline may not be among them. And maybe that’s our own fault. Our cities haven’t been a hot topic in the Appalachian Studies community and there are few representations of our regional urbanity in art, media and literature.
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A Conversation with Urban Appalachian Scholar Phillip J. Obermiller

by Niki King

Look up “urban Appalachian” and you’re sure to find the Urban Appalachian Council, which has worked since 1974 to “promote a decent quality of life for Appalachian people of Greater Cincinnati” through direct services and advocacy.  They’ve also created an astounding body of research, that taken together, traces the experience of Appalachians in Cincinnati and other Mid-western cities over the last 40 years. This fall, The HillVille caught up with Phil Obermiller, a longstanding member of the Council’s Research Committee who has written extensively on the subject, to find out what’s new. Read more