Our Quiet, Little, White-Bred, Redneck, Mountain Town

The entire Morgantown area needs to be condemned. The town is literally falling apart at the seams. While the university manages to keep a fairly good handle on its own stuff, the college acts like the tapeworm on the colon that is Morgantown. WVU had 27,500 enrolled students as of Fall 2007, and this town just can't sustain them all.

Almost all of the houses in downtown Morgantown have been converted into rental properties for undergraduates, and they've devolved into complete slums. Because the need for housing is so high, the landlords have zero incentive to keep their houses looking nice. After all, undergraduate frat boy assholes will live anywhere. The phrase "roaches on the table" doesn't have to refer to pot in this town.

Driving around town, it's almost sad to see how many houses simply need a coat of paint... or just washed. It wouldn't take that much to make these houses look somewhat presentable. There was a nice little fiasco a few months back because the front of a house collapsed, injuring several people. Turns out an unsurprising number of domiciles in the Morgantown area need to be condemned.

The roads are just as bad. I've bitched about Morgantown roads before. Some of these roads are simply unsafe. There's one road (Falling Run Road) that's used quite a bit by students, but there's no sidewalk. The road is built at a 70 degree angle, and it's literally road-curb-20 foot drop. You've got people walking in the middle of the street as cars come barreling around these blind curves. This road ends at a five-way stop, where one road has the right-of-way, but only about 50% of the population knows this. I'm surprised people don't die on a regular basis.

I don't live within walking distance of the campus, and that's a pain in the ass at times, but there are very few places in the downtown area that are, in my opinion, livable. Some of these homes are perched precariously on the sides of cliffs. Only some duct tape, dried semen, and regular prayers to Vishnu are keeping these buildings from collapsing onto other poorly built housing. I found out recently that the entire town is built on abandoned mine shafts. Mine subsidence insurance is apparently impossible to get here. It's nice to know that everyone's in danger of falling into a giant crevice at any moment.

Fun Fact: The word "Monongahela" is an American Indian word meaning "high banks breaking off or falling down in places." What dipshit came to this place, heard that meaning, and decided to build a big university right along the Monongahela River? "Golly Elmer, ain't nuthin' more solid than a crumbling river bank! Let's build us one of them learnin' factories!" (Before townies start bitching at me for stereotyping them, let me direct your attention to the naming of "Don Knotts Boulevard." Point, Set, Match!)

The snow destroys the roads. The roads destroy the people. The people destroy the houses. The houses destroy any sense of beauty that this town might possess.

Oh, and the glowing green river water and the nearby nuclear power plant don't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside... except when the cancer starts to grow in my colon.

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The Morgantown Convention and Visitors Bureau does not support, condone, endorse, or give free blowjobs to JP. His opinions are his own, and we actually believe that Morgantown has a rustic charm and beauty that can only be surpassed by the magnificence of you beautiful tourists with your outside money.