The New York Times - MARCH 15, 2014
Fairfax
County, Va., and McDowell County, W.Va., are separated by 350 miles,
about a half-day’s drive. Traveling west from Fairfax County, the gated
communities and bland architecture of military contractors give way to
exurbs, then to farmland and eventually to McDowell’s coal mines and the
forested slopes of the Appalachians. Perhaps the greatest distance
between the two counties is this: Fairfax is a place of the haves, and
McDowell of the have-nots. Just outside of Washington, fat government
contracts and a growing technology sector buoy the median household
income in Fairfax County up to $107,000, one of the highest in the
nation. McDowell, with the decline of coal, has little in the way of
industry. Unemployment is high. Drug abuse is rampant. Median household income is about one-fifth that of Fairfax.
One of the starkest consequences of that divide is seen in the life expectancies
of the people there. Residents of Fairfax County are among the
longest-lived in the country: Men have an average life expectancy of 82
years and women, 85, about the same as in Sweden. In McDowell, the
averages are 64 and 73, about the same as in Iraq.
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