Well, it isn't accurate to characterize all of any state by it's reputation. Although we live in West Virginia, it's not all Appalachia or even close to it. When we told friends and family where we were moving we got a lot of "You're moving WHERE?" But we do in fact have clean running water, indoor toilets, reliable electricity and (obviously) access to Internet. Other than significantly lower traffic levels (one of the main reasons we moved) and real estate prices I didn't notice a lot of differences between here and ten miles from Washington, D.C. where we used to live.
Unfortunately a lot of other people are figuring that out and are moving here too. All in all though, we'd miss out on a lot if we had written off the entirety of WV because some parts of it are not where we'd want to live.
