What happens when all of the plants are bulldozed out of a specific area, most severe where there are hills and mountains.
A common sight in the Amazon Rainforest region, Hawaii, Appalacia, Tasmania, Africa, and metropolitan areas all across the USA.
Commonly caused by strip mining, clearcutting, the overgrazing of livestock (especially beef cattle), and evil greedy developers.

A mostly poor region, mostly of British ancestry (English and Scots-Irish primarily, which mostly date to the 18th century). However, multiple ethnic groups are represented in the gene pool, and people of Southern/Eastern European descent (Dating from the time of the industrial revolution) become much more common as one goes northeast
(Scottish and Cherokee in western North Carolina, the former since colonial times and the latter countless centuries before that) as well as Welsh in some areas, most notably Eastern Pensylvania, Dutch in the Catskills, and more recent arrivals of mexican, Puerto Rican, East Indian Chinese, Middle Eastern and other descent, coming from many other places in Asia, Latin America, and Africa (many of these settled there for a time at least, long ago, either employed in town labor or to work in the coal mines.) Prior to the U.S./C.S. civil war, many runaway slaves escaped into these mountains (see melungeons) making good use of their remoteness.

Coal mining has been a significant source of employment for some time, but for a generation or two, the human workf...

Commonly abbreviated NOVA it is a distinct region of Virginia that ecompasses Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington and Prince William counties. On occasion some people will extend the definition as far west as Winchester and as far southwest as Warrenton/Front Royal due to the number of DC commuters that have flocked there.

Northern Virginia is a place of extremes. Fairfax and Loudoun counties are two of the richest and highly educated in the country. Additionally it has the highest concentration of office square footage anywhere in the country. It is also home to some areas of organized crime, but these areas are isolated in small sections of Falls Church, Arlington, Alexandria Manassas and southern Centerville. Some areas of Herndon and Sterling (south of rte 7) are on that path but most of these areas are safe.

Culturally, the area is distinct as it lies in the southern edge of the Bos-Wash corridor taking on a more "Mid-Atlantic" feel which annoys the Virginians to the south to no extent. What people from SOVA fail to realize is while Virginia historically was a part of the south during the civil war, it is a state that lies within three regions: Appalacia, the south and, yes, the Mid-Atlantic. The south usually begins after Fredericksburg on I-95 and Appalacia usually begins upon leaving the sprawl of NOVA towards I-81. Most people here are transplants from the midwest, the west coast, the northeast and the south and are immigrants (legal and illegal) from all over the...