Hillbilly Highway

In the United States, the Hillbilly Highway is a term used to describe the outward migration of poor whites from the Appalachian Highlands region of the United States to industrialized cities in northern, midwestern, and western states, starting in the years following World War II, in search of better-paying industrial jobs and higher standards of living. Many of these migrants were formerly in the coal mining industry, which started to decline in 1940s. The word hillbilly refers to a negative stereotype of poor whites from Appalachia. The term hillbilly is considered to be a modern term because it showed up in the early 1900s. Though the word is of Scottish origin, it does not derive from a dialect. In Scotland, the term hill-folk referred to people who preferred isolation from the greater society and the term billy referred to someone being a "companion" or "comrade". The Hillbilly Highway is a parallel to the better-known Great Migration of African-Americans from the south.

Many of these Appalachian migrants have gone to major industrial centers such as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Toledo, Denver and Muncie, while others have traveled west to California and Washington State. Many of the Appalachians live in concentrated enclaves, an example being Uptown, Chicago, which was nicknamed "Hillbilly Heaven" in the 1960s. While most often used in this metaphoric sense, the term is sometimes used to refer to specific stretches of roadway, such as U.S. Route 23, or Interstate 75. The participants in the Hillbilly Highway are known as Urban Appalachians. The migration is not a finite process, as it is continuing today and the migrants commonly move back to their home states during retirement, or relocate only temporarily.