Creating flatland for expansion

AP via Washington Times:

The towering mountains that frame this Appalachian town have been a hindrance to growth, forcing homes and businesses to crowd together side by side on precious little flat land.
That could change under a plan by Pikeville leaders who recruited a coal company to flatten two mountaintops to make room for the town of about 6,300 to expand.
Appalachian towns like Pikeville that have exhausted all usable land have no choice but to look to the mountaintops, City Manager Donovan Blackburn said.
"If you look at the amount of land that is developable right now, there is virtually none," Mr. Blackburn said. "This will be a tremendous benefit."
However, in mountaintop-removal coal mining, hilltops are blasted away to uncover coal seams, and the leftover rock and dirt are dumped into adjacent valleys, burying streams. Environmentalists say the process destroys wildlife habitat and contaminates water.

But Pikeville wouldn't be the first Kentucky town to look to mined land for expansion. Cities throughout the mountain region have used the reclaimed properties for everything from industrial parks to airports.
In nearby Hazard, housing developments, car lots and even a hospital have sprouted up on such property. The Federal Bureau of Prisons built a high-security penitentiary on a former mountaintop-removal site outside Inez. And Prestonsburg has a golf course on mined land.

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Several yars ago I was visiting a friend who was a professor at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown, who described one of the local attractions as "the Mile Ground." It was supposed to be the only square mile of flat ground in the area and people would come to see what flat land looked like. I do recall that landing at the Morgantown airport was an uphill experience. That is quite a difference from the Texas prairie where the highest point this side of Houston is the upper deck of the stadium at Texas A&M.