Bloomberg View Contributor Noah Smith writes: Pikeville, with about 7,000 people, is deep in Appalachia near the West Virginia border — the same kind of poor, dying coal-mining region described in books like J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy." But as Stone shows, Pikeville has been bucking this well-known trend, with an increasing population and a thriving downtown. Why? Because of the University of Pikeville.