Ohio is way too high. I moved there for a year, first time I talked to the cashier at the local grocery store, I said I moved here from so and so and her knee jerk response was a snarky “why?”
Cleveland is the best hidden gem about that state and that’s saying something.
Also, I’ve oddly had a few good ventures out in Alabama. Fairhope on the bay in particular was much nicer than my preconceived notions had expected. There’s a few good fancy restaurants in downtown Montgomery that are cheaper than equivalents in other states. And Auburn’s campus is a dream, hate what happened to those trees on Toomer’s corner though.
Ohio os the most average state. Make a bell curve comparing states and Ohio is right there at the top every time. The weather is pleasant, rent is cheap, and jobs aren’t too hard to come by.
I kinda see where that cashier was coming from though. I grew up in Indiana (not terribly different than Ohio), and we knew it was a garbage state. Its motto is “Crossroads of America”, which we always said just means “you have to go through here to get to somewhere better”.
That’s exactly what people say about Ohio too.
Said many times that Alabama is way nicer than it’s given credit for. And yeah, the whole Fairhope/Daphne/Spanish Fort area is stunning. Too rich for my blood though.
What’s Akron like? It seems like it should be cool.
PA is weirdly high.
Man that is another state that is full of wonderful nuggets. Philly is chock full of American Independence history. Pittsburgh has cleaned up a lot and is beautiful there by 3 rivers. People love the Eagles and Steelers. Carnegie Mellon and Penn St are powerhouses. Sesame Place, Hershey Park, 6 flags. Tough parts of the AT go through PA. Turnpike has decent rest stops. Strong Union presence. Decent railroads. Erie is a cool little town by the lake with that Isle right there.
And then all in the middle of the state you basically have a carbon copy of wild n wonderful West Virginia. What’s not to like?
To answer your main question, “pennsatucky” and the fact that the roads are badly maintained once you cross the border over from a neighboring state.
But you’re right about the good parts. Also, Pennsylvania dutch!
The scenery is the only thing keeping TN green i assure yall
Midwesterners absolutely love Nashville for some reason. It’s where everyone wants to have the bachelorette parties these days
Charleston get too expensive?
and Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton is a national treasure.
Dolly Parton is a gift to humanity.
I don’t believe this at all. Who did they ask?
clearly not me, I couldn’t get out of N Carolina fast enough
As a lifelong southerner, NC is my favorite southern state. I’ve lived in SC, FL, NC, VA, TN. I absolutely love Asheville. Granted, I lived there as a youngin, and have only visited Asheville and a few other places as an adult. But my God don’t I love Asheville.
Asheville is basically anti NC. I agree that mountain hippies are great, but as you move east you go from fucked up tobacco shit, to Fuck Duke, to fucked up military industrial complex, to tourist hellscape. Charlotte is ok, but it’s like if you took a real city and made it optimized for 7’ tall pickup trucks.
At least we can all agree that Hawaii is awesome
As a South Carolinian, let me confirm that we do not deserve a positive rating. I love my state, but its government is run by rich idiots.
To be clear, that is still less than 50% approval rating. The only state apparently to get over 50% is Hawaii and not by much.
Every state is positive! score is favourable - unfavourable. Hawaii would have been 76.5 vs 23.5.
Oh you’re right! My bad I didn’t read the fine print.
As a Californian, you’re all just jealous. I will sit atop my pile of avocados and wildfires and functional economy.
Go hang out with Hawaii.
Alaska can come too.
THE AEEND!
Don’t forget, we also have Disneyland.
interesting that the scale is positive everywhere.
Growing up, my father was in the military, so we moved every 3 years. One of our locations was northern Alabama, and I remember crying about it at the time because I really didn’t want to live there and had always heard bad things about it.
Actually living there, it’s fine. The Huntsville area has NASA and a lot of aerospace jobs, and is generally a nice and pleasant place to live. You can buy houses within a 30-45 min commute of pretty good jobs for surprisingly cheap (was just looking at a 3000+ sq ft brick house with a couple acres for $120k, needed a new AC unit and some work, but nice enough to live in while you fix it up). The people are really friendly compared to most other states I lived in, and the countryside is pretty beautiful.
I can’t speak for most of the rest of the state, but in general I think Alabama gets a worse reputation than it deserves. Biggest issues with it are the tornados and humidity.
I’ve been to Huntsville before and was surprised at how charming it was. It felt like one of those idyllic suburbs from a movie.
Having Huntsville atop the rest of Alabama is kind of like having Canada atop the rest of America.
Also, the most common thing you’ll hear anyone in Alabama say is “Thank God for Mississippi,” because at least that way they still have someone to look down on.
Alabama has the nicest small towns I’ve ever driven through. I’m often commenting to my wife, wondering how the hell such a small town has enough industry and tax base to be so nice.
They really don’t deserve the reputation. Arkansas and West Virginia and others are far, far worse off.
They’re nice to drive through.
They’re not nice to live in, especially…
Well, okay. I’m biased because I lived for well over a decade in Alabama, and I’m not white.
I’m Native American, and there’s this weird thing that happens in Alabama when you’re native.
One, people think that you are Mexican and so they will speak Spanish to you and ask you to translate things and wonder how much your gardening services cost. (and when I did that kind of work, my prices were very reasonable)
Two, once they learn that you’re native because you happen to have, you know, three foot long hair and high cheek bones, they will assume that you have mystical powers and can talk to the wind and that animals will communicate to you with the secret magics.
So I got the downside of racism, where people hated me and people who liked me as a person would not date me because of the color of my skin, but I also got the upside of racism, where people thought that I was special and magical because of who my parents happened to be.
All of that aside, as I grew up, I thought I must be somebody special because every time I went to the store, people would follow me through the store and watch me closely, constantly sticking their head around corners as if getting a glimpse of me was one of the highlights of their time travel experience.
Turns out that they were just being racist and watching the little brown boy to make sure that he didn’t steal something or cause some sort of kerfluffle that they could get involved in.
I said all of that to say Alabama is incredibly racist.
My lived experience is that of racism.
And nobody lynched me.
I was not beat up.
I was not horrifically abused.
But racism is still racism, and people held me back and thought less of me, thought differently of me, or refused to evaluate me on the same level that they would have evaluated me if I was white, because I was not white.
So sure, a lot of those small towns are, you know, quaint and pretty and the people will smile and wave hands at you and open the door for you and say cute little colloquialisms with southern twang voices.
But if you don’t fit into their established social groups by benefit of the color of your skin or your financial position in the world, don’t rely on that for anything other than a very thin veneer of how they justify to themselves how they weren’t really racist because they didn’t murder you, they just watched you like a hawk and made sure that you were kept on your tippy toes to make sure that you know you are being allowed to be where you are.
Seen the racism on my last road trip, not so much in Alabama, but Mississippi was straight up eerie this go round. Felt like a switch got flipped once we crossed the border.
My wife’s Filipino, so like you, people think she’s Mexican. Which is kinda funny given Jo Koy’s take that they’re the Mexicans of Asia. Not so damned funny this last trip. Mississippi had always been nice enough on the surface, but now? Don’t have the words, but I did not feel we were welcome any longer.
And no, despite being a middle-aged white guy, I’m not blind to the “down low” racism. Was just commenting today about how black people have to be extra polite and deferential and it makes me sick to see. And what I’ve seen of the “in your face” racism my wife has faced, Jesus, I had no idea Asians were treated like that.
So Native American’s get the “magical Negro” treatment? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Even though I’m from Oklahoma, never knew any of y’all. Weird. But yeah, when we were kids we had that magical view of Natives, like they were better than us, more connected with nature and god, mystical, wiser.
Anyway, back to Alabama being racist. I’ve seen crazy racism everywhere I’ve visited or lived in America. Chicago and NYC? Segregated down to the city block. Manhattan in 1992 was wild. Jamaicans this block, Haitians that block, and do not fucking cross the street. I assume it’s better now.
Don’t forget local corruption
I’m sure it’s lovely apart from the killer tornadoes.
To be fair, a lot of places have some kind of natural disaster threat. Hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, floods, etc.
Alabama is nowhere near tornado alley. You’re mixed up with some midwest state.
I guess Huntsville is a bit off the path, but there’s a fuckoff big Confederate flag on the I-65 between Birmingham and Montgomery. Friendly is a matter of proximity and perception: you were either not close enough or too respectable to meet the sort that give Alabama its reputation.
Haven’t seen that, sure it’s still there? Haven’t been that way in a year and I’m never driving through Birmingham again. I talk up Alabama a good bit around here, but Birmingham, 🤮
Alabama is way nicer than it’s given credit for. I drive most of the way through the backcountry highways and it’s great. We stop at a great many small towns and they’re surprisingly clean and charming.
I noticed a lot of public works improvements and activity. Turns out they finally put a tax on gasoline and put that into the new Rebuild Alabama Act. The results are most impressive.
Another neat thing, Alabama is the most heavily forested state in the union. Nice!
As someone who used to live in NC but no longer does because of the car dependence and horrible state politics, how the heck is it one of the highest ones? I didn’t think the other states even thought about NC very much outside of election season tbh.
- States north of it vacation in the OBX, famous lighthouses
- Asheville
- Highly rated beer
- Highly rated universities
- whole triangle area is fantastic place for nightlife, culture and raising a family
- Basketball
- Mountains - mount mitchell highest peak in the east, waterfalls
- Great Smoky National Park, most visited in US
- AT goes through it
- Blue Ridge Parkway
- National white water center
- NASCAR HOF
- Middle of the road politically, not too red, not too blue
- lot of soldiers roll through Fort Liberty
- a cacophony of “Carolina ___” songs.
I’ve traveled a lot of places. This one’s home.
East NC barbecue 😋
Asheville
Asheville was great 10 years ago, now its overridden by Florida retirees (and the builders who cater to them) who have driven home prices far past what most people can afford.
Also it was destroyed in a hurricane
Other than parts by the river, Asheville survived for the most part. The cities really destroyed were the smaller towns around it like Chimney Rock.
I live here and that’s not true
I’m not living in Asheville currently but every time I have visited since the hurricane, it has been like normal with the exception of Biltmore Village and the River Arts District.
The only time it was really bad was when I went there about a week after the hurricane.
Known for naturaly beauty. Red enough for conservatives not to dislike it. But turning blue enough for liberals not to dislike it. Financially successful enough to not get a “Mississippi”/“Ohio” reputation. Hence, people tend to have nice thoughts about it.
Ohio has the 7th highest GDP in the country. No clue why you think it is a poor state
Perception > Reality
NC let’s fucking gooooo!
Recently returned to my ancestral homeland of SC, and cheer wine (and actually decent barbecue) have been the local highlights.
RAISE UP
The collective South Loud enough for the people in the back, y’all: Thank GOD for Mississippi!
As I often find myself saying, yes, New Jersey is terrible, please don’t visit.
The best place to visit in New Jersey is Elizabeth, maybe just a bit west of it, there’s just lots of fresh air there!
Yes yes, absolutely horrible, no need to come and check, nightmare here constantly, just the worst. Yes yes yes.
…
Are they gone yet???
Oh thank goodness!
That’s a wild score for Florida. Do people just like Walt Disney World that much?
West Virginia somehow scores higher than california?? Has anyone actually been to west virginia?
I’m guessing the survey responder pool was “whoever is at this Midwest bingo hall at 2pm on a Tuesday.”
Oklahoma has way better meth labs than California 👍
Yeah, this seems wrong. Tennessee definitely isn’t that good.
It must be because of the smoky mountains… only thing cool about this place.
