So you think the place where you live is “God’s Country,” a true paradise? How terribly wrong you are. No place is perfect, and last week a blogger made it clear where the United States is concerned. The author of Pleated Jeans looked at US statistics and made a map which tells us how every state ranks worst in some category:
Not too many surprises here. No doubt Kentucky got the worst rating for cancer because we have a larger percentage of smokers than the general population, and tobacco has always been an important part of the local economy. But I thought Louisiana or New Jersey would be tops in corruption, not Tennessee, and for California I expected earthquakes to be mentioned, not the notorious air pollution of Los Angeles. Maine got the rating of “dumbest state” because it has the lowest SAT scores; I hear some shocked Yankees are hollering that honor should have gone to Alabama or Mississippi! And as a nerd myself, I don’t think the statistic shown for Ohio is so bad.
On the other hand, if you find this too depressing, check out Ilya Gerner’s map of the United States of Awesome, which shows what each state is best at:
