St Louis haters,

go to hell

sincerely,

bbq

right, and ohio sucks at both of those things!

Grew up in Cleveland, went to school in Columbus, bolted the state about 25 years ago for San Diego and never looked back, except for visits to see family all of whom now live in Cinci.

Cleveland isn't as bad as most think. Decent dining, brewery and cafe options, three major sports teams (if you can call them that right now outside the Tribe), lakefront, and miles of beautiful parkland, not to mention very affordable living. The worst thing about Cleveland by far is the weather. Winters are just brutal, and sunny days are few and far in between.

Columbus isn't horrible, but it's plain vanilla and devoid of any real culture outside of the OSU campus area.

Were I to move back to the state, I'd probably choose Cinci, which has milder weather, affordable housing, sports teams, and not a terrible dining and nightlife scene, although it takes a bit of digging to find it.

Less than half the states are suitable for my job. Ohio is one of them. Therefore, I take Ohio.

Cinci weather is unbearable in the summer. Unreal humidity.

Def agree about Columbus vanilla culture. There's a few cool neighborhoods and restaraunts but it's mostly just different collections of those newer strip malls.

Cleveland parkland is super underrated.

At first I was like snap roll bc although ohio is proly better on average and at median it's not so much better that it's worth it and the legit amazing places are so much better. But now I am not so sure there's enough amazing states and there's too many **** holes. Like getting florida would be aweful.

Anyone who deliberately chooses Ohio deserves having to live there.

Not saying that’s a good thing, but both St. Louis and Kansas City are basically segregated cities. If part of the stipulation was “poor & black”, those are probably among the worst cities to live in. For a black male, it’s more dangerous to live on KCs east side than to serve in Afghanistan.

If you’re not poor, weather is the worst thing in both cities with St. Louis being even worse than KC. If you make a decent living in KC and don’t want to have to send your kids to private school, you move to the suburbs on the Kansas side where BraveJayhawk lives. Again, Overland Park regularly makes top10 lists for best cities between 100-200k population and Leawood for cities 50-100k.

I wouldn’t put Missouri or Kansas high on my list of best states, but not in the bottom 10.

I think the view that St. Louis > Vermont is probably an outlier.

Vermont is awesome, so is New Hampshire. Tons of great hiking and winter activities. The lakes are awesome in the summer.

I too went to college in St. Louis. It is neither an urban blight hellhole nor a place I would want to live. It's unbelievably segregated and thus the racism isn't in your face, but rather an always-present background that white people generally aren't paying any overt attention to. It's just a very uptight place. Not unlike Ohio imo!

But even if the above doesn't sound too bad to you, the summers are hilariously horrible and reason enough to not live there.

My great grandfather was the mayor of East St. Louis back about a century ago. His election slogan was "Let's Make East St. Louis a bit more like home... and a bit less like hell."

Having been there, I think he failed.

I chose Ohio. I'd actually prefer a mid-sized Midwestern city to a coastal metropolis. Worst possible states for me would be a southern state such as Mississippi or Alabama.

I've been to enough states (Ohio not included) that I think that Ohio would probably be a better option than a roll of the dice for elsewhere.

You seem to have a lot of thoughts on this topic for someone that purposefully lives most of your life traveling in chicken-wagons, eating random meat on the street, and sleeping with disease carrying mosquitoes. I hope you'll forgive me if I consider your opinions outliers.

to me that says a lot about ohio

Deep down I'm just a Midwest rube at heart. At least I'm not a deplorable!

Ohio has a PR problem. It has two fantastic and open-minded/progressive cities in Columbus and Cincinnati. The cost of living in both is fantastic especially relative to the earning potential.

Those two cities alone would be in my top 15 cities to live in the US. And a lot of the cities ahead of Columbus/Cincinnati are in the same state (San Diego/LA/SF).

Rolling the dice is a terrible choice. Mississippi, Alabama, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Arkansas would all suck. That's a 26% shot at living in a terrible city.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/amer...e-in-2018.html

Des Moines, Omaha and Indianapolis are fine cities. Granted a little boring and traditional but I can live with that. Have never been to Albuquerque, Boise or OKC but I imagine they'd be decent.

I will give you Des Moines and Omaha as charming places to live. However, Indianapolis is just an objectively bad city. I have never been to Albuquerque, Boise or OKC but I haven't heard great things.

Albq used to be a complete and total hell hole, but supposedly its actually a pretty great place to live now.

LA is a terrible city, so the fact you have it ahead of other ohio ****holes is pretty telling :P

San Diego - Yes. San Francisco - Yes. Los Angeles - What the hell is that doing here?

L.A is miserable

The difference is he's been to all these places, not just heard about them.

I have zero interest in outdoor activities or beautiful scenery. I need to be around live poker of sufficient stakes that is in a legal card room. (I don't play home games.) For my personal needs and wants, St. Louis is clearly better than Vermont. For people with different desires, the reverse may be true.

I would want to live in a place with poker and a population large and diverse enough to support multiple Mexican restaurants that have cabeza tacos on the menu and an Asian grocery. Ideally, it would also have a low cost of living and late night dining options.

You are all correct about Los Angeles. Total hellhole. Don't move here. Don't even visit.