Posted on 11/23/2001 5:25:09 AM PST by LarryLied
Despite the "friendly" Sunbelt's purported ease and opportunity, the "unfriendly" North continues by far to have the best quality of life.The United Way now reports that Minnesota (of which I am genetically half a native, which may undermine the good data here) is the best state, in economic well-being, education, health, civic engagement, safety and the environment. Having visited this Midwest Finland, I am not surprised. And I find New Hampshire's Number 2 rating apt, too, having inhabited that rocky realm of rectitude, responsibility and (usually) reasonableness for four years.
Ditto the others in the top 10: Connecticut (even with Hartford!); Massachusetts; Vermont; Maine; Wisconsin; Iowa; New Jersey, and, yes, even Rhode Island, hardly a state at all!
Meanwhile, the bottom 10 are all in the Sunbelt, the worst New Mexico, and then Louisiana.
Maybe it's mostly the weather. The North's bracing and wildly variable climate energizes people and encourages planning and careful citizenship. And it's probably better for you, because cold is bad for bugs. Even the post-war wave of air-conditioning hasn't let previously soporific Southern schools, offices and factories overcome the North's paradoxical climatic advantage.
And Northerners tend to be less mobile, and so less likely to slide into that appalling anomie in which the American Dream is pursued by folks wandering the roads in search of pots of gold that turn out to be tin, and leaving no forwarding address. But then, it is easier to wander about where the weather is warm. Thus the pervasive trailer parks in the Sunbelt, and enough social problems to make you ask if the Sunbelt's growing national power is a good thing. (Don't show this to my Tennessee relatives.)
And Gore country.
Yep, my quality of life is terrible.
I go back far enough that I remember when Long Island was mostly hick potato farmers, and Kennedy airport was a swamp.
Also, upstate NY has more rednecks per square mile than the south ever thought of. The only difference is the yankee rednecks, are ill mannered and have an attitude problem.
That being said, I have lived many places in the US, east to west and north to south and I know all of us damn yankees cannot be so stupid as to move to and love an area that is worse than what we left.
I hate regulations. People in the Liberal enclaves of California--Marin comes to mind--love them.
They love crotrol and a controlling government.
They don't want just to keep you from blowing smoke in their faces; they want to keep you from smoking at all--just to control you!
They're just like the Taliban! They want to control everything!
I liked it a hell of a lot better when I could do whatever I damn well pleased with my own property--my own body--my own life!
Okay! All you Liberals! Go back where you came from! Better still, go to Afghanistan and join the Taliban. You'll love it! (You'll deserve it too.)
How's that for a rant!
Also of note here is the recent survey indicating that Southerners did give more money to charity, but did so through churches, rather than through secular, non-denominational organizations like the United Way. The same survey showed the Northeast giving particularly little to charities.
As we've seen at FR, these state ratings tend to generate ill-will and wild charges back and forth. People feel that the honor of their state and their own personal reputation are at stake. One wonders why the United Way sticks their foot into such muddy or turbulent waters.
So the 4 million slaves all lived in their own nice houses and were able to provide their children with the education to grow up and make the most out of the American dream?
It's amazing how wealthy one can get if he doesn't have to pay his employees and they are not allowed to leave the workplace.
Atlanta conservative???? Not hardly..All those yankee liberals that moved there have taken over the city without firing a shot this time around. I know a few of them from the northern rustbelt that reside in Atlanta and they are indeed trying to transplant their yankee ideas in the south.
Give it a rest. Your prejudice is showing.
We never locked our door the whole time I was growing up here in Illinois.
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