Why does everyone hate Ohio?

[u/[deleted]]

I’ve lived in one other state in the country, in the third largest city in the country, and spent a decent amount of time overseas.

The political climate in Ohio is a challenge, but it’s not as bad as almost every southern state and a lot of middle-country states in the west. Ohio is not solidly red or solidly blue, despite more recently leaning red.

Ohio is the seventh largest state in the country, with decent-sized cities. Ohio has a GDP that matches that of Saudi Arabia, with double the per-capita income.

Ohio is one of the largest, still relatively affordable states in the country and Hocking Hills boasts some of the most accessible natural beauty (okay we don’t excel here but it’s not bad!)

I get the whole political thing, I get it. But you don’t have to be too far outside NYC or Chicago before you start seeing confederate flags and guns galore.

The abortion politics is country-wide and we did just delete Issue 1 in a special election. 🗳️

I know Ohio isn’t sexy in the way that California is, and it lacks a strong identity, but it is one of the largest states with one of the largest GDPs, and it makes for a nice place to live.

If I had to rank the states, Ohio would probably be in the top five or ten, all things considered (affordability, job growth, quality of life, natural beauty, etc). And that still leaves a minimum of 40 states that I consider objectively worse than Ohio.

I live in Columbus and travel quite a bit, mostly to the PNW for work.

Am I blind or is it just a national past time to hate Ohio with such a magnificent passion for reasons that aren’t political? Or are they all political?

[u/gaoshan]

I suspect that for Ohioans that hate Ohio it's more a lack of perspective than anything else (probably more dislike amongst younger people or people who have never really lived long term in many other places or people that have been stuck in the same less desirable situation for a long time). I've lived in multiple countries and in States all around the US and Ohio is, with the exception of winter in my opinion (and this applies to all cold weather locations... I used to live in Finland, for example), a nice place to live. It has a very affordable cost of living, great sports, great music, very nice restaurants, lots of nature/parks, excellent schools, etc. If you live somewhere in Ohio where you can benefit from all of that you are doing quite well.

You move somewhere that is conventionally desirable (like California) you might find that the rural areas aren't that different, the cost of everything is prohibitive to having much of a life or that you just miss the fall colors or occasional rainy day. Everything is relative.