In South East Ohio, things are particularly bad, true. Somewhere like Columbus? Not as bad as you're portraying it to be. There are definitely problems, but "hard to imagine from the West Coast"? You mean, like, homeless people shooting up in downtown San Francisco hard to imagine? It's cool that your friend goes to Ohio State. It's a great school. I'm sure he's seeing a lot of economic and social blight as he looks around and sees brand new construction, half-million dollar houses, and one of the youngest, most educated groups of people in the country. But hey! Let's paint a stark picture of those poor people in flyover country. That'll give us something to talk about.