What is the worst state in America?

[Dinner]

I just looked up Belden, CA (the second California "town" on the list) and its total population is 22 people though it seems to be some what better off than Tobin in that there is actually a paved road connecting the settlement. Judging by the website I found Belden's entire economy seems to center around aging hippies growing weed and each year the town does seem to have a festival celibrating all things MJ related. My guess is since most of the 22 people are engaged in the distribution of MJ they simply don't report what ever income they do make to the IRS.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1079/4721364823_30dd4755d6.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.stickergiant.com/blog/the-big-bounce-at-belden/&h=375&w=500&sz=200&tbnid=Fcd6SOiLpeQj4M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&usg=__0yKjYmxy80pJX8qb20gwXvtl2JQ=&docid=haDLItK664B2uM&sa=X&ei=6cbMUerjEYjviQKdyoHwBw&ved=0CFgQ9QEwBw&dur=451

[PLATO]

Several including the #1 on the list. The reservations in the Dakotas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico are often described as some of the poorest places in America being even worse off than Appalachia.

Appalachia is probably quite different than you imagine.

[Dinner]

Yes...I thought that was odd as well. It does seem they are anomalies, but it is still interesting that there are some pockets of severe poverty in the golden state.

No arguments there though in terms of real poverty the isolated mountain or desert settlements aren't really any people living in such places (a few dozen in each) and most of those seem to either have made a deliberate decision to move to an isolated location to live a frontier lifestyle, get back to the land, or just other wise reject civilization but the true poverty is in places like Imperial County where there isn't really any economic activity other than farming but as it is right on the border there is a huge population of illegal farm workers from Mexico and central America.

[Tuberski]

Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield... Those are all crappy red districts in the central valley. Basically just a combination of poor white trash and illegal farm laborers.

You're right, San Diego, for instance, is all the way down the list at #18.

For comparisons sake, I took a state a random and checked the cities there:

Odessa, Texas is #25, 16 California cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles Sacramento and San Francisco ranked higher.

ACK!

[Dinner]

So the 6th-7th largest metro area in the country only ranks 18th in one specific crime? It sounds like we're batting way below our size and we're actually much better than most other large cities. For instance, let's look at violent crime rates and see how San Diego stacks up; it's usually one of if not the city with the lowest violent crime rates.

[Tuberski]

So the 6th-7th largest metro area in the country only ranks 18th in one specific crime? It sounds like we're batting way below our size and we're actually much better than most other large cities. For instance, let's look at violent crime rates and see how San Diego stacks up; it's usually one of if not the city with the lowest violent crime rates.

As of 2011, they rank 8th best for violent crime.

ACK!

[Dinner]

Use 2012 stats and notice how I said big city so counting a tiny place with a pop of 50k doesn't count, compare it to other cities its own size or at least half a million or larger. It will either come out on top or very close to the top.

[Tuberski]

It was cities over 250K.

ACK!

[MrFun]

And the biggest idiot is also in California. Game over.

Hey! I'm not the biggest idiot on here.

[SlowwHand]

You may be. I was talking about Oerdin/Dinner. The 2 of you can wrestle over the title.

[MrFun]

I was talking about Oerdin/Dinner.

I know

[SlowwHand]

OK. Then you win.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I can see someone is rigging votes against Texas, last time I visited it was like 10000000019 for Texas, and it's only 19 now. Bloody liberal mods!

[Ben Kenobi]

California still in the lead. This is amazing. You'd think Arizona would be worse than CA, but apparently this is not so.

[Dinner]

Ben, do you think if you lie enough people will just magically forget that the number 20 is much larger than the number 3? Or are you truly just as brain damaged as everyone says you are?