Fellow Americans, Which state do you think is the best/worst?

[KefkaCultist]

Worst: Illinois.
It is pretty much just Chicago and the rest is farm land.
For being the 3rd most populated city, Chicago doesn't get anything.
All cons, events, and whatnot just skip over Chicago completely.
It really sucks being a nerdy person and never getting to experience something like Comic-con, PAX, etc.
I remember wanting to see Attack of the Block when it came out, it only played in a single damn theater and it was an hour+ drive.

As one of those Illinoisans that live in one of the many nothing-but-farmland areas I must agree. It sucks out here because nothing exciting (for nerds) happens. Less than in Chicago.

EDIT:
Best state: Um... Seeing that I've only been to a couple, out of what I've seen I'd have to say Arizona. The temperature was nice and the city/food/scenery was awesome. I was only there for a week though, so I may not have gotten the full experience.

 

[Arluza]

Worst: Mississippi. I mean, they didn't decide to make slavery illegal in the state until 1995. They didn't ratify the 13th amendment until then. It is one of the poorest states, and has nearly no intellectual merit compared to other states.

Best: I don't know. But it probably is on the East Coast. Maybe Pennsylvania. Has a very strong Ivy League school, and from the 1 time I was there, it seemed like minority rights were slightly stronger than in other states.

 

[FernandoV]

Best: New York City; we are the financial capitol of the world.
Worst: Ohio: absolutely horrible place to exist.

 

[Aur0ra145]

Best: Texas. Best in wind power, RvB, we've got a boat load of note worthy companies based here. We have ports, oil, natural gas, Texas Rangers (law enforcement, not the baseball team.) Plus a load of other stuff.

Worst: ? I really don't know, I've been to most of the states in the US and they all have their merits and cons.

 

[SquidVicious]

I've lived in a couple of different states but I'd say the state I liked the most was Minnesota, even if I only lived there for 6-months during winter. Minneapolis is a beautiful city with a thriving sense of community with virtually no ego like you'd find in New York or California. Sure it was cold as balls, but I'm from Northern B.C. Canada so it really didn't bother me that much.

Worst states... It's a toss-up between California, Nevada, and Arizona. There's a pervasive sense of materialism in the major cities and outlying suburbs that really bothers me, like people's only goal over the weekend is to go out and spend money at one of the 90-billion strip malls. Besides that, their taxes are ridiculous as well as their cost of living, which makes me wonder how people that work at like McDonalds afford their rent, groceries, and utilities. Whenever I've traveled through California it's always seemed like it's two states at the same time, a magical playground for the rich, and some kind of serfdom for everyone else. The only place I found that really shook that mentality was Santa Cruz.

As for Nevada, it has the unfortunate (but not undeserved) nickname "The Mississippi of the West" for pretty self-evident reasons. Hot as balls in the summer, idiotic government, stagnant job market that pretty much only sign waving as your only option, and a real sense of anti-intellectualism. Nevada is almost always in the top of every bad list, or at the bottom of every good list.

Arizona is the only state I don't have much personal experience with besides one horrendous road trip in the late '90's where my dad decided to take my sister and I on a road trip through the South West in June. It was disgustingly hot as balls and everything just looked artificial. Since then I've read about some crazy Sheriff who somehow keeps getting elected, some cringe-worthy cuts to their education, and a real backwards look on women's rights. It was about some proposed legislation that could state a women could be pregnant before conception. Yeah... fuck you Arizona.

http://rt.com/usa/news/arizona-bill-conception-abortion-387/

 

[Pfheonix]

Well, Georgia's okay. There is the predominance of religiousness, which is silly and should be stamped out, but other than that none too bad. My favorite is Kentucky, just because of Mammoth cave and the temperate weather most days of the summer. Least favorite in New York or Jersey, because the cities can suck my ass.

 

[Launcelot111]

Virginia is sort of on the razors edge with this. It has beautiful landscapes and wonderful places to visit, but the down side is that I live here.

You hit the nail on the head. The mountains are fantastic, we have a nice beach, we have nice towns, we have arguably the most history of any state to brag about, we're doing well economically, and we're one of the most important states in terms of the government/military. On the other hand, northern Virginia is one big strip mall, southern Virginia has most of the bad of the South and only a little of the good, and on the whole, not much exciting happens. Not to mention how much our elected officials have enjoyed making an ass of themselves recently. In all honestly though, I'd still put it near the top of the list because I feel that many states have little to nothing going for them, while we have a good bit to brag about.

At the bottom, I'd look at West Virginia because the people and the fact that every building in that state looks like it's covered in a fine layer of coal dust, Alaska for the elected officials they put out as well as the nothingness, North Dakota for the fact that the most prominent thing about the state is that the movie Fargo exists and even that mostly took place in Minnesota, and Ohio just because.

 

[ElPatron]

[link]http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/[/link]

As a non-American, the "weaker" the score it gets, the better it is!

 

[aashell13]

Texas, clearly. Why anyone would want to live in one of those 49 other, lesser states is beyond me.

 

[Vausch]

Worst... Mississippi or Arizona. I'm sure there's some very nice people there but the "Holy sh*t" factor I get from those two is quite high. Idaho I give props to, though. We led the fight against health care!

Best... Well I've only been to 6: Idaho, Washington, Utah, Colorado, California, and Texas.

I really can't say which is best, I'd go with Hawaii or Massachusetts.

 

[dagens24]

Worst: Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Utah, Texas; pretty much all of the heartland and south.

Best:...

 

[guitarsniper]

The northern half of California (basically everything north of like Monterey) is the best. The southern half of California is the worst.

 

[BlackStar42]

As an Englishman, the states that make up New England are clearly superior to every other state by virtue of "because I said so."

 

[DANEgerous]

Worst Utah, it is just so... well it actually it is not very anything other than Mormon. I mean California may be extremely broke and annoyingly liberal but at least they did something with the money on the former and the later is easily the fault of politicians

And I am from Texas but no it is not the best, best is Colorado easy because mountains are fucking awesome.

 

[Deathmageddon]

Worst: Nebraska. Never been there personally, but as I understand it, there's nothing but corn and horrible corn people.

Best: Texas kicks ass, Ohio is pretty great too.

 

[Jonluw]

Liquid.
I just like the flexibility, and liquids with zero viscosity are just fucking fascinating.

 

[Smeatza]

I'm not american but I've spent a lot of time in the U.S.

Best state: Georgia. Lived there for a short while and loved the people and the community.

Worst State: Either of the Carolina's. They were booorrring.

To be honest every state I've visited has been wonderful in some way, shape or form. Either in the community, the culture or the geography.

 

[Arsen]

Best: North Carolina - Plenty of culture, nice mixture of various people, it's very intellectual, has the Southern pro's mixed with the Northern pro's, is very tolerant of different kinds of people, has many international things going on here, many bands come through, and it's an everyman location.

Worst: West Virginia - There is absolutely nothing good there, minus the scenery. If you want to feel suicidal and hate living, by all means, make this your new home...

Edit - C'mon people. Be objective... not liking the fact that there's "a religious presence" isn't a good reason. Judge each thing according to it's own merit.

 

[Jaeke]

Idaho is the best: It's my homecalling.

Florida the worst: I live here and its hot as hell.

Kidding aside, I'm not sure how one would consider a state as "the best" but one of the worst I would consider to be is probably Michigan or Ohio.