Ohio 2

  A once-prosperous state that's been heading downhill since around 1910 and has gone into complete free-fall in the last few years.  There are some bright spots, most notably a handful of lovely college towns (Oberlin, Kenyon, Antioch) which haven't been turned into glorified strip malls and housing developments, or half-abandoned like the other Ohio towns.  The rural Amish counties are quite bucolic, a fascinating time-warp to the 19th century (not much worry about oil prices there...).  Columbus is as boringly prosperous as any sunbelt city, and Cleveland still has the finest cultural institutions between Chicago and the East Coast-even if the city if falling off the economic map. 

The other 90% of the state is a depressing mix of ugly, rapidly declining industrial towns (Toledo, Lorain, Elyria, Youngstown...and many more!) and depressed rural counties with horrible poverty-realted problems (alcohol, drugs, crime, mental illness) as bad or worse as anything you will see in the ghetto-just better hidden.  Though the state suffers from one of the worse brain-drains in the country (it usually rivals Indiana for #1 in the country) there are still a few bright people too settled to leave, mostly in the places listed at the top.  Otherwise: a state going down for the count.