http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/24/illinois-is-the-worst-place-to-live-say-people-who-live-in-illinois/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpostllinois is the worst place to live, say people who live in Illinois
BY MARK BERMAN
April 24 at 5:57 pm
Illinois is the worst, according to the people who live there.
A new Gallup poll is out with information about how people who live in states feel about these states. So now we know that people in Montana really, really like living in Montana, while people in Illinois and Rhode Island are pretty sure they don’t live in one of the best places in the country.
Montana and Alaska easily top the list of states viewed by residents as the best places to live:
If you ask residents to rate a place as the single best place to live — rather than the best or one of the best — Texas comes out on top, followed by Alaska and Hawaii.
Meanwhile, one in four Illinois residents said their state was the worst place to live, with that 25 percent mark easily beating Rhode Island and Connecticut (17 percent for both).
But Rhode Island did narrowly edge out Illinois as the state where the fewest people said they felt their state was among the best, so that’s…something?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/gallup-worst-states.png
Okay, so why are people in Illinois so down on their state? The folks at Gallup posit that maybe it has something to do with all of the scandals and investigations that have created basically no trust in the state government or the way residents think the state’s taxes are too high. People in Illinois seem reasonably happy, ranking in the upper half of last year’s Well-Being Index. So maybe they’re just being really honest and admitting that while their state has its charms (Chicago), it’s no North Dakota.