Tornadoes and our now annual derechos suck, but they don't make the region uninhabitable. We've got abundant water and farmland and our growing season is getting longer. We have a ton of industrial infrastructure and all the raw materials to make steel, concrete, and glass. Our industrial economy collapsing is more due to capital investing into areas with cheaper workforces rather than any structural problems. We have the economic capacity to do basically whatever we want, we just have a society that chooses to do nothing rather than pay union wages. The Midwest is a pretty good place to build your post-apocalyptic citadel, but please don't tell anyone.

They don't *currently* make the region uninhabitable.

As you say, the largest problem is cultural, and that's only gotten worse in the time I've paid attention. It's what I meant when I said the region doesn't have the economic power to deal with the hand it has now.

In the event that it begins to really look like the rust belt is a beacon of survivability in the chaos storm wastelands of America, I just cannot imagine a scenario where the friendly, welcoming people of Ohio invite everyone in to go tubing on the river that caught fire.

Also, on the topic of making concrete and glass --

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-r unning-out-of-sand

JESUS CHRIST, can there EVER be good news again!?

You couldn't pay me to live in Ohio.

I automatically started humming the Cleveland song. You know the one.

My family is from Dayton. I prefer everything being on fire several months of the year out west.

Though fent percs have been really blowing up on the west coast lately. All the junkies switched from slamming needles to smoking foil, and a bunch of them died. So I get that experience like I'm visiting my cousins and watching someone get Narcan'd in the Kroger's without having to even visit Ohio.