Ohio’s population has held steady at about 11 million for decades, but its people are on the move. They are heading to what they perceive as the country, resulting in a clash of cultures in rural areas.
A growing problem in Ohio, even when you live in a quiet, rural town away from large cities, is that you still can’t escape the fast-moving trucks and traffic nearby, as well as the “toxic water,” as Joel pointed out in his Strategic Relocation book.
Ohio has had the highest or second-highest number of hazardous materials spills nationwide each of the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation reports. The Columbus Dispatch reports that last year (2002) Ohio ranked second behind Illinois among the states with 1,223 spills on highways, railways and waterways and in the air. Of that total, 1,104 were highway spills.
Who wants a hazardous material percolating into their well or a nearby stream? Heavy truck traffic crisscrossing Ohio is mostly to blame. According to the Ohio Department of Transportation, Ohio has the fifth highest volume of truck traffic in the U.S. Last year in Ohio spills of hazardous materials, such as acids and gasoline, resulted in 1.8 million worth of damage and cleanups.
Other states with the most hazardous material incidents (high volume truck traffic states) include: Illinois, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, New York and New Jersey. (See full http://www.dispatch.com story, “Hazardous Spills Plague Ohio”—Sept. 14, 2003).
Joel’s analysis that southeastern Ohio is the safest area in the state strikes me as being right on target. However, even in sleepy southeastern Ohio, where there are plenty of trees and a friendlier rural atmosphere that comes with too few jobs in the area, the trucks, traffic and toxins always move at too fast of a pace just on the other side of the peaceful wooded areas. The threatening, disturbing hum of endless traffic whispers to any true survivor that in the long run, the wide, open spaces out West in places like Utah, Idaho, Colorado or Arizona are a safer, healthier choice.