Who cares what other people think?

Rhode Island’s Napoleonic Complex shows itself every time a new poll or national rating of the states comes out. How did we do? How did we do? Did we come in the top ten? Did we come in last? OMG, how do we compare to Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Two polls came out in the past couple of days that sent true Rhode Islanders’ insecurities into hyperdrive.

One is the annual Gawker poll on the Worst States in the Union.

The second was a Gallup poll ranking the states in terms of happiness.

If you’re a true Rhode Islander, you’ve just got to keep reading to find out how Rhode Island ranked.

How could we NOT be happy?

First, are we happy? Answer: not so much. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index puts Rhode Island in the #30 position.

Not surprisingly, Hawaii is #1. But the next ranked states make no sense: #2 is North Dakota, followed by Alaska, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

I have visited all of these states at least twice, often several times. While there is much to love about Alaska, its population suffers from chronic seasonal disorder caused by the radical changes in the amount of sunlight per season (ranging from 22 hours of sunlight in summer and 2 hours of sunlight in winter). The other states in the top five also suffer brutal and long winters and the challenges of living on the prairie. These states have terribly high suicide rates.

Sure, I’ve met happy people in those states, but not enough to justify their high ranking.

Rhode Island is ranked as the least happy state in New England. New Hampshire is the happiest NE state at #9 (low taxes and cheap booze no doubt the cause). Vermont is #12, Massachusetts at #13, Connecticut at #20, and Maine at #25.

The unhappiest states in the union are (surprise!) in the South. West Virginia is the least happy, followed by Kentucky and Mississippi.

Moving on to a potential source of happiness, there’s the annual Gawker poll of the “Worst States.”

According to Gawker, Rhode Island just barely misses making the top half of the list, being rated as #28. The sole consolation for that mediocre rating is that there are 22 states ranked worse than Rhode Island – included among them, New Hampshire, which kicked our ass in the Gallup happiness poll. That makes me happier and, I hope, New Hampshire sadder.(OMG, I’m actually getting into this!)

Gawker’s top picks for the least worst states were New York and Massachusetts. They acknowledged some bias in their pick of New York for the top spot.

For each state, Gawker rates what they thought was Good and what they thought was Bad and assigned their point rallies and ratings according to what appeared to be a less than scientific standard.

For Rhode Island, Gawker had this to say:

28. Rhode Island

The barely-there baby of New England is full of lovely things but sadly rotten at its core.

The Good: There are beaches in Rhode Island that are some of the nicest in the land. The entirety of the coastal part of Rhode Island is beautiful (woop woop, Little Compton), from snobby Watch Hill to, uh, snobby Newport. They make some decent wine in Rhode Island, and Brown University in Providence is probably the number one school-that-got-away for a large portion of American college kids.

The Bad: Other than the pretty coastline, there isn't a whole hell of a lot to do in Rhode Island. The inland parts of the state (which are, admittedly, only like 20 minutes from the non-inland parts of the state) are just bland in that depressingly New England bland sort of way, and Providence, while definitely undergoing a hefty makeover, is still a sleepy and vaguely distressing city (maybe because it fired all its teachers?). It's also egregiously corrupt! Politicians like Buddy Cianci have been crooked and mobbed-up for years. Oh, and the Cranston/Pawtucket accent is, perhaps, the ugliest in the nation.
Final Score: 5.51

It’s nice to see that our part of the state boosted Rhode Island’s ranking a lot higher than it would have been otherwise. However, I think they’re wrong about “The Bad,” given our historic sites, great food and lively neighborhoods. I have been to every state in the union at least twice and think Rhode Island has a lot more to offer than most. And I think the Gawker folks weren’t paying much attention – like the remark about Buddy Cianci who has not been a working politician for years shows they didn’t do their homework.

Well, yippee-ky-yay for us, making it through two more polls as neither the best nor the worst. Just lost in the middle of the pack somewhere.

Cathy and I both grew up in Rhode Island and left for jobs in Washington in 1978. We stayed for 25 years, living in Maryland (ranked five notches higher than RI in the Gawker poll).

We moved back to Rhode Island in 2003. We did so with our eyes open, with full knowledge of Rhode Island as Rhode Island is. We love it anyway and returned eagerly. In fact, the things that so many people condemn – like our colorful politics – were plusses for us.

We were lucky and happy to find our way to Charlestown. As much as I write so many pieces in Progressive Charlestown that rag on some of the ridiculous things we do in this town, it came to be home for us in remarkably short time.

Rhode Islanders yearn to be able to play with the big states. We yearn to make a Rhode Island connection – however tenuous – with great events (with local TV stories about how“This year’s Academy Award winner for Best Actress actually spent a day in Rhode Island when her car broke down on I-95 in Coventry in 1997….”). We want to be somebody.

But I don’t know who it is we want to impress. We came back home to Rhode Island because we wanted to, not because some poll said Rhode Island wasn't quite as bad as Delaware.

I think most Rhode Islanders love Rhode Island the way New Yorkers love New York City. They can give you a half an hour diatribe on everything that’s wrong, but there is no place else on earth they would rather live.

Author: Will Collette