I feel like they should have done a better job of defining quality of life. A person who is born and grows old and dies in North Dakota does not have a better life than a person who does the same in California. If only for the education, career opportunities, weather, culture, and earning potential. Yea there are problems, but there are enormous benefits too.
Things like this always depend on what you value most and least. The rankings always have certain weights for those things baked in, and those things may not be the same as how you value them.
For example, the rankings put lots of northern states at the top of the list, whereas if you asked me what I value, not having to deal with much cold weather is important, so that would immediately disqualify everything they said was best. Other people, I'm sure, feel the exact opposite.
* If you like what North Dakota has to offer, which is a very narrow set of options on the spectrum of life possibilities.
> don't have to worry about urban issues which are huge stressors.
Urban living can be stressful, but I'll take urban stressors over being trapped in a small pond if it's the wrong pond. Rural life can be awesome but it can also get incredibly boring. It's also prone to souring quickly if you have difficulties with the dozen or so people you might have regular contact with. I lived in a rural area for a spell and it turned out the local handyman had been stealing from everyone for years. What do you do when that guy is the only handyman in the county and his family blames you for his problems when he goes to jail? Not a good situation.
Urban conveniences are also awesome. It'll be hard for me to move somewhere that lacks the variety and quality of food options currently available to me now. People in rural areas seem quite content with comparatively awful and unhealthy food.
I recently moved to California from a more rural state, and I agree that parts of California are a huge pain in the ass. I was just surprised to see North Dakota at the top because it usually gets such negative coverage.
