So many good people are from Ohio.

When I arrived in DC for law school I met a ton of people -- I must have added a hundred new Facebook friends (the most objective modern-day gauge of social activity, of course) since July. My classmates here at GW Law are friendly, very smart, well-rounded people with balanced lives and nuanced perspectives that I'm eager to experience every day. All of these new faces gave me the opportunity to explain who and am and where I'm from more than a few times. When I told people I'm from Ohio, it was hard not to notice how many of these folks said things like, "I know a lot of really good people from Ohio," or "I never met anyone from Ohio I didn't like." Here are the things that went through my head after hearing this kind of thing over and over:

Step 1: Midwestern pride
Midwesterners are known for their niceness and down-to-earth attitudes; both are quite likeable. No surprise here.

Step 2: Ohio pride as a specific Midwestern pride
Far from the vanilla flatland it's described as by less articulate left- and right-coasters, Ohio is a land of political swingery and complex urban-rural dynamics. It is the home of telecommunications executives and soybean farmers, wealthy Lake Erie boaters and landlocked hill-dwellers, consumer test markets and local farmers' markets. Its complexities represent the whole of the United States, which is why everyone from corporate marketeers to national political party chairs are keenly interested in the Buckeye State. Risking too-proud over-generalization, I think it makes sense that people who grow up amidst these differing dynamics have a flatfooted appeal that makes them likable to other Americans from all points non-Ohio.

Step 3: The dread
After the Ohio solidarity wore off, perhaps three days later -- any quicker, after all, would be sooner than the half-life of Buckeye pride would allow to dissipate into the 20001 ZIP code -- it occurred to me that there must be a lot of Ohioans out there to be giving all these non-Ohioans such frequent and favorable impressions. And then -- oh no -- of course there are: Ohio leeches fertilizer into its groundwater, and it leeches talent to Chicago, New York, and Washington. You can't turn a corner in Chicago without bumping scarves with someone from Lima or Canfield. Ohio nurtures well-balanced young adults with high hopes and honest eyes, and after they peak in Columbus or Cleveland they head to bigger ponds because they think that's the only place they can grow.

Step 4: A solution
I think that because Ohio is a microcosm of America, because it's a victim of post-industrial rust and because it is ripe for enviro-industrial seed-sowing, it's a place worth growing into, not growing out of. If the talent stays, if progressive hearts and ambitious minds resist retreat to bigger cities, Ohio can be an experiment in the new kind of progress required by the twenty-first century challenges of post-meltdown economic restructuring, of now-imperative green industrialization, and of red-versus-blue social issues concerning reproductive rights, gun control, and race relations.

I'll be thinking about how this experiment will go.