@Truman- exactly. The U.S. is great but when you actually see these other places I mentioned, plus ghettos of various kinds, it’s almost a 3rd world country. People with NO plumbing, born into the poverty, raised in an every crumbling atmosphere that they’re schooling is inconsistent at best, and don’t know a mentality that we have, or have the privilege of having. I have worked with refugees that recreate the environment they know. There are too many pockets to just be pockets anymore. It’s very interesting and the Midwest is the least effected. 

I could easily go most my life never acknowledging any of these places if I wanted to. There is enough media and other distractions of life. Perhaps I wouldn’t even know about it if I didn’t actually see it for myself long enough to see the cycle of it. 

@ Dya "The U.S. is generally developed" 

I don't know whether to scratch my head or laugh.

This is an interesting question. Development has been measured by industrialization, in the past. Then it was, and still is, measured by basic standards of living, such as water and waste infrastructure and accessibility or medical care. There is also the emergence of development measures of social standards. The latter is the most debatable because what some believe make a developed country in morality is seen by others as devolution. 

The U.S. is generally developed. However, we still have issues such as Flint Michigan’s toxic water, large homeless populations that bottom out of the eviction cycle of the poor and less educated. Some Indian reservations are third world conditions and made to not rise above that. 

So it depends on which measure is most relevant to you.