Oregon has the "best housing market"? Hardly! That's a reason I left that state, in favor of Texas. I could have bought nearly 5 houses here for what I had to pay for 1 house in Oregon.
There are some interesting pairs. CA is both bad for business; despit this, it has the most productive businesses. [That could be because of natural monopolies, in theory. In practice I think it's that innovative tech companies seem to be ok with the business environment in CA.]
Speaking as someone who lives in Massachusetts, I uttered a hearty "WTF" about our "worst." After reading some articles about it, it turns out that we have the highest reported rate of child neglect/abuse, but that's primarily because our reporting rules are extremely strict; other states surely have much higher rates of abuse, but many more of those cases go unreported. I imagine a lot of the things (particularly worsts) on this list are similar misrepresentations.
[That could be because of natural monopolies, in theory. In practice I think it's that innovative tech companies seem to be ok with the business environment in CA.]