Ohio occupies two connected roles in J.D. Vance’s account: it is the setting for a return to family and the opportunity opened by college, but also part of a region where economic prospects and the American Dream are distributed unevenly. The contrast between Columbus’s growth and the struggles associated with Rust Belt Ohio makes the state more than a backdrop; it shows how sharply opportunity can differ within the same broad geography.

Columbus and a Return to Ohio

In September 2007, J.D. Vance arrived for orientation at Ohio State University, excited to begin college. The day’s small particulars stayed with him: lunch at Chipotle, where Lindsay ate there for the first time, a walk from the orientation building to the south-campus house that would become his home, and a schedule that required classes only four days a week, none before 9:30 in the morning. After the Marine Corps, the late start felt like a striking change in daily life. College also brought him back to Ohio and within reach of his family: the main campus in Columbus was about a hundred miles from Middletown, close enough for weekend visits.

The distance mattered because it changed what family contact could look like. Unlike Havelock, the North Carolina city nearest his Marine Corps base, Columbus made Middletown easy to revisit; he could drop in when he wished. This return was not a retreat from the world he had entered through military service. Rather, it placed his next stage within reach of the people and community from which he had come, while giving him access to a new urban setting.

A University City in Motion

Columbus appeared to him as an urban paradise, distinct from the Ohio town he knew. The city was among the country’s fastest-growing, with the university helping drive its energy. Ohio State University graduates were starting businesses; historic buildings were being converted into restaurants and bars; and even the city’s most troubled neighborhoods seemed to be undergoing revitalization. These details make the city’s promise concrete: growth showed up in new enterprises, repurposed buildings, and visible change across neighborhoods, rather than only in a reputation for expansion.

A friend’s work as promotions director for a local radio station gave Vance an informal entry into city life. Through that connection, he knew what was happening around town and could attend events ranging from local festivals to the annual fireworks show with VIP seating. Columbus’s opportunities thus included not only the university but also social access and a sense of participation in a lively city. The friendship offered a personal route into that activity, an example of how connections could shape what a place made available.

Family, Patriotism, and Economic Insecurity

Ohio’s significance also emerges through the outlook of the community Vance had left and returned to. He describes a culture with few shared contemporary heroes and deep suspicion toward national political figures. Yet love of country remained central to the identity of his family, neighborhood, and community. In an interview for a class project, Mamaw spoke at length about her family’s contribution during World War II: war rations, Rosie the Riveter, her mother’s wartime letters from the Pacific, and the day the bomb was dropped. Her pride in that history shows how national service and family memory could supply a powerful sense of belonging even when the community felt detached from the country’s broader cultural life.

That patriotism coexisted with material insecurity. Vance describes neighbors living through two wars in which a disproportionate share of fighters came from their community, while the economy failed to provide the basic promise of a steady wage. The contrast is important: attachment to the nation did not mean confidence that its institutions or economy were delivering security. In his account, the community’s pride and its frustration sit alongside one another, neither cancelling the other.

Uneven Opportunity Across the State

Later, Vance relates his experience of Ohio to research on the geography of opportunity. A study by economists including Raj Chetty found that chances of moving up through the American meritocracy varied substantially by location. Utah, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts performed well by the study’s measures, while poor children in the South, the Rust Belt, and Appalachia faced greater obstacles. The researchers identified the prevalence of single-parent households and income segregation as two factors that helped explain this uneven distribution. Vance connects those patterns to places such as Ohio, rather than treating the national promise of mobility as equally available everywhere.

The comparison with Utah sharpens the point: its strong church, integrated communities, and intact families contrasted with Rust Belt Ohio in the account of opportunity. Vance argues that children are disadvantaged when they grow up surrounded by poverty and without adults who can show, by example, what work and education might make possible. Family members such as Mamaw and Papaw could help a young person stay the course; where that dependable support and those examples were absent, the range of imaginable futures narrowed. Ohio therefore carries both sides of the book’s geography of opportunity: Columbus offers visible growth and access, while the wider regional comparison underscores how much a person’s prospects depend on community conditions and reliable support.