Yeah, I definitely agree that I have never been to a place in the USA that borders on third world conditions, and I've been to many rural places. Is there a particular definition you're using, or some example of a place in the USA you feel fits this?

>Yeah, I definitely agree that I have never been to a place in the USA that borders on third world conditions, and I've been to many rural places

Depends on what you mean by "third world conditions" too. There are places in the third world that are heaps and bounds above some US towns and cities.

Try parts of Mississippi, Appalachia, etc. Or heck, try Pine Ridge SD, where life expectancy "in 2007 was estimated to be 48 for males and 52 for females."

Nothing specific, just vague recollections of places in central California while visiting the area. I'd stop (or not) with an "Oh wow, I've gone to cheap taco place in Mexico that were less in shambles" in the back of my head.

It's nowhere near comparable to Latin American slums, obviously, but it certainly looked on par with what you see in the Belizean or Mexican countryside. And it was a far cry from what I've ever encountered in rural France, Benelux, or Germany outside of abandoned crack shacks.