The entire South and Midwest have social problems?
The places where people don't go tend to have more of them. People don't go there for a reason. The entire South and Midwest have places where people do go.
What you don't have is a paradise where everything is cheap, there is a lot of employment and other opportunities and people somehow refuse to go to in the long term. You have cheap places where there is basically single major employer or low earning industry.
I am not saying that people always have it perfectly right, but in the long term and on average, the mass moves where it makes sense to move to. Those places then become more expensive.
The areas with high unemployment and high social problems are perceived as undesirable places to live in for a reason. Of course I don't need to live in area with low alcoholism rates, low unemployment and low amount of social problems. But I want to live there for good reasons, namely better chance for me and my kids to not become unemployed and hopeless.