I can also attest that it's true, it's just the reverse of the Russian situation. Instead of 20% functional and 80% shit, I lived in the 20% that's shit instead of the 80% that's functional. Getting out was priority #1 to me.
We... probably should do something about it.
One of the more disturbing incidents of my life was making a delivery with a friend to some private hunting cabin deep in Appalachia, and I mean, we're already IN Appalachia, so, DEEP. And we drove past, in the deep woods, the most awful, dilapidated shacks and decaying trailers. God, they were fucking piecemeal, and yet, very clearly still lived in. I remember being disturbed as we drove up to the steel and barbed wire fence on the road and getting buzzed in the last mile or so to the cabin, and getting there, and it was just this... villa. Like, you walk in and it's got a fucking chandelier. It's not a 'cabin' except in the loosest sense. They had private catering, a massive area of woodlands reserved for them, all of that.
I found the proximity... unnerving. Like a rich man eating caviar next to a starving beggar.