Indianapolis seems to have quite a diverse job market and remains relatively affordable compared to a lot of the rest of the country.

I've been following this thread closely and appreciate the many viewpoints from such a diverse community, I particularly like the graphs, being a visual person :) .  

I am hoping to diversity my investment portfolio with passive income from rental properties (probably outside of California). 

Again, can't speak for Granite, but if you are a large asset manager with diverse pool of collateral, there are a lot of very cheap financing options available to you in the market these days.

My thinking is... if I'm investing 100k ... if I put 20k into each platform,, and for platforms like PoL that I can do 5k per project... this will greatly diversity the investment to minimize possible loss.

Diversity is key when it comes to investing.

Columbus OH is a strong market with a diverse employment base, population growth, and lots of investment opportunity to achieve cash flow and appreciation, something that is very difficult in more expensive markets.

There is such a diversity of industries here that the largest sector only accounts for roughly 13% of the total jobs.

@Jay Hinrichs @J Scott First I want to apologize to @Toyin Dawodu if this diversion is hijacking the original post & question.  

All you need to do is look at steady population growth in these states and whether they have diverse enough economies to sustain - gov't centers, healthcare, and large universities are great indicators.In the Midwest you'll need to study pop. growth more regionally & by the market, e.g.