In my opinion because

1 – They give responsiblity for Township Roads to the townships. There are also State Roads and County Roads.

2 – They don’t have county road commissions, just county engineers reporting to the county commissioners, who are just 3 in number, not 21 like Oakland County has.

Recently, Barbara and I visited Hocking Hills State Park and the surrounding area. It is south of Columbus,, Ohio. We were last there 45 years ago with our two young daughters. The area is very hilly with beautiful caves and rock formations as the glaciers did not make it that far south. The Yager’s lived in Hocking County when they came from Ilsfeld, Germany in 1817. On the journey we encountered zero potholes from the Ohio Border to our beautiful rented cottage ($125 per night, Barbara knows how to find them). Our destination was in Hocking County, population 28,000 (2020 census). These was not one gravel road. Every country backroad we drove on was very sound asphalt pavement; no potholes or patching.

Here is backroad, Big Pine Road, on the way our rented cottage. Sound asphalt pavement, Google-earth does onto go all the way to our cottage, but road was the same quality.

This is not a prosperous area. It’s too hilly for much agriciulture. The industry was coal mining and brick-making. Now, its mostly tourism.