Where is the Midwest? (demographics, place, accent)

[nei]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Analysis of rural county population densities:

Great Lakes (Midwest)
Michigan: Average population density for rural counties: 36.9
Ohio: Average population density for rural counties: 61.1
Wisconsin: Average population density for rural counties: 30.0
Illinois: Average population density for rural counties: 34.8
Indiana: Average population density for rural counties 51.3
Minnesota: Average population density for rural counties: 18.2
Iowa: Average population density for rural counties: 23.1
Missouri: Average population density for rural counties: 22.8

Great Plains (West/Midwest)
North Dakota: Average population density for rural counties: 4.0
South Dakota: Average population density for rural counties: 4.8
Nebraska: Average population density for rural counties: 8.1
Kansas: Average population density for rural counties: 8.1

How does the Northeast compare?

[Colts]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Wow, I just picked a very random google streetview as well Yes, I tend to focus on extreme details like stoplights that most people wouldn't think of when examining a cityscape.

That's interesting. Looks like yellow lights are common in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.

Also, the architecture of a city is probably the most telling aspect of a city's culture. If you want to know where your city's natives originated, look at older cities with the same type of architecture.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Colts

That's interesting. Looks like yellow lights are common in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.

Also, the architecture of a city is probably the most telling aspect of a city's culture. If you want to know where your city's natives originated, look at older cities with the same type of architecture.

You are correct with your analysis. Yellow plate stoplights are definitely common in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia,etc. An odd outlier in the West would be La Junta, CO. Some states like Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Hampshire will have the yellow housing stoplights with the black plate in back.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by nei

How does the Northeast compare?

Maine: Average population density for rural counties: 25.2
Aroostook County: population density 10.8 people per square mile
Washington County: population density 12.8 people per square mile
Piscataquis County: population density 4.4 people per square mile
Hancock County: population density 34.3 people per square mile
Somerset County: population density 13.3 people per square mile
Waldo County: population density 53.1 people per square mile
Franklin County: population density 18.1 people per square mile
Lincoln County: population density 75.6 people per square mile
Oxford County: population density 27.8 people per square mile

New Hampshire: Average population density for rural county: 51.4
Carroll County: population density 51.4 people per square mile

Massachusetts: Average population density for rural counties: 193.2
Dukes County: population density 160.2 people per square mile
Nantucket County: population density 226.2 people per square mile

Vermont: Average population density for rural counties: 49.0
Orleans County: population density 39.2 people per square mile
Lamoille County: population density 53.3 people per square mile
Caledonia County: population density 48.1 people per square mile
Addison County: population density 48.0 people per square mile
Windham County: population density 56.7 people per square mile

New York: Average population density for rural counties: 49.2
Wyoming County: population density 71.1 people per square mile
Allegany County: population density 47.6 people per square mile
Yates County: population density 75.0 people per square mile
Schuyler County: population density 55.9 people per square mile
Chenango County: population density 56.5 people per square mile
Lewis County: population density 21.3 people per square mile
Essex County: population density 21.9 people per square mile
Hamilton County: population density 2.8 people per square mile
Delaware County: population density 33.3 people per square mile
Greene County: population density 76.1 people per square mile
Sullivan County: population density 80.1 people per square mile


Pennsylvania: Average population density for rural counties: 44.0
Greene County: population density 67.2 people per square mile
Forest County: population density 18.1 people per square mile
Clarion County: population density 66.6 people per square mile
Jefferson County: population density 69.3 people per square mile
Cameron County: population density 12.8 people per square mile
Potter County: population density 16.1 people per square mile
Bedford County: population density 49.2 people per square mile
Fulton County: population density 33.9 people per square mile
Juanita County: population density 63.0 people per square mile
Tioga County: population density 37.0 people per square mile
Sullivan County: population density 14.3 people per square mile
Susquehanna County: population density 52.7 people per square mile
Wayne County: population density 72.8 people per square mile


Maryland: Average population density for rural counties: 74.3
Caroline county: population density 103.5 people per square mile
Kent County: population density 72.9 people per square mile
Garrett County: population density 46.5 people per square mile

New Jersey: None

Connecticut: None

Rhode Island: None

Delaware: None

[michigan83]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

That is my point. The southern dialect is strong in Henry and St. Clair counties as well as much of the surrounding regional area. This is only 50-100 miles south of Kansas City. This is why Kansas City has significant southern influences very closeby.

As someone who lives pretty far north, I can understand where these arguments come from.

As you go south, the accent changes very gradually, and vowels slowly become more drawn out (drawl).

I can hear this difference as soon as I get into Ohio or Indiana. Words like "on" no longer have the flat "o" that I am used to, and it starts to sound more like "awn" to me.

When I visit my relatives in SW Kansas, the difference is even more dramatic. To my northern ears, the accent sounds "southern", even though I know it is technically not southern.

Then, if I travel to the REAL south and talk to a REAL southerner... well, it's almost like a different language altogether, and I have to really concentrate to understand people. And that's when I realize that there is a major difference between what I hear in SW Kansas, and what I hear in the true South.

I guess my point is... I can understand where people are coming from when they describe the midland accent as "southern". For some of us, the difference is so dramatic from what we are used to that it really seems like a southern accent.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by michigan83

As someone who lives pretty far north, I can understand where these arguments come from.

As you go south, the accent changes very gradually, and vowels slowly become more drawn out (drawl).

I can hear this difference as soon as I get into Ohio or Indiana. Words like "on" no longer have the flat "o" that I am used to, and it starts to sound more like "awn" to me.

When I visit my relatives in SW Kansas, the difference is even more dramatic. To my northern ears, the accent sounds "southern", even though I know it is technically not southern.

Then, if I travel to the REAL south and talk to a REAL southerner... well, it's almost like a different language altogether, and I have to really concentrate to understand people. And that's when I realize that there is a major difference between what I hear in SW Kansas, and what I hear in the true South.

I guess my point is... I can understand where people are coming from when they describe the midland accent as "southern". For some of us, the difference is so dramatic from what we are used to that it really seems like a southern accent.

Southern and south-central Missouri accents sound more southern than most areas of Kansas, but i agree wth most of your points.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Southern and south-central Missouri accents sound more southern than most areas of Kansas, but i agree wth most of your points.

Depends where you are in the state...really, the only time I can't differentiate Missouri's accents from a Southern accent is in the far southeastern portion of the state. They are still Midland accents. Dialect maps for the most part show the dialect to be confined to Lebanon and further south.

[SPonteKC]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Historically, the term "Midwest" first came into usage to describe the Northwest Territories

This is incorrect. The term "midwest" ( from the older term "midwestern", first recorded usage 1889) was used to describe the belt of states across the "middle" what was, at the time, the "west".

Namely: W. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by s.davis

This is incorrect. The term "midwest" ( from the older term "midwestern", first recorded usage 1889) was used to describe the belt of states across the "middle" what was, at the time, the "west".

Namely: W. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.

Yes, but as we have agreed on before, Missouri and Kansas are the only ones out of that that fit that definition from a modern standpoint.

However, the states that are almost never debated as Midwestern are the ones that were part of the Northwest Ordinance, plus Iowa. These states essentially fit all the stereotypes of the Midwest pretty much to a T.

[kshe95girl]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Missouri entered the union as a slave state, and you are telling me that the south doesn't start until you are nearly in Arkansas? In the 1950s, Hannibal, 50 miles from the Iowa line, was a fully segregated city. Nearly all settlement of Missouri in the 19th century came up from the South. To this day, the towns north of Kansas City are sundown towns, clinging to their segregationist roots.

I've lived in four different towns in Missouri and I never had a sense that I was in the Midwest. My dad grew up in Missouri, and living in the Midwest, he was a fish out of water. I'm not just making this up. Mark Twain called Missouri a Southwestern state, even Hannibal. There may be a lot of people there who don't want to be called southern, but they are. Or else they came from the Midwest and brought the Midwest along with them.

Funny......my original ancestor in MO was the first European settler in the first European settlement.
The whole area was called The Illinois Country then.
We've been there ever since.
The only folk in my family that consider themselves Southern is the branch of the family that lives in -gasp- the Bootheel.