Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Why do so many people hate the Midwest and Rustbelt?I mean the Midwest/Rustbelt region is one of the huge regions why are country has been so prosperous.Yeah i know theres crime and poverty in cities in the Midwest but there is crime and poverty in cities in all of the regions.I also know the economy is not that good right now in the Midwest,but can you really expect that to last forever.I mean if the economy in the West was to go bad would people hate that region?Than in the Midwest you have cities like Cleveland,Chicago,STL,Milwaukee,Indianapolis,and Detroit,cities which all have world class attractions.The Midwest has the great lakes,the cities also have nice architecture.Im posting this question because I wanted to see what people have to say on this topic.I mean Im suprised and kind of mad to see that so many people dislike the region I like so much.I mean I know not everyone is going to like the Midwest,but compared to the other regions,the Midwest seems to be the one that is the most disliked.
You are talking about the big cities. Most of us don't live in the big cities. The midwest is a nice trap!no..it is a good place to maybe raise a family, but in general there are not a lot of things to do. We do not have an ocean to dream by, not too many stars to gaze at, the weather makes us want to stay inside, and the people that are not in the cities leave something to be desired. I have lived here my entire life and now I am leaving and heading south...ooh can't wait
The midwest is a nice trap!no..it is a good place to maybe raise a family, but in general there are not a lot of things to do. We do not have an ocean to dream by, not too many stars to gaze at, the weather makes us want to stay inside, and the people that are not in the cities leave something to be desired.
Ohio may not be near an ocean but isn't it near some big lakes? And why aren't there stars? Seems being away from cities leaves more nature to take advantage of.
As much as a Chicago lover as I am, we don't have the best economy in the country. We arent growing economically as fast as other cities in the Sunbelt (Houston, Phoenix) but we are probably, if on a scale of 1-10, on an 8 right now, which is near perfect
yes but....steve finds illinois and chicago better at pretty much everything. Illinois is toward the bottom on population loss, chicago does seem to have weathered the trends much better than other midwestern cities....but I would not say its better than sunbelt cities in general.
I was wondering about that,maybe it's because it's more cloudy or maybe there's more smog there or something.
Probably due to the city lights, but I just wanted to have a little fun. Where Im at in IL I can hardly see the stars, but a short drive out into the country reveals them all.
Im kind of confused on what some people think of the midwest. Someone has to explain to me what "conservative" means, because we must have different definitions. I am from the Cleveland area and I have been to a lot of different places (NYC, Jersey, Baltimore, DC, etc.) and I wouldnt consider the midwest (or at least the Cleveland area) conservative at all.
I would say that this is one thing that I wish would change about a number of areas of the Midwest - its openess on both social and economic issues. I'm definitely not a granola-toting liberal (I've always considered myself a libertarian Republican), but I do place a great value on being truly open to other viewpoints, cultures and lifestyles. Outside of Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, and maybe a handful of college towns, the Midwest is significantly behind the coasts in this regard. I don't know if I would call Cleveland "conservative" since it's a Democratic city, but it votes Democrat more because of its populist underpinnings (which is common in places that have strong union presence) as opposed to being liberal on social issues. No city of Cleveland's size is going to come out and say explicitly, for example, that it doesn't welcome gay people, but its implicit social attitudes simply don't make it as welcoming of a place for those of that care about that issue compared to New York, San Francisco, or its closer neighbor of Chicago. The problem is that most of the growing communities in this country are going in the opposite direction of the old line Midwestern manufacturing cities - they benefit from open markets on the economic front (i.e. they make NAFTA an asset as opposed to a liability) and draw in the best talent because they are truly open on the social front. I think that has to change drastically if the Midwest wants to turn around its economy, much less its image.
I kinda like this map--it acknowledges the many nuances among the regions and states, yet still manages to call a spade a spade.
The Great Plains dividing line makes sense to me: it's right about where the 100th meridian is. That's the point that many agree separates the arid west from the humid east. I'm not sure what the debatable area in KS is. Anyone shed any light on this?
Not sure about the debatable area in West TX is either. I'd probably leave the El Paso area in the Intermountain West.
I like how it calls east TX as "South". I'm particularly impressed that it puts the Little Egypt area of IL squarely in the South. No debate there. Same thing with the Delmarva Penninsula, and all of VA except the DC suburban area.
Not sure why Western MT and northern ID are debatable. How could that be anything but Intermountain West?
I like that it also comes down firmly that Buffalo and Pittsburgh are East, no two ways about it. The debatable area is farther west, in OH. Not sure why Cleveland's and Cincinnati's pedigrees are debatably Eastern, but Detroit's is not.
Intersting map, rgb123. What is its source? Is there some accompanying text that desribes the criteria the author used to set the regional boundaries?
There are two midwests, so to speak. One is the I-70 coridoor through Kansas, Missouri, and Indiana. This area is much more conservative and "hokey," I guess. People have a strong southern influence in dialect and attitudes.
The other midwest is the Great Lakes basin. There is a large German and Scandanavian influence here and you can pick it up in attitudes (strong agrarian values and culture) and speech patterns. That's why you've got really progressive cities like Minneapolis and Chicago. These two towns are very, very different from places like St. Louis and Indy.
There really are two midwests. As a Missourian, I'm a proud resident of the hokier half! lol.
Well, there's German and there's German. While many German immigrants settled in rural, agricultural areas, many others settled the cites of the Midwest. Their political views differed widely from the WASPs who controlled commerce and politics in these cities. Like the Scandinavians, the Germans brought a collectivist ideal to America with them. Many of the leaders in the big-city union movement in the later part of the 19th century were German. Milwaukee is the only US city to have elected a Socialist (German-American) mayor for four terms in the 20th century. And that was in the decades when the city's population was overwhelmingly German.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
