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Is it just me, or do others see no difference in the people and their disgusting corporate landscape, regardless of where in the US they live? Chain stores that resemble a shoebox are all over the place, and the people mindlessly consume in them. There is NO difference between Southerners, Mid westerners, the east coasters or the left coasters.
Have you ever driven through Colorado? 50% of that state is almost identical to Kansas.
Yes, and how about the other 50% that bears no resemblance whatsoever to it. Kansas has no mountainous terrain. Actually, less than 50% of Colorado is identical to Kansas. The Rockies extend further east than Colorado Springs, which is southeast of Denver.
I've never heard of anyone hating the Midwest before.
I find that most people just have NO opinion about whatsoever...like ZERO.
If they do think of someone, it would be the Woody Harrelson's WOODY character on CHEERS. I.E., someone naive and we're all from tiny little small towns surrounded by massive cornfields.
Being from the Great Lakes of Michigan, where beaches/boating/forests/logging/industrial cities/etc is quite common...I always found it real strange that MI has such an overwhelming cornfield image.
Let me get this straight...you think that Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin are more like New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine than the Great Plains states? That is not even close to the truth. Anyone who has been to these states and regions should clearly be able to see the differences. Topographically and culturally, the Upper Midwest states resemble the great plains states more.
Topographically the Upper Midwest, with the exception of Iowa, is very different from the Great Plains. Iowa is like a Great Plains state with the rainfall of a Great Lakes state. It still doesn't have tons of lakes or forests but at least it isn't brown and yellow in the spring and summer months. Western Minnesota, Southern Illinois, and Southern Indiana are places where the topography transitions from one region to another but Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio are heavily forested states with lots of lakes and rivers and rolling hills. Which doesn't sound a thing like the Great Plains states.
Culturally the Great Plains seem to be dominated by Baptists, Evangelicals, and so on. Whereas the Great Lakes seem to be dominated by Catholicism and Lutheranism and to a lesser extent Judaism in the big cities. Also the Upper Midwest states are a lot more culturally diverse than the Great Plains states as far as having different ethnic and minority groups represented. You can chalk it up to the Great Plains having smaller populations, but it's still a fact.
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Originally Posted by ajf131
A big thing to point out is that while Great Plains states have to be irrigated to produce crops and are drier, the rural parts of these states differ only in that wheat is grown more than corn and soybeans in the plains, and there are basicaly no trees and the topography is less green and the states as a whole are more rural.
What you just described sounds like a huge difference to me. Here's how you sounded to me: "Other than the fact that the landscape of the Great Plains is totally brown and devoid of vegetation and the fact that nobody lives there, it's exactly the same as the Upper Midwest."
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Originally Posted by ajf131
Denver has virtually nothing culturally, architecturally, or historically Midwestern about it. Oklahoma City has clear cultural and dialectual and architectural influence from Dallas and Little Rock and Tulsa. Kansas City has culture that is far more similar to Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis than to Denver.
Actually, Denver has a very Midwestern look to its architecture. Perhaps more than it should considering the lack of water in the West (many older houses have big lawns with lots with trees and grass to water). Denver is also technically located on the Great Plains and shares the history of cattle ranching and rodeos that Texas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Kansas all share as well.
KC might be more like St. Louis and Indianapolis than Denver, but definitely not Chicago. The only thing the 2 cities have in common is Black people and Jazz music.
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Originally Posted by ajf131
And Omaha is definitely more similar to Kansas City and Des Moines and Chicago than it is to Denver. It's very close to Des Moines and right across the river from Iowa. I don't know where your opinions come from, but if you're doing drugs, I'd recommend getting clean, and if you're not doing drugs, I'd recommend actually traveling to and visiting these places first rather than randomly shouting out your opinion.
Omaha isn't even remotely like Chicago. Meatpacking is the about the only commonality the two cities share. Omaha is probably very similar to KC, but it's also similar to Denver. You know, the whole rodeo/cattle ranching culture thing?
Omaha isn't even remotely like Chicago. Meatpacking is the about the only commonality the two cities share. Omaha is probably very similar to KC, but it's also similar to Denver. You know, the whole rodeo/cattle ranching culture thing?
Huh? I guess I must not be paying much attention here.
I have always considered Iowa to be in the Midwest core.
Well, I used to live in "Michiana" so northern Indiana has quite a bit in common with Michigan and the entire Great Lakes manufacturing belt. This area is also much more forested. Much of the rest of Indiana is solidly in the corn belt with the exception of southern Indiana.
Well, Wichita has an overarching Bible Belt culture that spills over into politics as well as economic development. Wichita has just as much social conservatism as Oklahoma City. Widespread social conservatism is a much more pravailing theme in the southern Great Plains compared to the Great Lakes or even parts of the Midwest core.
The Great Plains is much different poltically, culturally, and climatically compared with the Midwest core. The biggest welfare recipients in the country are commodity crop farmers in the High Plains subregion. This profligate water use is unsustainable so I doubt Midwest core type crops will be grown there 50+ years from now after the Ogallala Aquifer is depleted enough that costs for drilling deeper wells will be financially unprofitable.
I also disagree that Kansas has much in common at all with Minnesota. I just don't see it at all. It is a very distinct cultural clash in my opinion. I can back this up considering I lived over 20+ years in the KC metro area as well as rural counties. I have also visitied large chunks of MN; both MPLS, southern tier ag counties, the northwoods, and Brainerd Lakes region.
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Wichita has just as much social conservatism as Oklahoma City.
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I'd have to disagree with you here. Considering that Kansas is one of only a few places in America that still allows the horrific act of late-term abortions (aka = Tiller the Killer) you would be hard pressed to say that it is, on the whole, as socially conservative as Oklahoma. If you would have compared Oklahoma and Arkansas then I would have agreed with you.
Also, social conservatism is only one element contributing to the overarching culture of a community. At the end of the day, OK City (and Tulsa for that matter) will always be more culturally akin to Fort Worth, Fort Smith, Little Rock, Amarillo, Shreveport, Nashville, etc.
I agree with about 90% of this. Some of the homes in Denver look like the homes in the midwest, e.g. the bungalows, but I think that was a popular style in many places in the 1920s. I have seen pictures of bungalows in Portland. Denver started with a gold rush. The agriculture out here is ranching, not farming.
Much of the agriculture in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas is also ranching. In fact, Kansas is the #2 beef producer after Texas.
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Originally Posted by Katiana
Culturally, the whole area is more family-oriented with generations of families living in the same area, getting together every Sunday for dinner, etc. There's a lot more church-going in the entire midwest than there is in Denver.
I totally disagree with this. The "family values" vibe was way stronger in Denver and Colorado than it is up here in Milwaukee or Wisconsin. I never went to church growing up and neither did the vast majority of my friends or family. In Denver it seemed like I was always being bombarded with religion whether it was at work, school, or just walking around the city. There was a guy who drove around town in a truck with a bloody aborted fetus on the side of it, there were always those creepy Jews for Jesus people on the Auraria Campus, and there were always people who tried to hand you religious literature on the 16th St. Mall. Religion seemed to be everywhere in Denver. Religion isn't nearly as prevalent here as it was in Colorado. Catholics and Lutherans don't really go around trying to "save" everybody they come across like some of the kookier Christians feel obligated to do.
The Lower Midwest states like Missouri and Kansas fall well within the Bible Belt and other states like Indiana and Nebraska are very dominated by conservative Christian "values" as well. To me, Colorado seemed more like those states than like the extremely secular Upper Midwest states or the unreligious neighboring states like Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico.
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Wichita has just as much social conservatism as Oklahoma City.
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I'd have to disagree with you here. Considering that Kansas is one of only a few places in America that still allows the horrific act of late-term abortions (aka = Tiller the Killer) you would be hard pressed to say that it is, on the whole, as socially conservative as Oklahoma. If you would have compared Oklahoma and Arkansas then I would have agreed with you.
Also, social conservatism is only one element contributing to the overarching culture of a community. At the end of the day, OK City (and Tulsa for that matter) will always be more culturally akin to Fort Worth, Fort Smith, Little Rock, Amarillo, Shreveport, Nashville, etc.
Apparently you did not hear the news that Tiller was killed by a fringe individual who was immediately arrested. I am not going to get into the abortion issue, but I think Kansas is very socially conservative regardless. The state is much more socially conservative compared to the Upper Midwest states. I would say much of southern Kansas is in the Bible Belt with northern Kansas much less so.
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