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What does Judaism have anything to do with "slow population growth"?
Not much frankly. It's just an example of a thread that gets sidetracked because of the comment(s) of one member.
Now, let's return to the topic at hand, i.e. "Slow Population Growth in the Midwest"'..
Cold winters, lack of diversity, no public transportation, bland, lack of synagogues/Jewish community
Hilariously inaccurate. The Cleveland suburb of Beachwood has one of the highest percentage of Jews in the country (90%) and the Cleveland area has about 100,000 Jews. Pretty large percentage of the metro. Chicago has over a quarter million. Detroit has a good number as well.
Diversity in the midwest is huge. There are eastern and central europeans of all kinds, blacks, hispanics, a growing Asian population and most importantly, not everyone is an intellectual clone of each other. That's the only true diversity.
Someone with the username Warszawa should be aware of the HUGE Polish communities in places like Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. What a shame.
Cold winters, lack of diversity, no public transportation, bland, lack of synagogues/Jewish community
Everyone already corrected you on the diversity comment. As far as public transportation, every single major city in the midwest has public transportation, what are you talking about?
The Midwest is bland how?
and are you seriously criticizing the midwest on having cold winters when you live on the east coast which has been blasted with severe winter storms much worse than the Midwest for the past few years?
Are you saying the east coast has the same problems then? Because another poster pointed out that the east coast isn't doing much better in it's population growth either.
I am an ex Midwesterner, and in my opinion the slow growth has two major reasons behind it. One is the weather, some people just do not like the cold hard winters (especially the upper Midwest). The other reason is the economy. Offshoring of jobs affected the Midwest in an extreme way. Indiana, Ohio and Michigan were hardest hit. Even today Midwest cities like Detroit and more recently Flint Mi have been in the news for catastrophic economic and infrastructure failures. These things keep people from considering the Midwest as a place to live or do business. It is also a fact that the good things about Midwestern life are not really well known. Most Americans do not realize how beautiful the upper Mississippi valley is, or how beautiful the Great Lakes coastline is. Most don't know how low the cost of living is there, nor do they know how peaceful small town life is in that part of America. All they know is the news of murders in Chicago, bankruptcies in Detroit or poison water in Flint Michigan. They see the blizzards, 30 below zero weather but they do not see the good things. It is an image problem at its core. I know I said I was an "ex Midwesterner" so obviously I decided it was not for me anymore. However that does not mean its a bad place to live, on the contrary for the right type of person it can be a great place. It is so much more than the very troubled places that get so much press up there. There are some very underated places in the Midwest.
Agree with most of your points. Still, you have to look at it from this point of view too - what makes news out of the Midwest these days is mostly crime and mismanagement. Chicago and Detroit have become synonymous with crime. To a lesser extent, so have St. Louis and Cleveland. Flint, Toledo, Youngstown, and other smaller metros are in a state of disrepair. Throw in a few newsworthy incidents like Michael Brown, and it leaves a sour taste in a lot of folks' mouths.
The best parts of the Midwet IMO are still in small towns that are like stepping back in a time machine in a way. Sadly, those places don't have many jobs. The big metros in the Midwest are typically not around in the scenic areas. Southern IN and the west coast of MI are beautiful, but that's not where the job centers are.
Agree with most of your points. Still, you have to look at it from this point of view too - what makes news out of the Midwest these days is mostly crime and mismanagement. Chicago and Detroit have become synonymous with crime. To a lesser extent, so have St. Louis and Cleveland. Flint, Toledo, Youngstown, and other smaller metros are in a state of disrepair. Throw in a few newsworthy incidents like Michael Brown, and it leaves a sour taste in a lot of folks' mouths.
The best parts of the Midwet IMO are still in small towns that are like stepping back in a time machine in a way. Sadly, those places don't have many jobs. The big metros in the Midwest are typically not around in the scenic areas. Southern IN and the west coast of MI are beautiful, but that's not where the job centers are.
I have to at least partially disagree with this. I live in a cute "Mayberry" town with about 4,000 residents that has a village square with a gazebo, Civil War cannon, and multiple shops and restaurants with a riverfront with an old mill and dam/waterfall right around the corner from the village square. It is a lovely place to live; crime is almost non-existent, people are friendly, low COL, etc. but we are still only 20 min. from Ann Arbor, 20 min. from Toledo, and an hour from the upscale suburbs of Metro Detroit, meaning that high paying jobs are only a reasonable commute away, and we are also only 20 min. from a Great Lake and its beaches, and an hour from Canada. It's all in where the small town is located, and there are many, many, desirable small towns located fairly near large cities for jobs, shopping, sporting events, etc.
I see what you are saying about small Midwestern towns in the center of states that are truly not close to a large city, but these towns are often fairly self sustaining and filled with people who grew up there and have managed to make a living just like their parents and grandparents did before them, which is why small towns in the Midwest tend to look more prosperous than small towns in some other regions of the country.
I am an ex Midwesterner, and in my opinion the slow growth has two major reasons behind it. One is the weather, some people just do not like the cold hard winters (especially the upper Midwest). The other reason is the economy. Offshoring of jobs affected the Midwest in an extreme way. Indiana, Ohio and Michigan were hardest hit. Even today Midwest cities like Detroit and more recently Flint Mi have been in the news for catastrophic economic and infrastructure failures. These things keep people from considering the Midwest as a place to live or do business. It is also a fact that the good things about Midwestern life are not really well known. Most Americans do not realize how beautiful the upper Mississippi valley is, or how beautiful the Great Lakes coastline is. Most don't know how low the cost of living is there, nor do they know how peaceful small town life is in that part of America. All they know is the news of murders in Chicago, bankruptcies in Detroit or poison water in Flint Michigan. They see the blizzards, 30 below zero weather but they do not see the good things. It is an image problem at its core. I know I said I was an "ex Midwesterner" so obviously I decided it was not for me anymore. However that does not mean its a bad place to live, on the contrary for the right type of person it can be a great place. It is so much more than the very troubled places that get so much press up there. There are some very underated places in the Midwest.
It seems people, in general, have changed? It used to be many liked the cold weather, as they were from a cold area in Europe. Maybe the cold weather tolerance has some evolutionary base, as we know minor single phenotype changes occur much faster than gene groups.
Agree with most of your points. Still, you have to look at it from this point of view too - what makes news out of the Midwest these days is mostly crime and mismanagement. Chicago and Detroit have become synonymous with crime. To a lesser extent, so have St. Louis and Cleveland. Flint, Toledo, Youngstown, and other smaller metros are in a state of disrepair. Throw in a few newsworthy incidents like Michael Brown, and it leaves a sour taste in a lot of folks' mouths.
The best parts of the Midwet IMO are still in small towns that are like stepping back in a time machine in a way. Sadly, those places don't have many jobs. The big metros in the Midwest are typically not around in the scenic areas. Southern IN and the west coast of MI are beautiful, but that's not where the job centers are.
I think any major Midwest city that is on a Great Lake, that looks like an ocean, would be considered in a "scenic area."
The Great Lakes are often referred to as the "Third Coast"
Uh oh, you opened a can of worms, there.
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