Most Provincial City in the US (condos, hotel, unemployment)
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What is the most Provincial city in the US? Provincial, according to Merriam-Webster is: a person of local or restricted interests or outlook. What do you think? Presumably this also means the city with the highest percentage of "homers".
What is the most Provincial city in the US? Provincial, according to Merriam-Webster is: a person of local or restricted interests or outlook. What do you think? Presumably this also means the city with the highest percentage of "homers".
Without a doubt at least among the frontrunners, Philadelphia.
Most homers? Chicago and maybe Philly. Living in Chicago had its amazing moments of discovery and magic, but its also very draining on many levels to live and to work. If you talk badly of the city and how it runs, or doesnt, the locals spew venomous pride...make some lowerbrain comparisons , well degradations, to other more congenial less congested, and livable cities that the only experience an average Chicagoan has with is often the inside of the swimming pool at their hotel stay. .ignoring there own local landslide of issues. ."it could be worse, we could all be (insert generalizations and stereotypes here)" the bizarre provincialness of seemingly half the population, and downright clannishness of locals is obnoxious at times. Can the third largest city in America be considered provincial? In ways, more so than some small towns. No setting on earth is supposedly better than downtown Chicago and north of there a ways? Really? Do you people travel with your mind open or closed? Because your midwest colors shine through when you gripe and moan about the tourists and about bigger fish, not local fish. renaming the Sears tower and Marshal Fields into London Tower and NYC Department Store .. Its all about being manicured, proper, and friendly. But..not really. What is really happening? A virtual museum of great architecture, a diverse food scene, and plenty of high end shopping. Museums, theatre. etc...all the same exact things most cities have. Just a bigger scale of it all, and a bigger scale of provincial attitude, a bohemith and overall, I will just say it, bland tourist trap, congested and impersonal. But selling itself very wel to tourist minded folks and and the insecure snobs who roam the streets playing fakey nice nice. The locals, of who rate the city fairly low in everything else other than pizza and beef, are both the city's backbone, and what is bringing it down! It seems that they are insulated by the thought that...all that really matters is your downtow
n is clean and has diverse office buildings to gawk at. Beautiful buildings, and ugly condos that nobody occupies. Why? Because when you are around the Guy who constantly thumps his chest how great he is, but his immediate family is starving and killing and stressed and unemployed and overtaxed and sapped for all their
sweat and tears in the name of someone elses political dreams that don't help the majority live a good quality
life, but rather 1/4 ...if that...until they start to wake up and get the hell out as many are in fact doing in Chicago. Unemployment is up 48% in the last 6 months.
Last edited by bennydabull77; 08-04-2011 at 09:19 AM..
I think Chicago is too big to be considered provincial. People come there from all over.
Didn't really explain Cincinnati.
Well for starters most Cincinnatians, the exception being Ohio State fans, could really care less about the rest of this state. This is likely due to the fact that Cincinnati has three major schools (UC, Xavier, and Miami) who have had various rivalries/spats with OSU. Throw in the fact that both the U of Kentucky and Indiana are about as far from Cincinnati from OSU and you can see why Cincinnati is not brimming with O-H-I-O pride. The fact that Cincinnati has such a strong Appalachian influence also differs itself from the rest of the state, a Cincinnatian in my opion at least is much more likely to say he's from Cincinnati or even just from the Midwest than saying he's from Ohio.
The city itself is very provincial and clannish as well. Lots of small high schools compared to other cities of similar sides with intense rivalries. Cincinnati's large Catholic community is also very prominent and has its own stong rivalries, between West (Elder) and East (St.X). In fact so many kids go to Catholic schools that many of the public schools which tend to be much more protestant end up disliking or hating the Catholic schools as well. In this city when people ask you where you went to school, they mean high school, not college, that's how extreme it can be here.
This is a tough call. I love my city, but among major cities, the case could be made for Boston. I know a lot of people here who haven't done much exploring beyond the Boston region and tend to assume Boston's better in every aspect than anywhere else. On the flip side, we also have the grass is greener folks who think anywhere outside of Boston is better.
Again, I love New York City, but I've run into way too many New Yorkers who seem to think that they are automatically the most wonderful people on the planet simply because they grew up near New York. I emphasize "near" because I've experienced this more among people from SW Connecticut, Long Island, and Northern NJ than I have from New Yorkers themselves.
Once more (there's a trend here), I love San Francisco, but I've noticed it in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've met a bunch of folks out there who seem to believe that San Francisco is the center of the universe.
All that said, the worst place I ever lived with that sort of mentality was Portland, Maine. I already mentioned that I love Boston, New York and San Francisco. I'd easily live in all three of those cities (I live in Boston and NYC and SF make up my number 2 and 3 choices) so it goes without saying that whatever "provincial" attitude I've noticed in those places pales in relation to all of the wonderful things about those places. There's enough good in BOS, SF, and NYC to make even a noticeable provincial attitude bearable.
In Portland, however, it was suffocating. I couldn't take it and I had to leave. It was just impossible to relate to many folks who were otherwise wonderful people. The constant back-patting and self-congratulatory attitude was too much to handle. I don't know if it's the worst in the country, but relatively speaking, it was the worst (by far) that I've ever encountered.
Provincial can mean several different things under that definition.
1. Provincial can mean only caring about their particular city and no other place
-Here I would say Philly and Chicago. Boston and NYC do come to mind, but people there are also more concerned with national and international events.
2. Provincial can mean an ignorant outlook that no one else matters and there is no desire to learn about anyone else
-Here I would say the stereotypical Southern small or medium sized city with 2 types of people (black and white). Chicago and Philly are simply too big for people not to know about other types of people and cultures. Although Chicago is very segregated by ethnicity, one would be hard pressed to find an Irishman who didn't know at least the basic fundamentals of Jewish religion and culture and vice versa or a Mexican who didn't know the very basic fundamentals of Italian American or Polish culture.
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