Outstate? (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth: real estate, homes, college)

[Radical_Car]

Ya, everything here in St. Cloud is central Minnesota. Well no, not every single thing, but a lot of it is.

District 742 is the largest school district in Central Minnesota, proudly sharing the gift of education with nearly 9,500 students each school day.

St. Cloud Area School District 742 - Our District (http://isd742.org/ourdistrict.html# - broken link)

Brainerd is a city of 13,956 (2009 estimate) located along the Mississippi River in central Minnesota. Brainerd is the county seat of Crow Wing County.

http://www.ci.brainerd.mn.us/

Just a few examples.

Edit:Surprisingly, theres a Wikipedia page on Central Minnesota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Minnesota

[QuantumIguana]

The term outstate Minnesota is only used when there is a need to refer to everything in the state except the Twin Cities metro area. When a specific region is referenced, the specific term is used.

[Radical_Car]

^Agreed
Hence why when I made the thread, your favorite outstate Minnesota towns, I meant any town not in the Twin Cities area

[Sarimn00]

I never say outstate, and have actually never heard the term or been bothered by it enough to notice, but I don't spend a lot of quality time in the Twin Cities area. Around here, we are usually termed Central MN or West Central MN, which is what I've always used, although I've heard Greater Minnesota, too. I should also add, that even though Marshall is quite a drive from Willmar, I've always referred to that whole area as Southwestern Minnesota, not outstate. It just sounds weird to me. I'm not really offended by it. They'll say it how they want to anyway. Only a few things really get to me about the TC area, and that isn't one of them.

[yoyoma02]

I grew up in Minneapolis. When I went to college in Moorhead, I met a ton of people from small towns who would refer to the metro area as "The Cities" and it was a huge pet-peeve of mine. I remember meeting one girl who lived in Elk River and said she was from "the Cities" and it really erked me. (This was back in 2002 when Elk River wasn't much more than a gas station next to 94)

The thing that I found most hilarious is when people would ask me where I was from and I said, "Minneapolis" they would be confused and say, "oh what part of the Cities?" I would then reply, "South Minneapolis." They would look puzzled and they say, "Oooh, you are actually from Minneapolis??"

[Radical_Car]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

The thing that I found most hilarious is when people would ask me where I was from and I said, "Minneapolis" they would be confused and say, "oh what part of the Cities?" I would then reply, "South Minneapolis." They would look puzzled and they say, "Oooh, you are actually from Minneapolis??"

Ya I agree thats REALLY REALLY annoying, and it seems like just about everyone is like that, not everyone is, but it just seems like it.

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

I grew up in Minneapolis. When I went to college in Moorhead, I met a ton of people from small towns who would refer to the metro area as "The Cities" and it was a huge pet-peeve of mine. I remember meeting one girl who lived in Elk River and said she was from "the Cities" and it really erked me. (This was back in 2002 when Elk River wasn't much more than a gas station next to 94)

The thing that I found most hilarious is when people would ask me where I was from and I said, "Minneapolis" they would be confused and say, "oh what part of the Cities?" I would then reply, "South Minneapolis." They would look puzzled and they say, "Oooh, you are actually from Minneapolis??"

that's what you get i guess for having a metro that's mainly dominated population-wise by suburbs......MPLS and STP make up very very little in terms of POP and LAND.

ER had like 20,000 in 2002, much more than a Gas station and ER isn't even by 94... I'd consider ER part of the cities - Most of their residents work in the metro, they get metro tv and radio media, they get metro newspapers, they are only 35 miles from DT MPLS, they have cul-de-sacs, strip malls and big boxes, the place screams 'suburbia'.

People here seem to have that Chicago mentality-people from 1hr and half from DT Chi will say they are from 'Chicago'

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by knke0204

that's what you get i guess for having a metro that's mainly dominated population-wise by suburbs......MPLS and STP make up very very little in terms of POP and LAND.

ER had like 20,000 in 2002, much more than a Gas station and ER isn't even by 94... I'd consider ER part of the cities - Most of their residents work in the metro, they get metro tv and radio media, they get metro newspapers, they are only 35 miles from DT MPLS, they have cul-de-sacs, strip malls and big boxes, the place screams 'suburbia'.

People here seem to have that Chicago mentality-people from 1hr and half from DT Chi will say they are from 'Chicago'

Growing up we just considered anything that wasn't a "long distance" phone call part of "the Cities". That would include pretty much everywhere from Stillwater to New Prague to almost down to Northfield to not sure where up north--Rogers maybe??

Stillwater to Holton (across the bridge from Stillwater) is "long distance".

[limasbravo]

I myself battle the "outstate" by referring "oustate" as being "greater Minnesota". Although "outstate" doesn't bother me; I grew up in NE Minnesota. I don't recall every hearing any family/friends who live or used to live "outstate" saying "outstate" as being offensive.

[Lily0fthevalley]

Welll, no one is more bored with this topic than I am, but . . .

A couple of days ago to avoid painting the basement walls I did some rough research to figure out when the term "outstate" (used in the context of this thread) was first used in published sources. I used on-line sources that Minnesotans who have library cards can access from home: MNLink (http://www.mnlinkgateway.org) which is the statewide union catalog and EBSCOhost (using the databases Masterfile Premier and Academic Search Premier to find periodical/journal sources). So far the earliest useage I've found dates from 1946.

The earliest book I found on MNlink that uses the term outstate in the title is from 1970 : Report of the Minnesota Democratic Farm Labor Party Task Force on Outstate Development. Held by MHS & the state legislative reference library.

I used a full text search in the ebscohost databases (for the word used in the whole article, not just title only). The earliest use of the term "outstate" (used in our context) in a periodical was in: "Look Who's Going to School Now" Saturday Evening Post February 9, 1946: "The University of Michigan engaged the . . . specialists in the field of adult education, for regular outstate institutes and lecture series in Detroit, all concerned with the individual and his place in a changing civilization. In eight northern cities they attracted half again as many persons as ever had attended before and more than 500 are in the Detroit program."

But here's the most entertaining source I found: Speech by Alan C. McIntosh, editor of the Rock County Star Herald of Lucerne, MN to the South Dakota Press Ass'n April 6, 1962, published in the June 1, 1962 issue of Vital Speeches: "I'm sick, too of the big city editors who sneer at the country and small towns and who gloat over the supreme decision of redistricting. They are in the last stages of metropolitanitis, where you believe the outstate people should support the cities."

This research wasn't complete and final by any means, but I'm done now. In brief, the term was mostly used in government documents, primarily in the context of education.

Those of you who suffer from "Metropolitanitis", how do you like using a term that may have originated in Deeetroit????? (the preceding used in a humorous context, for those of you who are literal readers.)