Do you consider Ohio "Midwest" or "Back East?" (Columbus: houses, to live in)

[snowstormxu]

Originally Posted by Traveler87

Different parts of Ohio represent different parts of the nation. That really is an awesome part about it.

NE Ohio takes on a more NE type of feel.

SE Ohio takes on a more Kentucky feel to it.

NW Ohio takes no the Midwest feel.

SW Ohio takes on a very southern feel.

And Central Ohio takes on a Midwest feel too.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Lookout Kid]

I've known a couple of snobs from Hudson who thought they lived in the Northeast, but they were ridiculous people. Ohio is the Midwest, hands down. Though it is the eastern edge of the Midwest to be sure (for Pennsylvania is something else, even though Pittsburg feels like a Midwestern city with more hills). The western edge of teh Midwest is harder to define, since many people consider the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas to be a separate "Plains States" region. In my experience the major cities around the Great Lakes have a lot in common with one another.

[fishnfool]

as someone who grew up in Ohio and now lives in the northeast, Ohio is 100% midwest. Cleveland is a little more hilly and wooded but it's nothing like the true northeast. I admit the southern parts are pretty dern close to dixie though.

I honestly wouldn't even include Penn or parts of NY as the northeast.....still part of the great lakes states. Once you get north of Massachusetts and east of NY you entered the TRUE northeast (northern New England). It has a completely different feel up there.

[Orwelleaut]

Ohio in Midwest all the way. This is farm country inhabited by plain, everyday folks straight out of a John Cougar Mellencamp song. We are nothing like NJ or New England, but a lot like Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Our weather toughens us up in the winter, and is pretty pleasant the rest of the year. Most of us are not wealthy, and most of us have never been to Hollywood or met a movie star. A lot of us haven't even been to Manhattan. A lot of us have worn shorts and hats and gloves within the same week in March or April, though, and shovelled snow after having worn shorts several days beforehand. We drink pop, not soda. Soda has ice cream in it. Ohio is the heartland.

Western PA is almost Midwestern. Back east is NJ, New England, MD and DE, and Eastern PA and NY.

[Orwelleaut]

Originally Posted by fishnfool

as someone who grew up in Ohio and now lives in the northeast, Ohio is 100% midwest. Cleveland is a little more hilly and wooded but it's nothing like the true northeast. I admit the southern parts are pretty dern close to dixie though.

I honestly wouldn't even include Penn or parts of NY as the northeast.....still part of the great lakes states. Once you get north of Massachusetts and east of NY you entered the TRUE northeast (northern New England). It has a completely different feel up there.

I hear ya! Compared to northern NEw England, folks in Buffalo speak a lot like us Ohio folks. In fact, Western NY has a lot of those Chicago/Michigan type pronunciations.

[VideoEngineerAJS]

I don't care if you live in the most Northeastern part of the state, the entire state is Midwestern. As much as I really don't care for Cleveland, it's nothing like the Northeast. Having lived in Syracuse, NY for 2 years and New Hampshire for a year as well as having worked in NYC, New Jersey, CT, MA, and traveled to Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island, there is absolutely no part of Ohio that can even compare to the feel of the Northeast.

Personally to me that is a good thing. Like I said I really don't like Cleveland all that well, but I still like it better than the Northeast. Now I think the reason I don't really like the northeastern part of Ohio is because they are trying to be or they think they are more Northeastern. To be perfectly honest I wouldn't even consider PA a Northeastern state. The only part of PA that I would consider Northeastern is Philly.

Although at one time I thought states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia were classified as the Mid Atlantic states?

[Cincy-Rise]

^ I don't think they're speaking in terms of culturally.

Your answer will depend on who you ask. Ask someone from Oklahoma or the Dakotas and see what your answer is. The point is, is the midwest is just too large of a region to lump into one region. There's too much land to cover. Hell, even for me driving to Baltimore or Philly is no big deal, and we live in Cincy. It's a trip one can make on a long weekend. To someone in STL, that would be unheard of.

[CortlandGirl79]

Originally Posted by VideoEngineerAJS

Personally to me that is a good thing. Like I said I really don't like Cleveland all that well, but I still like it better than the Northeast. Now I think the reason I don't really like the northeastern part of Ohio is because they are trying to be or they think they are more Northeastern. To be perfectly honest I wouldn't even consider PA a Northeastern state. The only part of PA that I would consider Northeastern is Philly.

Although at one time I thought states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia were classified as the Mid Atlantic states?

Well, i live in Northeastern Ohio and i consider our area kind of a transition area between the northeast and midwest. I consider us more a great lakes region than anything else. There are cities in both regions that are similar in many ways, not just culturally.......Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Erie, Youngstown, Akron, Toledo, Detroit and so on.

You also have to remember that northeastern Ohio was called the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Connecticut Land Co. split up the land and sold it to settlers from the Northeast. If you travel to many towns in our region they will "look" northeastern to you. Two good examples of this are Poland and Chagrin Falls.

Connecticut Western Reserve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's an article about the New England feel to Northeast Ohio:

A GRACEFUL white church looks out across a swath of emerald grass to the town hall, the two old buildings nestled in an oval-shaped green. Maple trees cast their welcome shade. It's the very image of rural New England.

In fact, however, it's Tallmadge Circle, in the heart of Tallmadge, Ohio, a small city that proudly traces its roots to early Connecticut -- to Litchfield, to be precise.

Persistent Echoes of New England in the Western Reserve - New York Times


Poland (from photobucket):

[Orwelleaut]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I've known a couple of snobs from Hudson who thought they lived in the Northeast, but they were ridiculous people. Ohio is the Midwest, hands down. Though it is the eastern edge of the Midwest to be sure (for Pennsylvania is something else, even though Pittsburg feels like a Midwestern city with more hills). The western edge of teh Midwest is harder to define, since many people consider the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas to be a separate "Plains States" region. In my experience the major cities around the Great Lakes have a lot in common with one another.

I like it!! If a Chicagoan has been to Pittsburgh, and feels like it is a midwestern city with more hills, than those of us who feel this way must be on to something. Pittsburgh does not have the fast pace of the Eastern cities like Philly, and is surrounded in all directions by farmland and rural countryside. The industrial history is more akin to Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland than to the East.

The speech pattern is more midwest than anything else (Easterners and Southerners speak with dipthonged vowels, like "eaut and abeaut" for out about, while midwesterners tend to drop their dipthongs "aht and abaht"). Listen to a Pittsburgher and a Chicagoan, and you will hear more speech similarities than between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Pittsburghers say "Hair-iss-burg", like in the midwest, while in Eastern PA, one hears "Hahr-iss-burg. One hears mirror and mere pronounced the same in Pittsburgh, like in the midwest, but "mirr-ruh" vs. "mere" in Eastern PA. A Dr. Pepper is a pop in Pitt, but a soda in Eastern PA. I'm not saying either way is wrong (though the Eastern way sounds distinctively accented to my ears), just pointing out the regional dialect differences, and that Pittsburghers speak like midwesterners.

[Pumpkin Eater]

midwest