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Iowa, because of the notoriety with the caucuses for presidential election cycles, rural row crop agriculture, closer to the center of gravity in the Midwest without being much more isolated like the Great Plains, John Deere presence, two university cities of size, political moderation(historically), Des Moines, and bordering the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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I picked South Dakota. It has one of America's iconic landmarks Mt Rushmore, the allure of the Black Hills and Badlands, and images of bison roaming the rolling grasslands. It's a state that's fairly easy to conjure up visual images of in the mind. Kansas and Nebraska, not so much.
For cities among these states, I'd say Omaha would have the most recognition. KC is more Missouri than Kansas which I envision having very vanilla suburbs on the Kansas side. Iowa is pretty and bucolic in its small towns but it doesn't stand out to me all that much.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 07-11-2022 at 08:02 PM..
Americans suck at geography. I don’t think Mount Rushmore is ingrained with South Dakota for the average American.
If someone says Kansas, people immediately think tornadoes and basketball and Smallville and Kansas City. That last one feels like a cheat as it’s KCMO and not KCKS people think of. But again, we suck at geography and strong identification need not be accurate identification.
I’ve decide I’m going to place Iowa second. Caucuses and corn are strong identity, but people would likely struggle beyond that. Wizard of Oz trumps Field of Dreams.
If this was the 90s, Nebraska might have a stronger claim here. Football was king and the Oracle of Omaha was everywhere.
South Dakota is visited by people, and North Dakota is usually skipped because no one can think of a reason to go. So it goes last.
Iowa is unquestionably a true "heartland" state from border to border, and is surrounded by Midwest territory. The four other states have more quasi-Western influence, as both precipitation and population density drop off going towards their west.
As a lifetime Sunbelt resident, I don't find this region of the country "boring" at all - it's very different from the South and plays an important role keeping the nation and world nourished. Some of the states' politicians are not really a net plus for the country, but that is true of all regions.
Maybe the Dakotas just because they sort of have a distinct accent, and they're such small states that I could see some of the residents having a perverse pride about that ("yeah, I'm from that state nobody is from!"). I've met people from e.g. Rhode Island and Alaska like that.
It's a good question, I'm not really sure and they all have some of the weakest identities among US states.
I'm a native of the city everyone east of the Appalachian mountain chain thinks is in Kansas.
And nearly half of it is. I'm talking metro now: Kansas City, Mo., which has been called "the capital of a state it's not even in," is about three times the size of Kansas City, Kan. — we're not talking a Minneapolis/St. Paul pair of equals here. But 40 percent of the metro population lives in Kansas: 904,771 people as of the 2020 census, making the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area the largest urban area in Kansas. (That figure represents almost one in every three Kansans, by the way.)
I went for the state next door to the one I grew up in for much the same reason everyone else who's picked it has: It has that strong "Wizard of Oz" connection (I know I'm "not in Kansas anymore"), and while Iowa may be the first fight in the battle to pick the President, Kansas is the only one of these five states to have actually produced one (Dwight Eisenhower).
It's also the only one of the five to have a rock band named for it. (The cover of its first album had a painting of this guy, who made his reputation in the "Bleeding Kansas" fight over whether it would be admitted as a slave state or a free one. The John Stuart Curry painting made him out to look something like Moses leading his people out of bondage.)
Not to knock Iowa, which has more charm than the "flyover country" folks know, or Nebraska, home to Kansas City's little brother (and another city that, like KC, punches above its weight). But I'd say all this trumps "Field of Dreams," the Iowa caucuses and Warren Buffett too.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 07-11-2022 at 10:00 PM..
I'm a native of the city everyone east of the Appalachian mountain chain thinks is in Kansas.
And nearly half of it is. I'm talking metro now: Kansas City, Mo., which has been called "the capital of a state it's not even in," is about three times the size of Kansas City, Kan. — we're not talking a Minneapolis/St. Paul pair of equals here. But 40 percent of the metro population lives in Kansas: 904,771 people as of the 2020 census, making the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area the largest urban area in Kansas. (That figure represents almost one in every three Kansans, by the way.)
I went for the state next door to the one I grew up in for much the same reason everyone else who's picked it has: It has that strong "Wizard of Oz" connection (I know I'm "not in Kansas anymore"), and while Iowa may be the first fight in the battle to pick the President, Kansas is the only one of these five states to have actually produced one (Dwight Eisenhower).
It's also the only one of the five to have a rock band named for it. (The cover of its first album had a painting of this guy, who made his reputation in the "Bleeding Kansas" fight over whether it would be admitted as a slave state or a free one. The John Stuart Curry painting made him out to look something like Moses leading his people out of bondage.)
Not to knock Iowa, which has more charm than the "flyover country" folks know, or Nebraska, home to Kansas City's little brother (and another city that, like KC, punches above its weight). But I'd say all this trumps "Field of Dreams," the Iowa caucuses and Warren Buffett too.
Oops!
Herbert Hoover is left caught looking from the outside? Lol!
I do think Kansas is more recognized as the quintessential Middle America state than any of the others. It has more pop culture references.
Then it's Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. In that order. All of these states do exemplify a lot of what people see as the defining examples of what Middle America means.
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Which of these states...
