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I think Miami's getting an In N Out if it doesn't have one already(or maybe It was Fatburger that expanded from California to Miami). Really, another good measure would be states that have Carl Jr's instead of Hardees.
I wouldn't expect Miami to get an In N Out. They want to keep everything within trucking distance of a single packing plant for quality control. I think Dallas is the eastern extreme of that.
My guess would be some topographical and climactic changes. The West is often associated with frontiers and open horizons. To the West of Fort Worth the frontier begins and the big skies and horizons open up and it starts to get a bit more arid. To the east of Dallas are the piney forests, it gets greener and more humid.
And I would pretty much agree with that. IF it meant where (depending on the direction of travel), where the West becomes the East or vice-versa. Which is more of a climatic/topographical...and frontier type thing.
But when it comes to connected cultural and history as in shaping forces and demographics and politics and etc, etc. That is where the problem comes in.
It is no longer a matter of defining the general boundaries of the East and West, but where the South becomes the West and the Midwest becomes the West, in a more historical/cultural sense related to deeply seated attitudes and patterns of voting, religious affiliations, speech patterns and even food habits.
Some will call it a "Great Lakes" state, some will call it a "Midwest" state, some will call it both; different people have different definitions for things like "Midwest.
Again, as another poster pointed out, this definition really rests on how you assign the plains region of the country. It really doesn't fit anything east of it or west of it in many ways.
The plains are very much a transition region. The 100th meridian is where the natural trees thin out and the shortgrass prairie begins, which is why some definitions of the Great Plans only include the area west of the 100th and east of the rockies. The 100th is also the westernmost extent of the antebellum South.
Some will call it a "Great Lakes" state, some will call it a "Midwest" state, some will call it both; different people have different definitions for things like "Midwest.
Some also call it the Ohio Valley DEPENDING on which part of the state you are in.
For the same reason why western Asia is called the Middle East...
When the "Midwest" was named that was in basically the middle of the western frontier to Northeasterners...long before we settled the US from coast to coast and actually settled the true west.
Some also call it the Ohio Valley DEPENDING on which part of the state you are in.
This is what is usually considered the midwest..
The overwhelming majority of Americans (and likely foreigners as well) would identify Kansas and Nebraska as unequivocally midwestern. Most would likely lump North and South Dakota in as well. Like it or not, the upper plains states are now (and always have been) as much a part of the cultural definition of the midwest as the Great Lakes or the Ohio Valley.
This is what is usually considered "midwest" by almost everyone on Earth who isn't from Ohio or Michigan:
To chime in on the original question, the 100th meridian is as good a line in the sand as any, but there's no doubt that Salina, KS is culturally more like Terre Haute than it is like Medford, OR.
Last edited by SPonteKC; 06-05-2013 at 08:54 AM..
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IF it meant where (depending on the direction of travel), where the West becomes the East or vice-versa. Which is more of a climatic/topographical...and frontier type thing. 
