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I've always thought at least 1 or 2 smaller cities would be a good addition. Most Americans live in urban areas, but many of those urban areas are small and medium sized cities. Cities like Des Moines, Grand Rapids, Bloomington, Chapel Hill/Raleigh, Boise, Birmingham, Chattanooga etc are good representation of smaller city living.
1) Denver, CO: Wide open western views, rocky mountain views, dynamic growing city with a strong history of the cowboy and gateway to the west.
2) Indianapolis, IN: Great midwestern, middle sized yet bigger city. Not too rough, not too safe, not too diverse, not too cultured, not uncultured, good middle of the road experience.
3) Birmingham, AL: Southern style on display in a mid-sized city.
4) Pittsburgh, PA: Northeastern historical manufacturing/steel city that helped build the US. Dynamic, digital city that is becoming diverse. Good lower key city.
5) San Diego, CA: California style right by the dynamic and beautiful Pacific Ocean. Big city, but not LA or San Fran proportions. Good city to see that is less bustling yet growing. Good Cali culture.
Also, I'd say they should add in 5 national parks on this trip--and it should be a road trip between the cities for like 2 weeks-3 weeks if they could.
I'd add in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Hot Springs.
Detroit - The best example of a fallen U.S. city that more or less tells the story of the American Midwest and provides an understanding of the factors that produced a President Donald Trump
What! The Midwest has around 67,000,000 people in it and the city of Detroit is on the far extreme of places people in the Midwest live. Most live in normal suburbia or smaller towns and cities which are fairly replicated all over the country.
What! The Midwest has around 67,000,000 people in it and the city of Detroit is on the far extreme of places people in the Midwest live. Most live in normal suburbia or smaller towns and cities which are fairly replicated all over the country.
It's not like Detroiters live in the Arctic Circle. I get that we can brag that we live "north" of Canada, but we live close to Windsor, not the Yukon or the Northwest Territory. (Geography is odd sometimes!)
Yes, I'll grant that we are extremely north of a lot of Midwesterners, but 94 goes right into Detroit, just like it goes right into Chicago. 94 also does a nice job of linking up Milwaukee and Minneapolis. So, does that make Chicago kind of fringe too?
Detroit is 4 hours away from Toronto. 5 hours away from Chicago. 4 hours away from Cincinnati. It takes about an hour to get to I-80, depending where you start out from.
Now, if you wanted to make the same argument, you could use maybe Green Bay or Minneapolis or even the UP.......but Detroit and Southern lower Michigan, still very suburban and populated with small towns that are "easily replicated across the rest of America."
There's really not much of a difference in that culture until you get up towards Mt. Pleasant or other areas of Northern Michigan - when it really starts turning into "Up North" or "the boonies" or "hicksville USA" or "damn - where'd my cell phone signal go?".
That culture is more in line with areas of Minnesota or Wisconsin which also are on the fringes of for being Midwestern States. Once you get out of Milwaukee, there's just a whole lot of nothing unless you are heading back south to Chicago. Minneapolis/St. Paul is kind of the same way. There's the city, but once you are out of it, then you are definitely in the country and there's nothing but trees.
So,no need to pick on just Detroit in this instance.
What! The Midwest has around 67,000,000 people in it and the city of Detroit is on the far extreme of places people in the Midwest live. Most live in normal suburbia or smaller towns and cities which are fairly replicated all over the country.
I didn't mean to say there aren't parts of the Midwest that are thriving. My point was that if you're coming to this country from abroad, and you want to understand the current social and political climate of the United States, you'd do well to visit the foremost example of the decline of the American middle class and global manufacturing dominance. That's the Midwest generally and Detroit specifically, though you could substitute it for Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland, Gary, Flint, or any number of Midwestern cities.
Phoenix, AZ for its urban sprawl and car dependency
St. Louis, MO and Baltimore, MD for its crime rate
Birmingham, AL for its racial tension
Detroit, MI for its urban decay
LOL Somebody does not like the USA.
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It's not like Detroiters live in the Arctic Circle. I get that we can brag that we live "north" of Canada, but we live close to Windsor, not the Yukon or the Northwest Territory. (Geography is odd sometimes!) 
