Are Cities dominated by people from German stock better? (living in, racist)

[hdwell]

To answer the OP's original question; yes I think they are. German cities are clean, well organized, smart without that eliteness. That's just what I've seen when I've been up in the midwest.

[WILWRadio]

I hate to burst the OP's bubble on this subject. Roughly half the American public can trace its ancestry to the country of Germany and this translates to thousands of cities and towns across the USA having German as the dominant ethic group in that community. It has been my personal experience that these cities and towns that are dominated by the German ethnic group are no better than any others in the country. In fact, the German ethnic group is the most dominant in virtually every Midwestern state, and I don't find that every Midwestern state is superior to the rest of the states in the USA.

If anything, you could probably attribute the high standard of living in Minnesota to the fact that there are so many people of Norwegian and Swedish descent in that state whereas the rest of the states outside of the upper Midwest has only a handful of the Scandinavian ethnicity within their borders.

Here in Missouri the state is dominated by people of German ethnicity and the standard of living is anything but equal to that of Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Maine or New York or even Indiana. There are more ignorant, paranoid, uptight, rude, pretentious and over bearing people per capita here than any place I've lived. And having known Germans (both descendants and immigrants to this country) in other states I see the same negative personality aspects they possessed here in many of the people of Missouri and eastern Kansas.

The claim that there is no elite attitude in communities dominated by the German ethnic group is not only absurd but just plain false. I've encountered more stuck up, unfriendly, snobby people in these German communities than even the wealthiest cities or towns or Yuppie hell holes in the Northeastern states.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

I enjoyed my trip to Wisconsin last month. Good governance abounds, clean restrooms, and so on.

.....Wisconsin is generally a nice, unpretentious place to live. Its capital city of Madison is one of America's most pleasant mid-sized cities.

German culture is at its strongest in the Midwestern states, and is particularly evident in Wisconsin; but you can find this culture elsewhere, too. The upstate NY cities of Albany, Syracuse and Rochester have some og this, and even in NYC, there are old German neighborhoods (Yorkville, etc). Lou Gehrig grew up in such a neighborhood in the Bronx, I believe.

In general, many of these places are fairly nice in appearance, but they can be a little insular and stodgy, too.

(Disclaimer---my father was a Nebraskan of German descent, and he did have some of these traits mentioned, but not all).....

[cyrano]

Sigh. The OP's question reminds me of a famous movie review that went along the lines of, "This is the type of movie for people who like that type of movies." "Better" is so incredibly subjective. If by "better" you mean, on the positive side, a stable community that values the arts, then yes. If you mean, on the negative side, resistant to change, stodgy, with little economic growth, then no. Cincinnati and St. Louis are classic examples of both sides. You can count on a Germanic-background city to have, for instance, a better symphony orchestra than other towns its size (Cleveland is another example), and its art museums are going to going to be quite good (on the other hand, Houston also has both, and it's totally mongrel). But both places have what I perceive as a native conservatism that doesn't reward risk-taking.

It's not necessarily German per se, but both cities also don't have a lot of new residents. The people who live there tend to have always lived there. Sure there are exceptions, but not many, and as a group the new residents didn't tend to move there from that far away (I know this about St. Louis but only suspect it about Cincinnati).

These characteristics are also symptomatic of the midwest as a whole (except for Chicago and, to the extent MSP could be considered midwest, there too), so it may not be a German thing at all, but a midwestern thing.

I'm quite familiar with a German culture of which people outside Texas are largely unaware-- that of central Texas, from Fredericksburg to Schulenberg to Weimar, a lot of little towns that don't have German names, and San Antonio, a bastion of German emigrants in the 1800s. This is my mother's side of the family. My late grandfather, born in 1890 in Meyersville, Texas, didn't learn English until he was 16. It wasn't spoken in Meyersville. There are some elements of an orderliness to culture in these places, but they were also less risk-averse than what I see in the midwest. And there was a far greater blending of cultures, not only other Europeans, but black and hispanic of course. I'm a great believer in cultural mixes as providing the most fertile ground for growth and opportunity.

[bobsmith]

I have noticed a difference between places that are more German influenced, like Pennsylvania, and English influenced, like Massachusetts. Granted, both states have major Irish and Italian influences as well, but German and English are most dominant in each, respectively. Massachusetts people tend to have the typical English snobishness on top of the usual American superiority-complex (which is largely negated by German humility and down-to-earth attitude in Pennslyvania), a combination which has made them unbearable to me. I think there is definitely something to the German mentality (and Scandinavian) when it comes to forming a good community. By the way, I am of about equal German and English stock, with Sweedish and a few other groups thrown in.

[bobsmith]

Moderator cut: orphaned

The WW2 Period in German history was a short blip in the history of a nation that has been generally much less offensive and aggressive than other nations such as Britian, France, Spain, Russia, etc. I reject the notion that Germans and ethnic Germans worldwide should be ashamed over that part of history in which we did not personally participate nor enjoy the benefits comming from those activities. I hate how it is so un-PC to be proud of being German, when just yesterday the entire nation fawned itself over Irish pride. So it's cool to be proud to be Irish, Italian, African, etc, but scary when people are proud to be German??? Give me a break. I think we should have a German pride day, when people of German anscestory can march in the street singing "Ode to Joy" and eating sausage with sourkraut (sp), driving our German cars and drinking German beers (not at the same time of course!). So let's give Germans credit where credit is due for the safe, efficient, highly cultured, progressive and down to earth culture they have created both over in Germany and here in America where their decendents have settled.

[WILWRadio]

^^^
Octoberfest is celebrated in hundreds and likely several thousand cities and towns around the country.

[ABQConvict]

I agree. You could have pages and pages of people extolling the virtues of the Irish and their positive influence on American life and culture and no one bats an eyelash, but try to portray the positive contributions of German culture and people and someone is bound to drag everything back to the Nazi-era.

For what it's worth, I think some of the best cities in America are those with a combination of German and Irish traits.

ABQConvict

[WILWRadio]

I'm of Swedish ancestry and I guess then that I should be offended that we don't have an official Leif Ericsson Day in this country. The Vikings were the first Europeans to land and create a settlement in this hemisphere (hundreds of years earlier) yet Christopher Colombo gets all the fame. :-) Who cares?

[bobsmith]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

I'm of Swedish ancestry and I guess then that I should be offended that we don't have an official Leif Ericsson Day in this country. The Vikings were the first Europeans to land and create a settlement in this hemisphere (hundreds of years earlier) yet Christopher Colombo gets all the fame. :-) Who cares?

As a person of 12.5% Sweedish anscesetory, I would love a Sweedish day of some sort! We can't forget that many of the first settlers to the Philadelphia area were Sweedish! Wilmington, DE, was founded by the Sweedes.