Outstate? (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Ramsey: Home Depot, high school, subdivision)

[snowblind9]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

Check the various local newspapers around the state. I did some sampling, and found plenty of examples. (I checked St. Cloud, Grand Rapids, and Bemidji) Often both "Greater" and "outstate" are used in the same article. Presumably the papers wouldn't be printing it if a sizeable portion of their readers considered to be a slur.

Besides, even if it IS only people from "the Cities" (which no one IN the Twin Cities uses to refer to where they live) using the term "outstate", which it's not, how can is that offensive? If it's just Twin Cities people using it, then they would be using it to refer to the rest of the state compared to where they live.

It is offensive. Out "state". What, MSP is THE state? Outmetro, Upnorth, Southern area, Lakes area, arrowhead, Da Range are less offensive. I don't take much offense to basically everything, but this bugs me.

Well, if it just Twin Cities people using it why should I be offended? Would you be offended if you knew people called you "Citidiots"? What does it matter if we just use it. Out"state" refers to all states other than your own world. Not the one you share with.

[uptown_urbanist]

No, of course it doesn't mean that the Twin Cities is THE state. It is simply an easy way -- for those times when people need to make the distinction -- between the state's one major metropolitan area and the residents of the rest of the state. All the other geographic names are specific in nature, or at least refer to more targeted regions of the state; "outstate" is everything that is not part of the metro area. And since you frequently see people who live outside of the Twin Cities using the term "outstate," apparently plenty of people outside of the Twin Cities see nothing wrong with it.

Honestly, I have no reason to use the term myself. I don't often talk about other parts of Minnesota in those terms. If I do have reason to talk about somewhere else in the state then I talk about that specific location. In contemporary language I mostly see or hear it only in context of state policies or debates, as those are really the main times when there's any need to make such a distinction.

I find it irritating (although not offensive; just sort of grating) when people refer to "the Cities"; WHAT cities? There are a lot of cities! If people who live outside of the Twin Cities are looking for something to be offended about, wouldn't that be more offensive? Seems like it should be to me, yet that's what people (those not from the Twin Cities) call it.

If I was referring to people who lived in OTHER states then I would say "out of state," not "outstate." Big difference there.

[xandrex]

I'm originally from Duluth and going to school in the Twin Cities. During my time growing up in the "Northland", I did hear the term outstate used and nobody seemed to take offense. I certainly didn't. The term is simply meant to convey those areas of the state that are not within the Minneapolis/St. Paul influence area.

Indeed, my father, a man who thinks "the Cities" (as we call them) are a bit pretentious, crowded, and overall not particularly appealing has used the term outstate himself - of course, when comparing to the Twin Cities.

I think in general there is a lot of pride for being "outstate" as many see the Cities as this big, scary metropolis that steals attention and money. I love Minneapolis (and hope to live here after I finish college), but I have a lot of pride in my Duluth roots and see nothing offensive about "outstate".

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by knke0204

that's what you get i guess for having a metro that's mainly dominated population-wise by suburbs......MPLS and STP make up very very little in terms of POP and LAND.

ER had like 20,000 in 2002, much more than a Gas station and ER isn't even by 94... I'd consider ER part of the cities - Most of their residents work in the metro, they get metro tv and radio media, they get metro newspapers, they are only 35 miles from DT MPLS, they have cul-de-sacs, strip malls and big boxes, the place screams 'suburbia'.

People here seem to have that Chicago mentality-people from 1hr and half from DT Chi will say they are from 'Chicago'

So, you consider a small town of 20,000 people that is 40 miles away from Downtown part as the Metro?

I dated a girl who lived in Alexandria, 2 1/2 hours northwest of Mpls and they got Twin Cities media, her dad commuted to downtown a few times a week for work - are they in the metro too?

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

So, you consider a small town of 20,000 people that is 40 miles away from Downtown part as the Metro?

I dated a girl who lived in Alexandria, 2 1/2 hours northwest of Mpls and they got Twin Cities media, her dad commuted to downtown a few times a week for work - are they in the metro too?

Yeah, i would consider ElK River a suburb and a part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area, the United States Census does, so why wouldn't I?

Plus, my formal education and experience in Urban Planning would consider Elk River a suburb and part of the metro.

People who live over 2 hours from DT LA consider themselves part of "LA".

A suburb has many definitions. One of them is being the communities' dependency on a greater nucleaus of a city or it's peripherals. I wouldn't consider Alexandria part of the metro because I doubt a large majority of their residents rely on the either MPLS or STP as their place of work...

St. Cloud is part of the MSP combined Statistical Area, and St Cloud is about 55 miles from MPLS...

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

So, you consider a small town of 20,000 people that is 40 miles away from Downtown part as the Metro?

I dated a girl who lived in Alexandria, 2 1/2 hours northwest of Mpls and they got Twin Cities media, her dad commuted to downtown a few times a week for work - are they in the metro too?

How wouldn't you consider Elk River part of the metropolitan area?

Suburb mostly refers to a residential area. They may be the residential areas of a city (such as in Australia), or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city (such as in the United States and Canada). Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods. Suburbs grew in the 19th and 20th century as a result of improved rail and later road transport and an increase Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land



In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached single-family homes.

Many post-World War II American suburbs are characterized by:

• Lower densities than central cities, dominated by single-family homes on small plots of land, surrounded at close quarters by very similar dwellings.
• Zoning patterns that separate residential and commercial development, as well as different intensities and densities of development. Daily needs are not within walking distance of most homes.
• Subdivisions carved from previously rural land into multiple-home developments built by a single real estate company. These subdivisions are often segregated by minute differences in home value, creating entire communities where family incomes and demographics are almost completely homogeneous.
• Shopping malls and strip malls behind large parking lots instead of a classic downtown shopping district.
• A road network designed to conform to a hierarchy, including culs-de-sac, leading to larger residential streets, in turn leading to large collector roads, in place of the grid pattern common to most central cities and pre-World War II suburbs.
• A greater percentage of one-story administrative buildings than in urban areas.
• A greater percentage of Whites and less percentage of citizens of other ethnic groups than in urban areas. Black suburbanization grew between 1970 and 1980 by 2.6% as a result of central city neighborhoods expanding into older neighborhoods vacated by whites.
• Compared to rural areas, suburbs usually have greater population density, higher standards of living, more complex road systems, more franchised stores and restaurants, and less farmland and wildlife.

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by knke0204

Yeah, i would consider ElK River a suburb and a part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area, the United States Census does, so why wouldn't I?

Plus, my formal education and experience in Urban Planning would consider Elk River a suburb and part of the metro.

People who live over 2 hours from DT LA consider themselves part of "LA".

A suburb has many definitions. One of them is being the communities' dependency on a greater nucleaus of a city or it's peripherals. I wouldn't consider Alexandria part of the metro because I doubt a large majority of their residents rely on the either MPLS or STP as their place of work...

St. Cloud is part of the MSP combined Statistical Area, and St Cloud is about 55 miles from MPLS...

No, people who live 2 hours of DT Los Angeles don't say they live in LA. They say they live in Santa Barabra, San Diego, and Palm Springs.

There are plently of communities around the metro that could be lumped in with the Census that most wouldn't be consider part of the Twin Cities: Jordan, New Prague, Cannon Falls, River Falls, WI, Wyoming, MN, East Bethel, etc... they are all within the same distance of DT Mpls as Elk River.

[Lily0fthevalley]

Just wanted to share what someone else DMed me:

"Thanks for starting this post! Keep it going!

A few years ago I sent a note the editor of the Star Tribune saying that it was offensive to MN residences that are not from the Metro area. The response was that the term was used 3,000 times before, plus and no one complained, so he planned to continue using it. I suggested Greater MN, but apparently the Strib likes "outstate" better.

Anyway, keep up the fight because I believe people in the "Metro" as well as legislators intent the term to be offensive, as well as derogatory. I never liked the "outstate" term and every time someone uses it, I question their intent."

[uptown_urbanist]

I think it's the height of paranoia to believe that people using the term "outstate" intend it to be offensive, especially considering how many people who live "outstate" use it themselves. And now THIS might be taken as offensive, but how often do you think people in the metro area actually think about the rest of Minnesota? Probably not much, just as presumably those of you living in other parts of the state probably don't spend much time thinking about the Twin Cities.

The Star Tribune frequently uses "greater Minnesota" these days. Most articles use both in the same article, often in the same paragraph.

I understand that there are some people out there who are offended, but I think they're missing the larger picture and are just looking for reasons to be offended. I know there have been those on this thread who have interpreted "outstate" to mean "out of state," But that theory still makes no sense to me. The "out" is only used when speaking in context of looking at the majority of Minnesota not within the Twin Cities metro area, so yes, it is "out" of the Twin Cities. How is that a bad thing? Don't you (those of you who take offense) proud of where you live? You don't WANT to be in the Twin Cities, do you? The flip side is that the people "outstate" refer to "the Cities," which similarly also obviously places the Twin Cities in contrast to the rest of the state. How come people aren't offended by that? I would think that to refer to "the Cities" is a slight to all the other cities in the state. (and hardly anyone within the Twin Cities refers to "the Cities" -- it's an "outstate" as well as possibly a government term.)

[my54ford]

Outstate and Greater Minnesota are badges of rank the set apart the real Minnesotians from the rabble in the cities...........