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Old 01-14-2016, 06:57 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
Every state has an urban-rural/small city split. Illinois is like Chicago in the sense that 2/3rds of Illinois is the Chicago metro area.
It's not just that.

Outside of Chicago, Illinois is not:

Heavily Polish
Speaking with a nasal accent reminiscent of WNY
Mostly non-White (and yes, rural non-White populations do exist)
Democrat (rural Democrats do exist in the Midwest, but they're mostly in the Northernmost states)

Put simply, it isn't simply urban vs rural when it comes to the Great Lakes cities. Heck, some rural areas of Michigan have more in common with Chicago than Chicago does with most of Illinois outside of the corridor leading to St. Louis along the Illinois river.

You see, at least Buffalo and NYC share the same immigrant based culture reminiscent of the Northeast. Most big Midwest cities outside of the Great Lakes aren't as highly "ethnic" in their European populations. The continuum starts on the coast and keeps going to the interior North but doesn't make its way south to places like Indy or KC to the same degree. Cincy is a mostly German city but that is just typical of the Midwest anyway.

See I don't get this mentality. Most of NYS population is in NYC metro. Most of Illinois population is in Chicago metro. So why do you associate WNY as it's own region yet you include Illinois as Chicago's kin? Kind of a double standard to fit the argument, no? If most of Illinois is like Chicago, then Chicago = Midwest. But by this logic, you would take WNY out of the similar Midwest comparison and place it in NYC. Do you see where the argument eats itself?

Why does WNY have to be removed from its region and the rest of the Great Lakes stay? The Great Lakes isn't even geographically Midwestern. NYS is big and makes a large enough portion of it. It's like Bos-Wash is the only Northeast when even that isn't much like itself, either.

Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 01-14-2016 at 07:11 PM..
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Old 01-16-2016, 09:39 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,144,924 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool View Post
Yeah. But let's not forget that cities like Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee are also removed from their respective states culturally anyway.

Which is why IMO Great Lakes designations surpass either Northeast or Midwest labels. Buffalo may be like Chicago but Chicago ain't like Illinois in much of anything.
I agree.

Actually, southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have had a lot more southern influences than eastern influences primarily because most of their early settlers came from the Upper South, primarily Kentucky, rather than from further east (Abe Lincoln was born in Kentucky and his family migrated to Illinois early on, which was very typical). The northern parts of these states had a lot more "Yankee" influence from easterners coming from New England via the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then down Lake Erie. This all happened pre-Civil War.

After the Civil War, the southern parts of these states didn't attract the same groups or number of immigrants that Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee did because they didn't have the same kind of opportunities and transportation connections. The southern parts of the states attracted German immigrants (who continued to be a major immigrant group until WW I) because there were already German communities scattered throughout the area, but they attracted rural migrants more than immigrants, especially from Appalachia because they were close to that area.
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Old 01-16-2016, 11:00 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
I agree.

Actually, southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have had a lot more southern influences than eastern influences primarily because most of their early settlers came from the Upper South, primarily Kentucky, rather than from further east (Abe Lincoln was born in Kentucky and his family migrated to Illinois early on, which was very typical). The northern parts of these states had a lot more "Yankee" influence from easterners coming from New England via the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then down Lake Erie. This all happened pre-Civil War.

After the Civil War, the southern parts of these states didn't attract the same groups or number of immigrants that Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee did because they didn't have the same kind of opportunities and transportation connections. The southern parts of the states attracted German immigrants (who continued to be a major immigrant group until WW I) because there were already German communities scattered throughout the area, but they attracted rural migrants more than immigrants, especially from Appalachia because they were close to that area.
Even without Southern influences, most of Central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have a very different culture than their northernmost big cities. The European immigrant influence isn't really a part of the mainstream culture in those places whether they're cities or small towns.

Heck, you can always tell a downstater in Illinois by the fact that most Chicagoans hear them speak and automatically assume they're from the South. This isn't to say they have Southern accents. They could fit in well in California or Pennsylvania. But to a Chicagoan, most non-distinct American accents automatically sound Southern due to their lack of nasal qualities. I'm not even kidding. Chicagoans think there's three accents "East Coast" (everything in the Bos-Wash), Southern (everything not in Chicago or further North), and dictionary English (what Chicagoans speak).
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Old 01-17-2016, 10:13 AM
 
Location: Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool View Post
For WNY to be Midwest influenced, settlement patterns would have had to go east. They didn't.

WNY was the birth of Great Lakes culture. Which is only the interior Northern part of the Midwest is like this. The rest of it is nothing like WNY.

How many WNY cities or people are much like Cincy or KC???
I think there is definitely a hypothesis to be made that Great Lakes culture certainly did move west to east via the movement of goods and trade by upper Midwesterners from the Great Lakes region to the Erie canal, across western NY, ultimately to the Hudson, with the 'Midwestern' traits strongest in Buffalo and Rochester, then petering out towards Syracuse, and gone by the time you reach New York's axis, the Hudson Valley (which by the way is, in my opinion, the true way of reckoning New York State's regionalism: East vs. West as opposed to the contentious and over played Upstate vs. Downstate.

And WNY is not going to be too similar to Cincinnatti since it, while solidly Midwestern, is part of the Midlands sub-region and has more in common with cities in southern Pennsyvania and perhaps even Southern Tier NY which I don't consider part of the hypothetical 'Midwestern NY' paradigm we are discussing here.
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Old 01-17-2016, 02:05 PM
 
Location: On the Great South Bay
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool View Post
I've heard that A LOT in my life. I live in the geographic Midwest region, but some NYC people and those closer to the Bos-Wash corridor have this idea that somehow Western New York is more Midwestern than it is Northeast or even New York.

Where the hell did this idea come from? Do Western New Yorkers actually believe this? If so, why?
Who says that people in NYC and the Bos-Wash corridor think western New York is Midwest? Not many anyway. I live in Suffolk County, as far east in New York State as you can get from Buffalo and I don't think Buffalo is Midwest.

You are on the general forums a lot, so maybe you see people making up strange things all over the place. Actual New Yorkers know their entire state is in the same region. Unless they are ignorant of geography or something.
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Old 01-17-2016, 05:45 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQConvict View Post
I think there is definitely a hypothesis to be made that Great Lakes culture certainly did move west to east via the movement of goods and trade by upper Midwesterners from the Great Lakes region to the Erie canal, across western NY, ultimately to the Hudson, with the 'Midwestern' traits strongest in Buffalo and Rochester, then petering out towards Syracuse, and gone by the time you reach New York's axis, the Hudson Valley (which by the way is, in my opinion, the true way of reckoning New York State's regionalism: East vs. West as opposed to the contentious and over played Upstate vs. Downstate.

And WNY is not going to be too similar to Cincinnatti since it, while solidly Midwestern, is part of the Midlands sub-region and has more in common with cities in southern Pennsyvania and perhaps even Southern Tier NY which I don't consider part of the hypothetical 'Midwestern NY' paradigm we are discussing here.
That's a neat theory. Except it doesn't focus on actual events. The fact that many Michiganders originally have ancestors from Upstate New York is testament to how WNY influenced us and not the other way around.

Besides, if the Upper Midwest had influenced WNY, you'd see a lot of Scandinavian carryover. But you don't. Actually, the Upper Midwest is separate culturally from the Great Lakes as it is.

Another testament to WNY influencing the Great Lakes culture is language. Prior to the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes was culturally like the Midland. If what you say was the case, WNY would have adopted such a culture. But it didn't. In fact, it was the Erie Canal that led to the development of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift in the Great Lakes, an area that used to speak in non-distinct "General American" English. Linguists point that NCVS in the Great Lakes is a relatively new phenomenon. It also linked to the common ethnic groups of WNY. It's not coincidence that when WNY became economically linked to the rest of the Great Lakes that the culture changed from what it USED to be.

I mean, the European ethnic groups that made their way to the Midwest Great Lakes cities didn't simply get there first. In those days, going through the East was not a simple choice to make or not make. It's not as if a bunch of Polish and Eastern European immigrants flew to Chicago and then decided to head East. Come on, now.

Oh and... how else could you account for the fact Great Lakes cities are culturally very different from their home states? The exception here being cities in Michigan, a state that for the most part is an extension of Western New York (just look at a detailed map and see the repeated names of WNY cities that are much older).

Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 01-17-2016 at 05:56 PM..
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Old 01-17-2016, 09:48 PM
 
Location: Buffalo/Utica NY
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I've heard the comparison or even the inclusion of Buffalo as part of the "Midwest" once in a blue moon...and though I disagree with that notion, I do think Buffalo shares similarities between Midwestern and NE cities.
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Old 01-19-2016, 01:25 AM
 
10,920 posts, read 6,861,322 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by A Ghost View Post
it shares way more with the midwest than it ever has with the east coast even though it sits on the east coast

if you really think Buffalo is more like BROOKLYN than CLEVELAND you need a mental screening...
In many ways, Cleveland is quite different than other "Midwest" cities, such as Columbus and Indianapolis.

Buffalo shares much in common with Cleveland, but I don't see how that makes it Midwestern. Great lakes, yes.
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Old 01-19-2016, 04:12 AM
 
Location: Buffalo, NY
605 posts, read 487,983 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elmwood View Post
Culturally, Buffalo is solidly Great Lakes Midwestern. Some examples:

* The prevalence of blue collar culture -- fish frys, bingo, bowling, polka, Monte Carlo/Vegas nights, meat raffles, VFDs, American cars, and so on -- compared to other Northeastern cities.
* Buffalo's dominant "old European" ethnic groups are Polish, German, Irish, and Italian - the mix is more like what one would find in Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh, than Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica, where Italian-Americans are the dominant group.
* Buffalonians say "pop" instead of "soda", and it's ground zero for the Inland Northern accent and Northern Cities Vowel Shift. Heartland rock -- Bob Seger, John Mellenkamp, and even regional favorites like the Michael Stanley Band and Donnie Iris -- still has a huge following compared to elsewhere in the Northeast.
* Supermarkets always had Vernor's on the shelves, and Faygo was the default cheap or generic pop in the 1970s and 1980s.

When it comes to institutions, Buffalnians align themselves more with the Northeast. Some examples:

* College-bound students usually aim for schools in the Northeast - SUNY schools, UR, Syracuse, NYU, the Ivies, schools in Boston, and small Catholic and nonsectarian liberal arts colleges in NY and New England. In Cleveland, by comatison, college-bound students tend to look west - CWRU in town, OSU, UM and other big Midwestern land grant schools, Chicago, Northwestern, Valparaiso, Butler, etc. (The only overlap overlap seems to be Notre Dame.)
* Fans of professional baseball tend to cheer on the Yankees, not the Indians, Tigers, Cubs, etc.
* There's not much enthusiasm for college football or basketball, except some obligatory loyalty towards Syracuse and, for Irish-Americans, Notre Dame.
* Buffalonians don't do the summer-cottage-in-northern-Michigan thing.

Where they come together -

* Neighborhood look and feel - city neighborhoods outside the "Buffalo Rising Belt" west of Main Street can feel like an odd cross of Chicago and Queens. Outside the city, there's a mix of suburban Northeastern and Midwestern architecture, but with suburban Midwestern infrastructure (curbs, sidewalks, and tree lawns rather than soft shoulders, swales, and no sidewalks). Buffalo's eastern suburbs can fill in for Detroit's Downriver 'burbs.

For some reason, I see a lot more cars with Ohio license plates (and 18-Cuyahoga and 43-Lake county stickers) in Buffalo, than New York-plated cars in Cleveland.
Dan Blather--my man

--Matt Marcinkiewicz
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Old 01-19-2016, 12:54 PM
 
Location: Seoul
11,561 posts, read 9,268,703 times
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To me everything west of the Appalachians is the Midwest. Just think about it, people have large German heritage (as opposed to Italian/Irish of the East Coast), cities have lots of open parking lots and people tend to be religious. Sorry but most of Western NY is more Midwestern than Northeastern
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