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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?
Do Western New Yorkers believe they're in the Midwest. No. They certainly don't identify much with Albany (eastern New York) and especially not with NYC. They do tend to identify more with cities like Cleveland and Detroit, and there are a lot of similiarities among these cities. However, Buffalo isn't like other Midwestern cities like Columbus or Indianapolis or Des Moines.
I think it's accurate to say that Buffalo and Western New York are part of the Great Lakes region. The cities that ring the Great Lakes share a largely common historical legacy of being former centers of heavy industry, significant immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, and, more recently, of being part of the Rust Belt as American industry modernized and shed jobs.
Western New York is not part of the Midwest or the Great Lakes Region. Western New York is part of the Northeast. Even Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh is technically the Northeast.
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...
Exactly. I'm originally from the Cleveland area, and Buffalo is only 3 hrs away. It is basically another rust belt city, and the people seem like Midwesterners to me (that's a compliment btw).
Western New York is not part of the Midwest or the Great Lakes Region. Western New York is part of the Northeast. Even Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh is technically the Northeast.
^This.....Like I've mentioned before, it is Interior Northeastern.
Exactly. I'm originally from the Cleveland area, and Buffalo is only 3 hrs away. It is basically another rust belt city, and the people seem like Midwesterners to me (that's a compliment btw).
Exactly. I'm originally from the Cleveland area, and Buffalo is only 3 hrs away. It is basically another rust belt city, and the people seem like Midwesterners to me (that's a compliment btw).
While I know what you are saying, Rust Belt cities can and are in multiple regions.
Western New York is not part of the Midwest or the Great Lakes Region. Western New York is part of the Northeast. Even Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh is technically the Northeast.
It's located in the Northeast but it shares relatively little with areas typically considered "the Northeast". I'm a WNY native who lived in Albany for 10 years. The orientation of the two areas is very different. One
attempts to ape Boston and NYC while the other recognizes its kinship with Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee. The only reason that Buffalo gets compared to NYC at all is because the two cities are in the same state.
The same goes for Western PA and Pittsburgh, although with the nickname "Pennsyltucky", the area is more like Appalachia than the Midwest -- and certainly the Northeast. What you've got is two states, NY and PA, that spread across two different regions. They're like Kentucky and Tennessee where the eastern parts of those states are mountainous, poor, and historically Scots-Irish and much more like West Virginia, western Virginia, and western NC than they are the rest of the South, which lives with a much greater legacy from its plantation and slave-economy past. The central and westenr parts of Kentucky and Tennessee have a totally different history, ethnic/racial make-up, and considerably more prosperity from the eastern parts of those states. They are much more like "the South" that people think of than the eastern parts of those states.
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