What is pittsburgh? midwest or northeast or...Other??? (Philadelphia, Shenandoah: 2015, moving to)

[bradjl2009]

So some people like grits here. I'm sure you can find a few people in every Northern city that do. I personally know only one person who eats grits around here and that would be my mom because she used to go to Virginia in the summers when she was younger.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

So some people like grits here. I'm sure you can find a few people in every Northern city that do. I personally know only one person who eats grits around here and that would be my mom because she used to go to Virginia in the summers when she was younger.

I don't think I've ever seen grits in a grocery store here in CO in 34 years of living here. We do have a lot of Mexican food though.

Now I need to say something about Pittsburgh. OK, I don't think eating grits is a bad thing, just sayin'.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I don't think I've ever seen grits in a grocery store here in CO in 34 years of living here. We do have a lot of Mexican food though.

Now I need to say something about Pittsburgh. OK, I don't think eating grits is a bad thing, just sayin'.

Maybe not but I know they have Waffle Houses. :P

[Tallysmom]

I think grits is used to make scrapple. I luvs me some scrapple.

Now I'm hungry.

And there's no scrapple here.

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Even more absurd than calling Pittsburgh "Midwestern" is calling it "Southern." If Pittsburgh was even remotely Southern, then I would never have experienced the degree of culture shock that I did when I moved to Georgia. I was miserable here in Georgia for the first three or four years that I was here, because it was that different from where I grew up.

Maybe we should say "equally absurd"? Have you lived in the Midwest before? If so, for how long? Pittsburgh was a culture shock for me, too. I can guarantee you, it's not Midwestern....like, at all. It's perspective thing. The Pittsburgh accent *is* twangy to my ear. The area seemed much more socially conservative compared to where I was from (a Southern stereotype, I suppose). The same ethnic groups that settled heavily in Pittsburgh-- Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Rural English-- settled across the South, and it's almost impossible to find folks of those ethnicities in Minneapolis. Granted, there are an awful lot of Italians and Greeks in Pittsburgh....that is dissimilar from where I come from, as well.

There were not a plurality of Baptist churches in Pittsburgh, no....but there were a heck of a lot more of them than there are in Minneapolis. And there are next to no Lutherans.

Pittsburgh is at one edge of the Appalachians, and-- as such-- I think is strongly culturally linked to the rest of the Mountain Range.

Again, perspective. It doesn't seem Southern to you, because you lived in the South (for presumably a long time). To me, it was a heck of a lot closer to what I saw in Nashville than what I saw in, say, Omaha. So if you're suggesting that it is one shred more Midwestern than it is Southern, consider the feeling of "absurdity" mutual on my part.

I was using that as an example. If you ask most Pittsburghers, they would either say it is a hodgepodge or that it is an Eastern city. And that is the first place I would put it: firmly in the East. Maybe more Midwestern as a whole than Boston, but certainly, certainly more Southern than Boston, too...and more Southern than anywhere I have been in the Midwest, besides the Ozarks (although I have never been to Cincinnati).

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by srsmn

Maybe we should say "equally absurd"? Have you lived in the Midwest before? If so, for how long?

I've never lived in the Midwest, but I have spent plenty of time with extended family in Missouri -- northern Missouri, not far from the Iowa border.

Originally Posted by srsmn

The Pittsburgh accent *is* twangy to my ear.

Pretty much any other accent is "twangy" to the ear of a Minnesotan.

Originally Posted by srsmn

The area seemed much more socially conservative compared to where I was from (a Southern stereotype, I suppose).

The South doesn't have a monopoly on social conservatism. Did not a majority of Californians vote against gay marriage as recently as five years ago? Did not Oregon have a gay marriage ban overturned literally 10 days before Pennsylvania had theirs overturned?

Furthermore, I don't know how long ago you lived in Pittsburgh, but it appears to have changed a lot since you left. Did not a progressive Democrat win the mayoral primary in Pittsburgh last year? Was not a progressive Democrat elected to be the Allegheny County Executive in 2011?

Originally Posted by srsmn

The same ethnic groups that settled heavily in Pittsburgh-- Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Rural English-- settled across the South, and it's almost impossible to find folks of those ethnicities in Minneapolis. Granted, there are an awful lot of Italians and Greeks in Pittsburgh....that is dissimilar from where I come from, as well.

Irish, Italian, German and Polish are the primary European ethnic groups in the Pittsburgh area, not Scotch-Irish or Welsh. If anything, there was more Welsh influence in eastern Pennsylvania. An area doesn't have to be predominantly Scandinavian to be "Northern."

Originally Posted by srsmn

There were not a plurality of Baptist churches in Pittsburgh, no....but there were a heck of a lot more of them than there are in Minneapolis. And there are next to no Lutherans.

There are lots of Catholics in the Pittsburgh area. Catholics used to get lynched in the South.

Originally Posted by srsmn

Pittsburgh is at one edge of the Appalachians, and-- as such-- I think is strongly culturally linked to the rest of the Mountain Range.

That's fine, but Appalachian culture isn't necessarily Southern culture.

Originally Posted by srsmn

If you ask most Pittsburghers, they would either say it is a hodgepodge or that it is an Eastern city. And that is the first place I would put it: firmly in the East. Maybe more Midwestern as a whole than Boston, but certainly, certainly more Southern than Boston, too...and more Southern than anywhere I have been in the Midwest, besides the Ozarks (although I have never been to Cincinnati).

Don't confuse Appalachian with Southern.

[eschaton]

srsmn, I think you're confusing your own experience with the Upper Midwest with the Midwest in general. The "midwest" doesn't have a consistent culture because it was settled by two disparate groups.

New Englanders moved west via the Erie Canal into Upstate NY, and then settled essentially the entire Great Lakes littoral (including Minnesota). The Yankee influence can be seen in everything from residential architecture (typically wood, with generous space between houses, and larger setbacks from the road), to accents.

In contrast, the Lower Midwest (a band through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, discounting the areas immediately adjacent to the Great Lakes in the first three cases) was settled by a mixture of Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and Kentuckians. This can be heard in the accents which (to my ears as someone born and raised in New England) do sound a bit twangy. It can also be seen in residential architecture, as going west from Philly, to Pittsburgh, then Cincinnati, then Saint Louis, you see a lot of brick rowhouses, or rowhouse-like buildings which are detached, but brick and fronting directly on the sidewalk.

Pittsburgh was basically a stopping point towards the west for the "Midland" people who eventually petered out their settlement push somewhere in Missouri (in the Great Plains, the distinction between the Yankee and Midland areas begins to wane. There are still clear similarities between Pittsburgh and a city like Cincinnati. However, there are just as many, if not more, similarities between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In contrast, besides their shared industrial history, Pittsburgh isn't too much like nearby Cleveland at all.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

srsmn, I think you're confusing your own experience with the Upper Midwest with the Midwest in general. The "midwest" doesn't have a consistent culture because it was settled by two disparate groups.

New Englanders moved west via the Erie Canal into Upstate NY, and then settled essentially the entire Great Lakes littoral (including Minnesota). The Yankee influence can be seen in everything from residential architecture (typically wood, with generous space between houses, and larger setbacks from the road), to accents.

In contrast, the Lower Midwest (a band through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, discounting the areas immediately adjacent to the Great Lakes in the first three cases) was settled by a mixture of Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and Kentuckians. This can be heard in the accents which (to my ears as someone born and raised in New England) do sound a bit twangy. It can also be seen in residential architecture, as going west from Philly, to Pittsburgh, then Cincinnati, then Saint Louis, you see a lot of brick rowhouses, or rowhouse-like buildings which are detached, but brick and fronting directly on the sidewalk.

Pittsburgh was basically a stopping point towards the west for the "Midland" people who eventually petered out their settlement push somewhere in Missouri (in the Great Plains, the distinction between the Yankee and Midland areas begins to wane. There are still clear similarities between Pittsburgh and a city like Cincinnati. However, there are just as many, if not more, similarities between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In contrast, besides their shared industrial history, Pittsburgh isn't too much like nearby Cleveland at all.

I agree with your first sentence. Like the northeast, the midwest is not a monolithic culture. There are the big industrial cities of Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee, and to a lesser extent Minneapolis. The "eastern midwest", east of the Mississippi is different culturally from the western part, with more farming in the latter, though IL and IN also have big ag economies.

The American groups you state are not the only groups who settled the midwest. Some people came directly from Germany, Sweden, Norway, and even Italy and Poland to the midwest. If you don't believe me about the latter, look at the demographics of Chicago and Milwaukee.

[_Buster]

The grits thing is not an indication of being southern - I don't think Pittsburgh has a large number of places that serve grits?? There are restaurants that serve grits in any city of any decent size in the US, that doesn't make it part of the local culture - it makes it a restaurant that has some southern influences on it's menu. Just like eating lobster at a Pgh restaurant or buying it at the market doesn't make the city in any way like New England. and sushi doesn't make the city Japanese.

[doo dah]

People "eat grits" in Colorado, apparently:
https://www.luciles.com/
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