No matter how dismissive one is of the midwest, how could you be ignorant of the existence of a major metro area like Minneapolis-St. Paul? Per [0], it's the 16th largest in the U.S. Its teams participate in every major televised sports league (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB).
I dunno, I almost just don't believe the OP's anecdotes, unless they are talking to recent arrivals to the U.S. from other countries. I'm from a significantly smaller Midwestern city than Minneapolis, and I don't recall anyone ever saying "where's that" or "are there buildings there" when I say where I'm from.
Edit: Based on comments it seems many do agree with OPs view. Maybe it's a California/SV thing, I've never lived there. But I've been in the south/east/mountain regions and never encountered this level of ignorance that civilization exists in the Midwest (whether real or feigned.)
I guess I'll volunteer to be the sacrificial ... thing.
I have no idea where Minneapolis is. In fact, I know you just said the state, but I already forgot. (I'm going out of my way not to read it while typing.)
Okay, I remembered it was in Indiana. And Indiana is to the right of Illinois. That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of Minneapolis.
I live in Missouri.
</shame>
Oh god, I had this nagging feeling before posting this comment, so I went and looked it up. Not only did you not say the state (it was the article), but Minneapolis is in Minnesota, not Indiana.
... And I don't know where Minnesota is. At all.
The final nail in my coffin is that apparently the article starts with an image of precisely where Minneapolis is. I didn't consciously recognize it.
Not really. The southern midwest and northern midwest are pretty distinct, and the bootheel of Missouri has more in common with Oklahoma than with Iowa.
Lots of Missourians don't make it north of of the Mason-Dixon very often. I'd definitely expect more KC folks to make it to Colorado than to Minnesota. Etc.
Not sure why you'd prime facie expect Missourians to have a better mental model of the upper midwest than Californians. If you don't go to a place, you don't go to a place. Doesn't matter if it's around the world or six hours north.
Have you ever seen any of the comedian Man on the Street interviews? People so don't care about geography any longer than (if that) it takes to get past the subject in whatever school grade forcing it upon them. I've always had a fascination with maps/globes/etc, so I spend a considerable amount of time with that stuff. Even I couldn't place the exact location of cities within states I've never visited. Absurd is not the word I'd use.
I don't think people in the USA ever cared about Geography. Being able to name a couple of cities in every state is useless as is know state capitols other than your own. You could always read up (in a library or internet) about a place if you were going to visit there or looking for a new place to check out on vacation. It really isn't that valuable as far as information goes. I would rather know more about France or Russia as I'm probably more likely to visit there on vacation than I would be to go to Minnesota.
Last time I checked, Missouri lies almost exactly smack dab at the midpoint between the sierra nevada and the (eastern reaches of the) appalachia mountains.
But that's not even really the important point. The attitude that the Midwest is full of humble salt of the earth types and the coasts are full of arrogant elites is itself... well, astoundingly arrogant. Believe it or not, the midwest has plenty of arrogant folks and many of the nicest and most humble people in the world happen to live on the coasts.
Just think about what you're saying here. How is it any different than the ostensible coastal attitude you are critiquing here? "I value X and people from those other places don't have X." Pot, meet kettle.
In a thread where you're attacking someone for being geographically arrogant (incorrectly, no less!!!), you could at least refrain from being geographically arrogant...
To be quite blunt, I meet WAY more Midwesterners who make asinine and negative assertions about people on "the coast" than coastal folks who have any strong feels at all about the interior. Being a dick about where you live is, increasingly, a distinctly Midwestern thing.
I’ve spent years doing engineering work in both Silicon Valley and the Twin Cities and the anecdotes are apt. This take on Minnesota life (and peoples’ reaction to it) is spot on.
It was hard for me and my partner to get over the passive aggressiveness and silent racism so we left the Twin Cities but it still sure as hell beat living in Bay Area from a quality of life standpoint.
In my personal anecdotal experience, I found the US Midwest culture's handling of conflict shares a lot in common with what I saw in Japan. It is not too surprising to me the homogeneity enforcement follows similar structures in both cultures.
This has a good side to it, though. Once you the friendship of an individual deeply embedded into that culture, beyond that surface niceness, though it may take decades, it is a firm friendship, and they'll give you the benefit of the doubt to give you time to prove your point.
I’m sorry, but I read all 3 of those links and I didn’t find a single one convincing. They rely on largely anecdotal experiences which dont appear to be any different than many that come out of non-Midwestern states, and yet don’t get roped around the regions neck the same way. George Floyd dying in Minnesota is somehow a reflection of “Midwestern nice” gone wrong, but Trayvon Martin being killed in Florida, or Eric Garner strangled in NYC, or Rodney King being beaten on the streets of LA are only ever contextualized as “America’s racism problem” and not the problems of California, New York, or Florida.
When these articles actually provided hard numbers, they only served to under,one their argument even more. The Midwest is decried as being overwhelmingly white at 81% of the population, compared to the nationwide average of… 76%? That hardly seems enough of a difference to have as monumental of an effect as claimed. What’s more, while the Midwest is decried as hostile to black Americans due to their overwhelming whiteness, in reality, most major Midwestern cities actually have far more black Americans than most West Coast and Northeast cities. One article cited that only 10% of the Midwest is black, compared to 13% nationally, but this ignores that the region that drags the average up is the equally pilloried South, not the “diverse” West or East Coasts, which are often have the same or less black representation in their population. For example the proportion of black people making up the population of Indianapolis is 3x as much as LA, and even more than places like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Boston.
In one of the articles, it states that in the Midwest, the median income for black Americans is $36,000 or lower, compared to $38,000 nationally. Not only is this difference minimal, but it ignores that the median wage for all people, regardless of race, is less in the Midwest than it is nationally. Another article says Midwestern states have noticeable differences in employment and other outcomes between black and white Americans, as if this is some differentiating feature of the region and not true of literally every single state in the nation.
Here’s the reality. Systemic racism pervades this country. However certain areas of the country (the coasts) have an outsized voice on national discourse, and therefore depict their ills as everyone’s ills, and the ills of the rest of the nation as unique to them and evidence of their inferiority. Therefore, it seems to me less like there is lots of evidence Midwest is genuinely, uniquely backwards and racist, and more that our society has decided that the Midwest is backwards and racist from the get go, and then works backwards finding whatever evidence is available to support that claim.
I worked for a company in the Twin Cities. We were acquired by a valley company.
I traveled to meet my new colleagues.
I was asked several times by coworkers:
“What do people there do for work?”
They seemed genuinely surprised that we did the same work they did. Things got tense over the years when they realized we did it faster / better than they did.
> Things got tense over the years when they realized we did it faster / better than they did.
Having lived most of my life in the Midwest, and about six years in Silicon Valley, I had to agree with this. There are smart people everywhere, but I've found above-average intelligence is somehow common in the Twin Cities area. (I know that's mathematically problematic.) There are a lot of unusually smart people living in the Twin Cities. I didn't know that was weird until I lived elsewhere.
> No matter how dismissive one is of the midwest, how could you be ignorant of the existence of a major metro area like Minneapolis-St. Paul? Per [0], it's the 16th largest in the U.S. Its teams participate in every major televised sports league (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB).
Idk how you could not know it exists, but i can imagine people not knowing much about it.
> I'm from a significantly smaller Midwestern city than Minneapolis, and I don't recall anyone ever saying "where's that" or "are there buildings there" when I say where I'm from.
The buildings thing is probably a bit of a joke, but i found that some people have cultural references to things and Minneapolis has less cultural touch points for people to identify with. Obviously LA and NYC have tons of visibility in movies and pop culture, and places like detroit are well known in news due to visible industries (and their problems lately)... but mid western cities? less so.
I lived in CLE and i always joked about how cleveland has buildings but no people. I was not alone in such jokes. I can only imagine what people in detroit experience, especially since cleveland's unofficial slogan is "at least we're not Detroit". Aside, but according to your link cleveland area is supposedly bigger than silicon valley, which is surprising..
> Its teams participate in every major televised sports league (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB).
Plenty of people don't care about this, and wouldn't recognize this from it. Santa Clara county in california has offices or HQs of the top 5-10 largest companies in america (apple, msft, goog, amzn, fb, etc). For some, this is more recognizable than a big sports team. Despite being smaller, Boston has many of the top universities in america (Harvard, MIT, BU, BC, etc), again, some may identify with this metric better. This is especially true in tech.
Weather was a major reason I chose to move to Southern California from Toronto.
Bad weather affects my quality of life immensely. If it’s cold or wet I’m more likely to stay home, more likely to wake up late and it negatively affects my mood.
You sound like me. I hate cold weather, I hate snowy and icy roads and being cooped up inside because it's -10 outside. I hate the snow that never melts and the gray skies. Give me the American southwest any day over that.
I also live in Cleveland currently. I don't necessarily agree that it's 8 months of dreary skies. Winters can be some of the best and most beautiful months here.
I also don't think they Solon is a nice suburb (the downtown truly sucks) though.
I worked there for a couple of years. Solon has one of the best public school systems in the state and is near a couple of major freeways, which are probably the sorts of things you care about if you use phrases like "great suburb." :D
I'm not sure how to actually define "downtown" there. It's not exactly walkable. The older and grungier parts of that metro area are actually nicer to live in if you like to walk.
Solon native here - “walkable” downtown would be by the old City Hall and down Bainbridge to just across 91 (ie where you’d actually walk around when lit up at Christmas), and along Station St. Maybe the shopping center on Aurora but not after they killed the McDonald’s across the street.
The stereo type of "Coastal Elite" did not materialize from no where.
Personally my impression is this narrative has gotten worse not better of the last few decades as the political divide between "red states" and "blue states" have deepen, even if you live in a midwest "blue state".
Also by "are there buildings there" I would assume that a person on the east coast would be referring to Skyscrapers not just generalized building, which are quite rare in the mid-west.
My encounters with Coastal people generally result in them believing that the midwest is just farming and retail, Tech Jobs or other high income white collar jobs like Finance are not associated with the mid-west region...
> Skyscrapers not just generalized building, which are quite rare in the mid-west.
If you ignore cities like: Chicago, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, etc.
So no not really quite rare by any measure. And if you want to take a look at economic output as well, Illinois (5) and Ohio(7) are heavy-hitters, with states like Michigan(14) and Indiana(17) rounding out the top 20 and Minnesota(19), Missouri(22), and Wisconsin(21) not far behind.
As an aside (not targeted toward you) we gotta stop the “Midwest” as a geographic representation. It makes no sense. Make it Great Plains and Great Lakes after the major geographic features of the regions and what uniquely define them.
An aside to your aside. I had quite an argument once with a man, who I learned after the fact was autistic (I wouldn't have engaged him on this point if I had known...), that was from New York City who was beyond adamant that Ohio, where I grew up, couldn't possibly be in the "Midwest" because it's not near the literal geographic center of the country. I eventually had to walk away from the guy because he would not let it go.
TBF, Ohio is an odd duck. Even if we follow GP's advice and split the midwest into plains and lakes, Ohio has both. Except the east, which is more like West Virginia. Ohio is kind of a West Virmichigiana.
I'd argue for adding Appalachia, rounding us out to three "not just one midwest" categories: plains, lakes, and sandstone/coal seams.
Ohio is, I think, the only state that would fall right smack dab in the middle of all 3 new sub-midwests!
So, to be fair to your autistic interloctuor, Ohio is uniquely difficult to type :)
You're not wrong, but... Ohioans, for better or worse, for right or wrong, consider themselves Midwesterners.
I grew up in and near the Appalachian foothills. Appalachia has my vote, if it ever happens.
edit/
> Ohio is, I think, the only state that would fall right smack dab in the middle of all 3 new sub-midwests!
IIRC, Colin Woodard, in his book American Nations, split Ohio into 3 distinct cultural regions. I think it's apt and your thoughts on the matter are shared by many others.
That seems like the opposite of what I'd expect. As an unrepentant coastal elite, I know that the Midwest starts in upstate NY and goes to... uh, IDK, eastern Oregon or something?
There are two "lines". One is the hundredth meridian. It's important because west of there, there's much less rain. (The hundredth meridian lines up pretty closely with the western edge of the Gulf of Mexico, meaning that moist air from there doesn't lead to rain west of that line.) Also, west of (approximately) there, the elevation rises to above 2000 feet. Agriculture is much more limited by water west of this line.
The other line is the mountains. Draw it through Denver. West of that line, you are definitely in "the West". It's the western third of the country.
Between Denver and the hundredth meridian? Maybe call it the "Great Plains".
Historically "the west" referred to west of the Mississippi river. "Midwest" was the Territories mid way between the eastern colonies and the western plains west of the Mississippi
Even smaller cities like Grand Rapids have skyscrapers. They're not rare in the Midwest at all.
I agree that Great Lakes and Great Plains are good to distinguish. The Great Lakes has a long history of industrial development, you can't lump in Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Detroit along with vast expanses of farm land.
When ever possible I try to ignore cities... I firmly believe high population density is the root of most societal problems.
That aside, I never said there were no skyscrpers I said they were rare compared to area's like NYC...
Chicago is probably the closest, but a skyscraper is generally defined as building over 100m, indy has like 9 of them over a pretty large foot print, so ...
I agree with you w.r.t density. Skyscrapers are on the opposite end of the spectrum from suburbs. Probably better overall, but not great. Medium-density, mixed-use development is the sweet spot and how farming humans eventually lived.
It’s interesting to note that the first skyscraper is generally accepted to be built in Chicago (10 floors) and the steel frame technology was developed here, too. Although nowadays NYC has become synonymous with high buildings, this was not the case in early days: “New York trailed behind Chicago, having only four buildings over 16 stories tall by 1893.” [1]. An early jewel of a building from this ear still stands, The Rookery. If you’re ever in the Windy City I suggest you visit this building.
Other large Midwest cities I’ve visited, Indy and St Louis don’t really hold up, I’ve got to admit.
The mentality in Los Angeles is that nobody is from LA--it can be surprisingly true within a lot of social circles. My suspicion is that coastal elitism comes from people who chose to leave those center states. There seems to be waves of comedians that have affection or derision.
> Personally my impression is this narrative has gotten worse not better of the last few decades as the political divide between "red states" and "blue states" have deepen, even if you live in a midwest "blue state".
Honestly it goes beyond state lines. A liberal in Texas is a radically different liberal than one that's enjoyed coastal luxuries. Now living on the coast I feel it because it's almost as if some coastal liberals go out of their way to be exclusionary to life I've lived or the experiences I've had.
In my experience, some progressives are authoritarian-ish, but the same can be said of conservatives. I don't think it's a property of the political belief itself as much as some people have an innate character trait that makes them very all or nothing and probably not just about politics. Those kind of people are probably fairly intolerable to begin with, but the last few years we (both liberals and conservatives) have given a pass to people with nightmarish personalities for some reason.
I feel like the major reason people don't know where things are in the mid west is because it's a 2D position. Coastal cities have the benefit of only requiring you to remember a single dimension.
I know where San Diego, Los Angeles, SV, Portland, Seattle, NYC, and Washington DC all are because I really only need to memorize about where they are along some coast and go inwards until things look right. Midwestern cities like St Louis, Minneapolis, Omaha, etc. and even the midwestern states themselves require a lot more spatial awareness and memory, especially if you aren't from a midwestern city and don't have an anchor point already in memory somewhere nearby.
Rather than a coast line, you could just follow the Mississippi River to find most of those cities. Concept is the same, people like to build cities near sources of water and easy transportation.
I am from Indianapolis and regularly have people not know anything about it so I dont find this to be an exaggeration. The anecdotes really ring true for me so sounds like you arent from the midwest.
Greetings fellow Hoosier. It has been my experience as well at west coast conferences, some people think we are all from some redneck farm in the middle of nowhere. I think the close mindedness says more about them than us.
I recently moved to Idaho, the other I state. People occasionally call it Iowa multiple times in the same conversation! Similar to that Ohio/Iowa shirt, there's also an excellent one sold at the hipster grocery stores in Boise that has the outline of Idaho with some lovely drawings of a farmer working a field of (presumably) potatoes... IOWA is printed across it in huge, bold letters. The Idaho<>Iowa confusion must extend past my circle of friends and coworkers.
That being said, I'll freely admit I don't know where Des Moines is inside Iowa's confines.
Once I travelled in Asia and met someone from Taiwan in a hostel, and there were two things I noticed about him:
1. How much in kind he was with the culture of the Taiwanese immigrants I knew as a white kid going through a diverse school system - all the same little mannerisms and phrases.
2. That he thought it was oddly particular that I specified San Francisco when we discussed our places of origin. But then recalled it as "Old Gold Mountain", the term used by the Chinese who joined in the gold rush. (New Gold Mountain is Melbourne, Australia. Which as it happens is also a gold rush city that turned into a tech center.)
I feel like our ignorance is rather set by preexisting connections or lack thereof, bits of history learned here and there and how our local society positions itself relative to others: surprise at that idea that if people live in a place, it might have the trappings of civilization. On HN it would be strange to be unaware of San Francisco. Someone picked at random from the East Coast cities might think of it as irrelevant(compared to New York, which is actually a surprisingly common comparison). Likewise it doesn't surprise me that some city dwellers see the Midwest as somehow equivalent to the Siberian wilderness.
But like all the other Minneapolis-St Paul teams, it’s named after Minnesota, not Minneapolis or St Paul. I guess the Minnesota Twins kind of technically are, but.. it’s not great from a metropolitan branding perspective.
I bet you don't live in a large city though? This sounds like small town nickname games. Source: I grew up in a small town where everyone had to have a nickname.
My home state of Michigan is frequently mistaken for Minnesota by Californians — so I totally believe it when west coasters ask if it ever gets above freezing in Minnesota.
I dunno, I almost just don't believe the OP's anecdotes, unless they are talking to recent arrivals to the U.S. from other countries. I'm from a significantly smaller Midwestern city than Minneapolis, and I don't recall anyone ever saying "where's that" or "are there buildings there" when I say where I'm from.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area
Edit: Based on comments it seems many do agree with OPs view. Maybe it's a California/SV thing, I've never lived there. But I've been in the south/east/mountain regions and never encountered this level of ignorance that civilization exists in the Midwest (whether real or feigned.)