> 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.
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.