I think the shift of Metro Detroiters adopting "Michigan" as their regional demonym occurred around the 1990s or early 2000s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
People I meet in California who are originally from Michigan definitely seem to exhibit more state pride than I've ever encountered from Ohioans. My old cubicle neighbor had a big map of Michigan hung up in her cube, and would always tell people she was just from Michigan, not Detroit, or the Detroit area where she was from. I've noticed other people from the Detroit area similarly say they're just from Michigan. I assumed this is because Detroit has a pretty unfavorable national brand, whereas most people have pretty positive associations with Michigan, but maybe it is also derived from some sort of state pride. The whole pure Michigan ad campaign was really genius, and did a great job at promoting the natural beauty of the state, so it makes sense that locals/expats would also have a pretty high degree of state pride.
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Eh, I think a lot of people describe their origins by naming their state first. Whenever I meet someone from Ohio they always says "Ohio" first, instead of Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, etc. In fact, it's so common for people from Ohio to reference their state that "people from Ohio" is a common way to describe gentrifiers in NYC.
People will also often say "California" before specifying L.A. or the Bay Area. People from Minnesota tend to say "Minnesota" over "Minneapolis" or Twin Cities. People from Maryland will lead with "Maryland" instead of Baltimore, and on, and on. I do strongly suspect that Metro Detroiters did commonly describe themselves as being from Detroit or the "Detroit area" in the past, but have shifted to "Michigan" in recent decades, and that's why it sounds weird to people of a certain age. I don't really think it was common for Metro Detroiters to describe themselves as being from "Michigan" until the 1990s or early 2000s.