Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
but if you had this conversation with one of your coworkers in NYC:
coworker: "i'm headed out to the west coast next week"
you: "oh cool, where are you going?"
coworker: "denver"
wouldn't that seem really fucking weird to you?
now you understand why someone in LA calling chicago east coast seems really fucking weird to me.
denver and chicago are similar distances from salt water.
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Lots of people would probably use the time zones to determine this distinction. Denver is on Mountain Time, while the West Coast cities use Pacific Time.
Of course, the Eastern Time zone captures Ohio, most of Indiana, and Michigan, which are decidedly NOT East Coast! So even that is imperfect. I still think you could consider about 75% of the Eastern time zone to be the East Coast, and about 90% of the Pacific time zone to be the West Coast. I don't really think it needs to literally be coastal, as much as it relates to the denser population centers closer to the oceans as compared with the middle of the country.
Somebody mentioned a "coastal" city being that you could go to the ocean without necessarily needing to make big plans (or a vacation) to do so. I agree with this. However, I'd say that anywhere where you could comfortably make it to the ocean for, say, a 1-night overnight trip could be considered the East/West coast of the country.