The Midwest: one region or two?

[edale]

The level of urbanization and state population densities clearly differ in places like Ohio and Michigan (lower portion) from states like Iowa or the Dakotas. In Ohio, you can't drive more than an hour or so without running into a decent sized city. You're never more than 2 hours from one of the 3 C's, plus the myriad smaller cities like Akron, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown, etc. which would all be far more notable in less urbanized states. It's basically the opposite of Iowa or Nebraska, where there are vast swaths of very sparsely populated land.

There are cultural similarities between rural people everywhere. Someone living on a farm in California's Central Valley would probably live a pretty similar lifestyle to someone living on a farm in Ohio. I don't think that should be used to say that the Midwest is one giant region. If we're using states for this discussion, I think it makes sense to group the Great Lakes states together, and the Plains states as a separate grouping.