The Midwest: one region or two?

[Docere]

Manitoba is known as the Keystone Province and Winnipeg is as "Great Plains Midwestern" as any Canadian city could really be. Alberta and Saskatchewan are too far west to be "midwestern" though. But Manitoba flows seamlessly into Saskatchewan which flows seamlessly into Alberta and they obviously fit together. There's a regional coherence in the Canadian Prairies that doesn't exist in the Great Plains in the US which (at least in part) encompasses states as different as North Dakota, Texas and Colorado.

In that sense, "Great Plains" is really the wrong term. Farm Belt may make more sense for the west of Mississippi Midwest.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Meanwhile in Canada the Great Lakes and the Great Plains have nothing to do with each other.

Same in the states. At least that goes for Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

They have nothing to do with the Great Plains of the US aside from the fact that grain was stored in eastern lakes cities’ grain elevators. And lakes Erie and Ontario regions have very little to do with the upper lakes. There’s quite a separation and near-zero cultural connection.

[Velvet_Highground]

I like the map posted above it highlights finer cultural distinctions that our tendency to box and label everything doesn’t always line up with the reality on the ground. Cincinnati is quite southern for a city in a Great Lakes or Midwestern state while Louisville is quite northern for a city of the south or even upper south.

I like the thrust of this thread “the central plains” aka Oklahoma to North Dakota are far enough inland that shipping on the their major rivers never developed due to seasonal fluctuations. KC is about as far west as a major river city developed which had knock on economic impacts as the great 20th century industrial boom and urbanization took hold.

The region we consider the heartland of the plains is primarily agrarian and resource extractive. Cultural distinctions are important but so to are economic perhaps even more so as economic trends shape and drive cultural development over time.

That being said I do think there is a very poignant kernel of truth in the heart of this discussion that the term Midwest has been a catch all for the outdated and derogatory labels of rust belt and flyover country. The north central part of the country is hard to define without taking a look at a map of Canada and understanding the flow of goods and people.

Detroit - Windsor is the largest international metropolis in North America and its border crossing is the busiest crossing between two of the biggest trading partners in the world.
What the upper and lower lakes have to do with each other besides the much less vigorous triangular trade of metals from the upper lakes and coal from the lower to the manufacturing centers in the middle.

Furthering the line of thinking with the Canadian population density and distribution in mind is Lake Erie is the heart of regional trade whether on land by road or rail or by ship. There is an inter regional economic flow going back and forth centered around it

Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis & St Louis have a exchange with the lakes region similar to a modern version of the one of pre-Colombian times canoes and portages are exchanged for railway and highway. But they grew up as river and canal cities recreating a pattern that was already tried and true as intermediaries with the great rivers and Great Lakes put simply.

The division of North America between the United States and British North America later becoming Canada broke long term economic ties. The Iroquois Confederacy was certainly a Great Lakes nation but it also flourished due to its proximity and ties to the Hudson River valley and outlet to the Atlantic. New France was a polity that died in its cradle but saw the St Lawrence and Laurentien Lakes as a logical region though connections to the Mississippi and Ohio rivers allowed it to be a functional and profitable region as opposed to the end of the line.

Looking at the map from just Washington or Ottawa doesn’t make sense when talking about The Great Lakes Region or The Inner Coast or the Northern Coast. The US Canadian border divides an area that very generously has some 50 million plus inhabitants on of the and by some metrics the most populous region in North America. Call it what you want but the area being treated as the end of the line has been to its detriment.

The Great Plains are another story the economic connection of Grain to cheap and expedient transport to major population centers is the key exchange and connection between the two regions. The growth of agriculture at scale and the slow decline of the American family farm is an economic story different from manufacturing but it has common threads ie an out of control and poorly planned/managed rush towards globalization.

The difference is the Plains are a region where families have deep roots similar to Appalachia going back over a century or more large areas with small populations. The southern Great Lakes have a robust agricultural economy which is where cultural bleed over occurs but the lack of European immigration since the last rush with German unification is very unique in the country with Appalachia being the only similar analogy.

I personally like The Inner Coast to refer to the Eastern North Central part of the US as it takes Canada into the account. Which lets be honest Canadas best lands are along the border of the US and it’s highly populated “heartland” is a peninsula formed by Lake Ontario in the east, Erie to the South and Huron to the west. If Ontario were a state it would be in the top 10 and it’s economy is aligned with all the difficulties involved towards Michigan, New York and Quebec.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Velvet_Highground

KC is about as far west as a major river city developed which had knock on economic impacts as the great 20th century industrial boom and urbanization took hold.

On the Missouri, the deepest inland port is Omaha, but KC ain't far from the end of the line.

Tulsa also has a river port, and is a bit further west of KC, but that's about it.

Going north, you can run barges as far as St. Paul, or up to Chicago and connect to great lakes shipping there.


Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States

[Steely Dan]

I moved all the control city discussion to its own thread

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?p=10090789#post10090789

[Docere]

I'd have to find the figures again but IIRC a century ago every East North Central state had more employment in manufacturing than agriculture and every West North Central state had more employment in agriculture than manufacturing.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by JManc

Two; Ohio and South Dakota have zero in common.

i disagree greatly. the historical immigration patterns and even dialects have some overlap, depending on what part(s) of ohio and south dakota we are talking about. i travel all over the midwest from south dakota to ohio (actually my area goes to the east coast but my new company is mainly has a footprint from the appalachians to the pacific) as part of the region i administer in my profession and there are a lot of overlap(s) of all kinds.

i will say that there is no way to split the midwest into only two sections. its far more cohesive AND balkanized at the same time. to me, looking at it as one superregion that can be sectioned into like four to eight regions? certainly more than two.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

One region from a Chicago perspective.

Two regions from an Ohio or Nebraska perspective.



Chicago is the lynch pin, the great connector holding it all together, where the great lakes meet and shake hands with the great prairie.

The mother of all interior continental watershed connections.

So we have a very both/and view of this matter.

Quick back of the cocktail napkin — - from St. Louis it looks like one super region with - maybe 6 sectors?

*The plains (the states that do not have overlap with the front range) are pretty cohesive from Kansas on up for the most part.
*Lower midwest: lower cornbelt, the riverlands (St. Louis to Cincinnati with some overlap into Louisville etc.) and the upper ozarks to the western foothills of appalachia.
*upper cornbelt (central ohio/illinois/ indiana, northern missouri, iowa).
*eastern great lakes
*western great lakes
*twin cities overlaps multiple regions but the twin cities/minnesota nonetheless feels semi-distinct.

states that have notable self-described overlap with the midwest include eastern colorado (and other eastern parts of rocky mountain states), oklahoma, and parts of kentucky.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Chef

The Midwest is America's Balkans. It is either one region or 25. Anyone who answers two doesn't understand it. I don't live in the Great Lakes or the Great Plains. A lot of the Midwest is neither.

ya get it!

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

1/4 of the people from Idaho consider themselves in the Midwest? Idaho is thoroughly a mountain west state.

there is cultural (same immigration patterns just had to ride the train longer to less ideal farmland, etc) midwest fade/taper WAY out into the arable valleys of the west.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

states that have notable self-described overlap with the midwest include eastern colorado (and other eastern parts of rocky mountain states), oklahoma, and parts of kentucky.

I would add Arkansas to this list. The Fayetteville area and the Ozarks are the reason why a quarter of Arkansans self-describe as Midwestern.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i disagree greatly. the historical immigration patterns and even dialects have some overlap, depending on what part(s) of ohio and south dakota we are talking about. i travel all over the midwest from south dakota to ohio (actually my area goes to the east coast but my new company is mainly has a footprint from the appalachians to the pacific) as part of the region i administer in my profession and there are a lot of overlap(s) of all kinds.

i will say that there is no way to split the midwest into only two sections. its far more cohesive AND balkanized at the same time. to me, looking at it as one superregion that can be sectioned into like four to eight regions? certainly more than two.

But how much cultural overlap is there with Cleveland or Cincinnati with Souix Falls? Their origins might have started the same but they diverged dramatically over time. Cleveland in particular reminds me a lot of upstate New York than even the rest of OH.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by JManc

But how much cultural overlap is there with Cleveland or Cincinnati with Souix Falls? Their origins might have started the same but they diverged dramatically over time. Cleveland in particular reminds me a lot of upstate New York than even the rest of OH.

i generally agree with this although the midwest to interior NE frontier is certainly another entire convo. nevertheless in driving or flying transects all over the midwest im often a bit surprised by how similar places and people that are separated by incredibly vast distances (even by global standards) feel.

[Xing]

So, wait? Is this not how some of you see the Midwest? I’ve always seen it like this:



In fact, the only states that confuse me of their regions are Oklahoma & Texas. Sometimes they’re in the south. Sometimes they’re in the southwest. They’re definitely different from the rest of the south, in my opinion.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i generally agree with this although the midwest to interior NE frontier is certainly another entire convo. nevertheless in driving or flying transects all over the midwest im often a bit surprised by how similar places and people that are separated by incredibly vast distances (even by global standards) feel.

I get what your saying but to me, the US is truly more fragmented than the handful of established regional divisions...which is mainly for bureaucratic convenience. Regional offices for the Midwest, South, PacWest and so on and it stuck. I'm from Upstate NY and we have very little in common with NYC other than license plates but we're lumped in with them anyway as Mid Atlantic...even though the actual Atlantic is a four hour drive from my hometown. We have more in common with Vermont.

[Docere]

Thinking about this more.

While there are two rather different regions, the eastern Great Lakes and western Farm Belt, there are some features that are common across the region:

The corn belt runs from Ohio right out to Nebraska and South Dakota

There's a strong German heritage throughout

It has a history of being more anti-war or isolationist (look how well Obama did across the Midwest, the Iraq war was especially unpopular in the Midwest. It's certainly a lot more dovish than the South and perhaps more than the Tri-State (if not New England)

There's less hierarchy than in the Northeast and South and more of a tradition of populism

The Midwest is the whitest of the four Census regions. Every state is whiter than average, except for Chicago-dominated Illinois which is the state that comes closest to the national average in terms of demographics

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Docere

It has a history of being more anti-war or isolationist (look how well Obama did across the Midwest, the Iraq war was especially unpopular in the Midwest. It's certainly a lot more dovish than the South and perhaps more than the Tri-State (if not New England)

Where are you getting this idea that the Iraq War was "especially unpopular in the Midwest?"

[Docere]

Obama over-performed in the Midwest and the Iraq War played a key role in that. Of course the economy played a key role too, particularly in the rust belt states; both McCain and Romney seemed out of touch and had no economic populism.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Docere

Obama over-performed in the Midwest and the Iraq War played a key role in that. Of course the economy played a key role too, particularly in the rust belt states; both McCain and Romney seemed out of touch and had no economic populism.

And Obama lived in the Midwest.

As a very active protester of the Iraq War, I never noticed that the war was "especially unpopular in the Midwest." I don't think Obama's electoral success there proves it was.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

Obama over-performed in the Midwest and the Iraq War played a key role in that. Of course the economy played a key role too, particularly in the rust belt states; both McCain and Romney seemed out of touch and had no economic populism.

Obama over performed everywhere in 2008. Comparing his 2008 performance to the Democratic candidate performances in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2016, he only underperformed the average in 6 states, which are all southern or southern adjacent states:

Alabama - 39.36%, -0.622 point variance from average
Alaska - 32.66%, 5.23 point variance from average
Arizona - 43.35%, 1.77 point variance from average
Arkansas - 46.2%, -7.342 point variance from average
California - 53.32%, 7.689 point variance from average
Colorado - 44.43%, 9.234 point variance from average
Connecticut - 51.97%, 8.624 point variance from average
Delaware - 51.34%, 10.598 point variance from average
District of Columbia - 87.01%, 5.454 point variance from average
Florida - 46.15%, 4.876 point variance from average
Georgia - 43.86%, 3.13 point variance from average
Hawaii - 55.41%, 16.442 point variance from average
Idaho - 29.49%, 6.598 point variance from average
Illinois - 53.63%, 8.29 point variance from average
Indiana - 39.3%, 10.646 point variance from average
Iowa - 46.61%, 7.3179 point variance from average
Kansas - 35.95%, 5.7039 point variance from average
Kentucky - 40.83%, 0.344point variance from average
Louisiana - 44.63%, -4.698 point variance from average
Maine's 1st - 50.31%, 10.2 point variance from average
Maine's 2nd - 45.87%, 8.738 point variance from average
Maine† - 48.18%, 9.534 point variance from average
Maryland - 55.37%, 6.548 point variance from average
Massachusetts - 58.15%, 3.648 point variance from average
Michigan - 49.05%, 8.3819 point variance from average
Minnesota - 48.%, 6.056 point variance from average
Mississippi - 41.07%, 1.926 point variance from average
Missouri - 44.59%, 4.704 point variance from average
Montana - 37.31%, 9.944 point variance from average
Nebraska - 32.8%, 8.804 point variance from average
Nevada - 44.61%, 10.536 point variance from average
New Hampshire - 46.44%, 7.69 point variance from average
New Jersey - 52.23%, 5.036 point variance from average
New Mexico - 48.06%, 8.85 point variance from average
New York - 57.36%, 5.524 point variance from average
North Carolina - 43.93%, 5.772 point variance from average
North Dakota - 33.62%, 11 point variance from average
Ohio - 45.26%, 6.242 point variance from average
Oklahoma - 35.25%, -0.9 point variance from average
Oregon - 47.6%, 9.148 point variance from average
Pennsylvania - 48.66%, 5.83 point variance from average
Rhode Island - 56.31%, 6.546 point variance from average
South Carolina - 41.26%, 3.638 point variance from average
South Dakota - 37.58%, 7.168 point variance from average
Tennessee - 43.92%, -2.092 point variance from average
Texas - 40.07%, 3.61 point variance from average
U.S. Total - 47.42%, 5.514 point variance from average
Utah - 27.55%, 6.86 point variance from average
Vermont - 53.14%, 14.318 point variance from average
Virginia - 45.08%, 7.55 point variance from average
Washington - 49.75%, 7.898 point variance from average
West Virginia - 43.03%, -0.437 point variance from average
Wisconsin - 46.78%, 9.436 point variance from average
Wyoming - 29.89%, 2.646 point variance from average