Great Lakes Cities

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i don't follow you. i didn't cherry pick anything.

i simply believe that cleveland looks more like chicago than it does new york (or any other east coast city).

yes you did. go back and read what i wrote. we are not talking about the same thing.

as to your separate observation, first of all cle is halfway between cleveland and chi, whats to disagree? i certainly feel the consequences of that directly with the crappy middle of the night amtrak service in cle. otherwise, i would say no cle does not look like chi or ny. more so? meh. i think almost any city looks more like another than it does to ny. might as well say buffalo. ok hmm, the great lakes craftsman housing has common similarities, like say lakewood/oak park, thats about it. or of course chi has ohio st and a cleveland st, but then again ny has cleveland st too and euclid ave and none of those look like cle.

[Gallivant21]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I never understood why, other than relative geographic proximity, Pittsburgh was put into the Great Lakes megaregion on that map. I mean, if you look at migration, Pittsburgh has a lot of churn with DC, Philly, and New York, but basically none with the Midwest past Ohio. Virtually no one from Chicago moves here, or vice versa.

As someone who grew up in the Youngstown southern suburbs, I never understood Pittsburgh forumers' obsession with trying to tie themselves into the I-95 corridor. All of my family is from southern PA along the PA turnpike from Philly all the way to Youngstown. None of my family from Somerset over to Pittsburgh feels any connection with the Northeast corridor. All this is completely anecdotal, but you can say the same thing for the countless Pittsburgh forumers who try to claim something that most in Western PA don't see, either.

[Gallivant21]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

cleveland is 100% a midwestern feeling city from my experience/visits/etc. nothing about it orients it towards the east coast more than any number of other midwestern cities with guilded age (or earlier) and/or east coast money built institutions/amenities/etc in my opinion.

in fact midwestern cities are sort of defined by the fact that east coast people and money poured in to build them...this extends to chicago, to cincinnati, to cleveland, to st. louis, etc etc etc.

Having been to St. Louis and Missouri, it feels very different from NE Ohio. People can talk about built environment all they want, but the fact remains Cleveland's location is closer to places like Toronto, Buffalo and New York than it is to St. Louis, and if you don't think that has an impact over housing style . Geographic location seems to always get overlooked, and that is probably the most important aspect in talking about regions.

My initial interest in this thread was the Great Lakes culture, and it was interesting reading about places like Tobermory and Manitoulin Island, etc where I see plenty of New York, Ohio and PA license plates. Not one Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, etc etc etc. Being from NE Ohio, going to southern Ontario is just another frequent trip for me, and many others I know versus say somewhere like Wisconsin.

Cincinnati is closer to Pittsburgh than it is to St. Louis. I can find similar architecture all across the county from one place to another. Anyone can take streetview and find a similar neighborhood to most cities in places like Omaha or Fargo, too.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gallivant21

What are you talking about? You lack all kinds of credibility when you say stuff like this. Cleveland and Detroit, no, not at all. Buffalo and Milwaukee looks/feels more like Cleveland than any other major city in the US.

What, specifically, do you find different between Cleveland and Detroit?

[dc_denizen]

Seconded the above. Growing up in NE Ohio, The east coast might as well have been in a different planet. We visited Ontario Michigan and Wisconsin many times without ever heading across the Appalachians.

[Gallivant21]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What, specifically, do you find different between Cleveland and Detroit?

Have you ever been to Cleveland? How about Detroit? Milwaukee or Buffalo? Cleveland's neighborhoods feel more like the latter two. You probably won't find another city more similar to Cleveland than Buffalo.

[Gallivant21]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Seconded the above. Growing up in NE Ohio, The east coast might as well have been in a different planet. We visited Ontario Michigan and Wisconsin many times without ever heading across the Appalachians.

Everyone on an internet forum has anecdotal evidence of who's been where. It doesn't take away from where you're located though. There are plenty of Ohioans who go east towards the Appalachians well into eastern Upstate NY.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Gallivant21

Having been to St. Louis and Missouri, it feels very different from NE Ohio. People can talk about built environment all they want, but the fact remains Cleveland's location is closer to places like Toronto, Buffalo and New York than it is to St. Louis, and if you don't think that has an impact over housing style . Geographic location seems to always get overlooked, and that is probably the most important aspect in talking about regions.

My initial interest in this thread was the Great Lakes culture, and it was interesting reading about places like Tobermory and Manitoulin Island, etc where I see plenty of New York, Ohio and PA license plates. Not one Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, etc etc etc. Being from NE Ohio, going to southern Ontario is just another frequent trip for me, and many others I know versus say somewhere like Wisconsin.

Cincinnati is closer to Pittsburgh than it is to St. Louis. I can find similar architecture all across the county from one place to another. Anyone can take streetview and find a similar neighborhood to most cities in places like Omaha or Fargo, too.

there's nothing I can disagree with there at all. i've just been making the argument that these things that are described as tells of an east coast character within cleveland are completely midwestern and great lakes traits. i think that clevelands built form is 100% great lakes...being where cleveland is, that makes sense.

[Gallivant21]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

there's nothing I can disagree with there at all. i've just been making the argument that these things that are described as tells of an east coast character within cleveland are completely midwestern and great lakes traits. i think that clevelands built form is 100% great lakes...being where cleveland is, that makes sense.

That I don't disagree with, and even stated you won't find a city more similar to Cleveland in looks than a place like Milwaukee or Buffalo. Built environment is only part of the picture.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Gallivant21

That I don't disagree with, and even stated you won't find a city more similar to Cleveland in looks than a place like Milwaukee or Buffalo. Built environment is only part of the picture.

absolutely.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Gallivant21

Have you ever been to Cleveland? How about Detroit? Milwaukee or Buffalo? Cleveland's neighborhoods feel more like the latter two. You probably won't find another city more similar to Cleveland than Buffalo.

So Detroit is the "outlier" among Great Lakes cities (besides Chicago)?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gallivant21

Have you ever been to Cleveland? How about Detroit? Milwaukee or Buffalo? Cleveland's neighborhoods feel more like the latter two. You probably won't find another city more similar to Cleveland than Buffalo.

Buffalo looks basically like Detroit (and Cleveland, and basically every other American metro in the Eastern Great Lakes).

The idea that Cleveland could look like Buffalo, and therefore not look like Detroit, sounds totally bizarre to me. Those three metros are as similar as it gets in the U.S.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

So Detroit is the "outlier" among Great Lakes cities?

i'd say that chicago is the most "outlier-ish" among the major US great lakes cities because of the prevalence of brick vernacular, and because it's so much bigger, denser, more urban, etc.

[Docere]

Do affluent Cleveland suburbs have a higher proportion of their high school graduates attending Ivies than their counterparts in say Chicago, Detroit or St. Louis?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i'd say that chicago is the most "outlier-ish" among the major US great lakes cities because of the prevalence of brick vernacular, and because it's so much bigger, denser, more urban, etc.

Corrected.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

So Detroit is the "outlier" among Great Lakes cities (besides Chicago)?

My guess is that people are claiming "Metro X isn't anything like Detroit" because of Detroit's notorious reputation. Even Cleveland and Buffalo partisans cannot bear any association with Detroit, it seems.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Do affluent Cleveland suburbs have a higher proportion of their high school graduates attending Ivies than their counterparts in say Chicago, Detroit or St. Louis?

Putting aside Chicago, I doubt it. Anecdotal, but I attended an Ivy, after growing up in Metro Detroit, and there were no large populations from any of these metros excepting a few elite high schools.

And Detroit has proportionally more HNW households than Cleveland or Buffalo, and is about 2x and 5x the population, respectively. One would expect more students.

Chicago is an enormous metro, and has higher proportion of HNW households than Detroit, so should easily have the most in raw numbers and proportionally. New Trier, a public high school in suburban Chicago, is probably the biggest Midwest Ivy feeder.

[Boisebro]

I've always thought Milwaukee and Detroit had similar architectural bones.

and though I've never been to Buffalo (driven thru, but never stayed), I've heard people remark how Milwaukee and Buffalo have similarities when it comes to skylines and vibe.

[Razor]

I'm going to preface this by stating how much I love the stock of pre war high rises in the few U.S cities I have visited..I'm enamoured by that style.I think art deco, but I'm not an expert on all the variants on pre war style architecture.All I know is that in a NA context it feels like I'm walking into a museum of skyscrapers whenever I visited Detroit, Philly, and NYC..Buffalo has that style in spades..Even smaller upstate NY cities like Syracuse has it going on..
I'm just wondering if the Great Lakes share a different architectural build vs the Seaboard when it comes to those wonderful concrete design from the early to mid 20th century?..To me. they all looked the same, and I want to say Art deco, but there probably are some differences.

[Steely Dan]

When it comes to pre-war highrise building stock, the great lakes region represents extremely well.

NYC is obviously #1 worldwide in that department, but chicago is a solid #2 by most measures. After that the ordering is more muddled, but detroit is easily top 5 any way you cut it, and cleveland and Toronto are probably top 10. And buffalo and milwaukee have some stand out gems as well (particularly their respective city halls, which are among the most impressive in the nation).

And even though it's not a great lakes city, pittsburgh is also up near the top too. (Only mentioned because pittsburgh has been discussed a lot in this thread)