Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
Warren, OH (~50 miles ESE of cleveland) is almost exactly half-way in between NYC and Chicago.
given NYC's much greater gravity, it's no surprise that cleveland, being smack dab in the in-between zone, is pulled more eastward than westward in this regard.
where does Toledo fall?
my guess is that most people there would simply answer the big city question with "detroit", ignoring both NYC and chicago.
it's certainly an interesting and inexact science of geography, culture, and pecking orders.
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Eastern Ohio seems more affiliated with and more like western PA, than it is with and like the rest of OH... which is natural. Ohio really feels like THE transition zone, where as you head west away from that halfway mileage point and start to get a bit closer to Chicago, the huge pull of NYC begins to lessen and Chicago's starts to kick in very strongly.
Yes, inexact science is a good term for it. Getting the perspectives of people from different areas of the country is always very informative. I find it interesting how people view and classify regional hubs, with particular focus on what "alpha" cities have greatest pull on mega-regions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klippenstein
I grew up outside of Buffalo NY and it could just be because of my family’s annual trips to Chicago because of a conference my dad attended, but in some ways I felt like Chicago was the “big city” of the region. And NYC was the “big city” more on the country/world scale. NYC is so big that I think it felt more alien to me than Chicago. Not that I wasn’t equally intrigued by both. Oddly enough, even though Toronto was the closest big city it didn’t really register because it wasn’t really a place we visited. Not sure how closely that tracks with other Buffalonians especially 20 years later. Toronto probably has a much bigger draw for obvious reasons, but I think the rust belt has a strong identity that ties many Great Lake cities together that NYC can’t really compare to.
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See this sounds very odd
to me... and I grew up in Erie, which is just down the road from Buffalo. I'm going to have to guess that your annual family trips to Chicago have more to do with your regional identification of it as the "big city" than anything else. I highly, highly doubt that very many Buffalonians feel a stronger pull from Chicago than they do from NYC. I mean, it just stands to reason that New York, NY has a stronger pull on Buffalo, NY than Chicago, IL has on Buffalo, NY... beyond just being in the same state. Just going on the sports stuff... I've never heard of many Cubs, White Sox, or Bears fans in Buffalo... but there are tons of Yankees and Giants fans there.
Chicago, regrettably, was barely even on my radar, as far as what my "sphere of influence" was. And to this day (again, regrettably... and stupidly), I've barely been to Chicago... just for a very quick work trip once. I was 32 when I first traveled further west (in the midwest) than Cedar Point. I don't have single good friend who I grew up with that ever lived in Chicago (closest was a guy who went to Notre Dame and then moved to NYC). No one in my family or neighborhood ever really went to Chicago... or at least I never heard about it. Pro sports allegiances, college sports leagues, minor league baseball league makeup... all eastward focused... never towards Chicago. Anything west of Cleveland was just outside of that sphere of influence.
It's weird thinking about it now as a guy in his 40s. I think NYC (and the US east coast incl, Philadelphia and DC, primarily) have such a pull into the eastern hinterlands, that Chicago's pull is pretty much negated until the distance to Chicago lessens and the east coast pull is lessened to the point where people's heads turn fully toward Chicago.
In comparison, we traveled to New York from the time I was a little kid for various reasons. Multiple good friends, acquaintances, and family members have lived in NYC (myself included)... and when I think about it, it's rather indicative of the pull that me, three of my best friends who I grew up with, multiple other friends/hometown acquaintances to count, and five cousins all were living in NYC at the same time. Anyway, this stuff is weirdly interesting to me... likely because as Steely said, it's an inexact combination of features of place and what that means.