What midwestern city seems most “urban” to you (except Chicago)?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I've said before on this forum that I don't recall Detroiters strongly identifying as Midwesterners when I was growing up -- it was more like a technicality. But, my family, and many of the people I grew up around, didn't have deep roots in the region. My father moved to Detroit as a young child with his family, and my mother was born near Ann Arbor right after her parents relocated to Michigan.

because the terms "midwest" and "midwestern" have taken on such negative connotations over the past half century plus, i think it's probably somewhat common for folks in the more fringy areas of the the region to eschew the label. i've seen this behavior from ohioans and minnesotans.

because chicago is right smack dab in the middle of it, right where the great lakes meet the great corn prairies, and because of its status as the de facto capital city of the midwest, we can't pretend the label doesn't apply to us. it IS us.

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Totally off-topic, but I always felt that Chicago was the exact fusion between the great plains and the great lakes regions. Probably why it ended up being so big.

technically, the great plains start ~500 miles west of chicago, but you are probably confusing the mississippi river tall grass prairie (>90% of which was plowed into cornfields in the 19th century) as being part of the great plains.


technical inaccuracies aside, your point still holds merit. chicago was blessed with a pretty fortunate location as one of the bridges between the great lakes water transportation system and the VAST and bountiful agricultural lands to its west. and once the railroads followed the water to chicago, it was game over.

[uaarkson]

Born and raised in Michigan; I've never met anyone who didn't consider it to be Midwestern. It is absolutely, quintessentially Midwestern.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Born and raised in Michigan; I've never met anyone who didn't consider it to be Midwestern. It is absolutely, quintessentially Midwestern.

"Quintessentially Midwestern" is subjective, but whatever it is, to me Minneapolis felt closer to it than Detroit. Even Chicago felt closer to it than Detroit.

Michigan, especially the eastern half of the lower peninsula, feels extremely similar to upstate New York. Utica, NY feels like a twin of Ypsilanti, MI.

[Steely Dan]

^ speaking from a chicago perspective, detroit and its environs feel very midwestern to me, but as i said before, chicagoans are probably just more comfortable with the label because of our location, and don't accept the term as the pejorative that so many outsiders intend it to be.

i mean, if chicago ain't midwestern, then what the fuck is?

[maru2501]

the problem in Chicago is that Midwestern is often code for white average America


if you were to randomly pluck a "Chicagoan" from a bucket in a vacuum you are just as likely to be looking at someone who was born in Michoacán or China, or the son of an African-American who came here in the Great Migration, or a second-generation daughter of Italian immigrants who arrived here after landing in Philly.

Eventually you would get to a 25-year-old average white person who went to Ohio State, but that's not the blind median by a mile.

is the city located in the Midwest? sure

but don't accept perspective bias

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by maru2501

the problem in Chicago is that Midwestern is often code for white average America

well, people who use the term as such are either stupid or ignorant or likely both.

what you wrote about chicago could also apply to any other large city in the midwest.

detroit, chicago, st. louis, minneapolis, etc. - all of them are midwestern cities.

and there's not a single damn thing wrong with that.

[The North One]

It's a meaningless category, there is no magical line between Chicago and New York that suddenly becomes Midwest.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by The North One

It's a meaningless category, there is no magical line between Chicago and New York that suddenly becomes Midwest.

Oh boy. Of course not. Are you saying there is no such thing as regions? Let's just go ahead and say nothing exist.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ speaking from a chicago perspective, detroit and its environs feel very midwestern to me, but as i said before, chicagoans are probably just more comfortable with the label because of our location, and don't accept the term as the pejorative that so many outsiders intend it to be.

i mean, if chicago ain't midwestern, then what the fuck is?

When I say Minneapolis is "quintessential Midwest", I'm referring to something that most resembles an exaggerated pop culture depiction, such as the movie "Fargo" or Bobby's mom's accent on "Bobby's World". The stereotypical accents, in particular, are usually focused on Minnesota, but people from the eastern half of Michigan tend to share an accent with the regions to the east of it.

Originally Posted by maru2501

the problem in Chicago is that Midwestern is often code for white average America

I have met a lot of people who use the term "midwest" as shorthand for something that doesn't include places like Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland, but does include places like Milwaukee or Minneapolis. Basically, the places that are known for having large minority populations aren't included. It's weird, but not unlike how people don't consider rural places on the eastern seaboard to be "east coast."

[eschaton]

I actually agree that the term "culturally Midwestern" means nothing at all.

The U.S. has one geographical region which links up rather close to traditional folkways - the South. The rest of the U.S. is basically a big melange of "Northern" culture which has a number of different influences (the strongest being, as was noted, Yankee and Midland - both of which spread from the Northeast to the Midwest.

[edale]

I've never, ever heard Detroit or anywhere else in Michigan as being anything other than Midwestern. The accent is nasally and pretttty similar to what you hear in Minnesota, Chicago, etc. I know there are subtle variations on this, but the Great Lakes accent is pretty prevalent from Cleveland to Minnesota. From the lake culture to the flatness of the landscape in SE Michigan, to the 2 Big 10 schools...everything about Michigan seems pretty much standard Midwest to me.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

When I say Minneapolis is "quintessential Midwest", I'm referring to something that most resembles an exaggerated pop culture depiction, such as the movie "Fargo" or Bobby's mom's accent on "Bobby's World".

see, i don't associate any of that stuff with the midwest, globally. that stuff you mentioned is all minnesota-specific.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

the stereotypical accents, in particular, are usually focused on Minnesota, but people from the eastern half of Michigan tend to share an accent with the regions to the east of it.

the stereotypical chicago accent is a million times closer to buffalo than it is to anything up in minnesota, yet chicago is as midwestern as corn.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I have met a lot of people who use the term "midwest" as shorthand for something that doesn't include places like Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland, but does include places like Milwaukee or Minneapolis. Basically, the places that are known for having large minority populations aren't included.

well, that just goes back to people being stupid or ignorant or both.

milwaukee is 40% black, 35% white, 20% latino, 4% asian.

minneapolis is 60% white, 20% black, 10% latino, 6% asian.

[JManc]

There's very little variation between accents from the upper Midwest (sans MN who all sound like Sarah Palin and Marge Gunderson) through Central New York. Utica and Albany tend to diverge a little but my aunt and step-mom have that classic nasally grating accent where as my brothers sound like they are from downstate. I couldn't tell difference between an Chicago accent and someone from Upstate NY until they mention 'pop' and da Bears.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by JManc

There's very little variation between accents from the upper Midwest (sans MN who all sound like Sarah Palin and Marge Gunderson) through Central New York. Utica and Albany tend to diverge a little but my aunt and step-mom have that classic nasally grating accent where as my brothers sound like they are from downstate. I couldn't tell difference between an Chicago accent and someone from Upstate NY until they mention 'pop' and da Bears.

People say pop in Upstate NY anyway. At least in the Buffalo area.

[JManc]

Mostly Western NY; Rochester, Buffalo...

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by JManc

There's very little variation between accents from the upper Midwest (sans MN who all sound like Sarah Palin and Marge Gunderson) through Central New York. Utica and Albany tend to diverge a little but my aunt and step-mom have that classic nasally grating accent where as my brothers sound like they are from downstate. I couldn't tell difference between an Chicago accent and someone from Upstate NY until they mention 'pop' and da Bears.

Yeah, my relatives in Buffalo have it, so does my neighbor who's from further east in Cortland, NY (home of Ronnie James Dio ) originally, and coworkers from Rochester and Ithaca. It is very Chicago-sounding.

I hear it a little bit in Cleveland too, but it doesn't seem quite as nasally. What's strange to me is that I grew up in Erie, which is right between Buffalo and Cleveland, but that nasally 'a' thing accent doesn't exist there. I always remember when I was growing up, hearing family from Pittsburgh and family from Buffalo speaking, and wondering why they talked that way.

Maybe the NW PA accent is a combo of both, with the nasal tone drown out by the western PA/Pittsburgh accent to the point that it's just flat, with no discernible sounds. I don't know, Erie's weird.

Same with the Soda/Pop thing... I heard both when I was growing up there. And that map displays it I guess, with that greenish soda blob on an island in NW PA. Again, Erie's weird. I never knew what to call it, since if I said 'pop', someone would say, 'it's soda!"... and if I said 'soda', someone would say, 'it's pop!". So I just called it by whatever actual brand name and avoided saying the general term out of fear of being made fun of.

[Steely Dan]

chicago is mixed "pop"/"soda" country too, though it leans "pop".

i've always found it amusing how some people from "soda" country get upset, even angry, when someone refers to such beverages as anything other than "soda".

in my day-to-day life i use the two terms interchangeably, but whenever i'm up in milwaukee, or traveling to the coasts, i always make sure to use "pop" just to aggravate the locals. i haven't found the reverse to gain much notice in "pop" country.

[iheartthed]

I have scrubbed "pop" out of my vocabulary because of peer pressure from these East Coast dwellers. But my friends and family in Detroit will make an issue out of it if I let a "soda" slip out while I'm visiting.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I had "pop" shamed out of me when I moved to Arizona in middle school. I don't much run into any issues when I'm back east regarding pop vs soda since I stopped drinking soda three years ago.

If I overhear someone use "pop" to describe a soft drink, my first instinct is to ask them what part of the Midwest they're from (in Arizona, that usually means they're from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa or Nebraska).

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I have scrubbed "pop" out of my vocabulary because of peer pressure from these East Coast dwellers. But my friends and family in Detroit will make an issue out of it if I let a "soda" slip out while I'm visiting.

Well "soda" and "pop" are short for soda pop" so no one is wrong here. Saying coke as a generic term for soda does seem a bit odd to me though.