What states do you consider to be part of the Midwest?

i'm not saying it's not part of the midwest, at all, but my understanding of the upper peninsula is that it might actually be part of another world

I would throw Oklahoma into the midwest and maybe North Texas. They both have more in common with that than the south or southwest.

no big 10, no credibility

People, plains states are not the Midwest, they are a whole other thing.

Also, just because some cross border inbredness occurs in areas like Southern Illinois-Southern Indiana-Western Kentucky (or Southern OH/Northern KY) doesn't mean Western Kentucky is the Midwest, anymore than the fact that Eastern Kentucky is Appalachia transforms Indiana into Appalachia by virtue of their shared border.

I feel like a 250 mile radius surrounding the sears tower is the midwest.

Or maybe it is an ellipse with foci at the longitude of chicago and east chicago

*longitudes

thank you for not suggesting a radius around touchdown jesus

I grew up in the upper peninsula and it is definitely the Midwest but also indeed another world; northern Wisconsin and Minnesota are kind of in this realm too but the UP feels much more like Alaska or Canada in a lot of ways due to the isolation from the bulk of the states population. That map seems right to me with “Great Lakes” and “rust belt” and “great plains” being three distinct sub-regions.

The thing about eastern vs western Dakotas feels true to me also - I drove from MI to WA a lot and somewhere in the western third of the state it became “the west”.

Also looking at that made me realize I always think of KS, NE, IL, and IA as the Midwest but never Missouri for some arbitrary reason. I’ve never been to Missouri though.

Like Western NY has more in common with Northern OH than NYC, but now we are going to say that NY is in the Midwest? No.

joygoat, this whole general thang has a lot to do with it i think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Compromise

grew up in western NY state which I thought of even as a kid as part of the midwest

i don't want to discount your lived experience out of hand, but also you are a literal madman

great lakes, yes. rust belt, yes. some shit about the erie canal, yes. midwest tho? c'mon

how many pronunciations of 'bagel' and 'Mario' can one midwest hold?

one

https://mario-lemieux.com/wp-content/uploads/Mario-Lemieux-2-04.jpg

Also looking at that made me realize I always think of KS, NE, IL, and IA as the Midwest but never Missouri for some arbitrary reason. I’ve never been to Missouri though.

in many ways, literal and psychedelic, but also anti-psychedelic, missouri is the combination of all those states

thank you for not suggesting a radius around touchdown jesus

― mookieproof

and thank you for mentioning touchdown jesus.

For some reason I think of Missouri more as “the south” than any of the places that surround it on three sides. Or at least more south than north and nothing that is the south can be the Midwest.

Missouri is Midwestern, but not 100% Midwest.

You can't ever have owned slaves or started a catfish farm in the Midwest. They just had a machine-gun shooting governor resign over a weird S&M episode – that ain't the Midwest I know!

But they do call Coke "Pop," so that kinda tips it back to Midwest.

Sorry I wasn't here originally, but my son was born the day before this thread was started.

They just had a machine-gun shooting governor resign over a weird S&M episode

too true -- that's more of a razorbacks ball coach thing

S&M governor seems like an incredibly midwestern thing to me - is it just that it went public and he resigned instead of just having a sex dungeon until he died?

Like it's on brand for Texas to have a governor talk about secession but if one resigned because of that, shit would be weird.

Dallas feels like the midwest

I lived in east central kansass for a number of years and I don’t think it is midwest. It definitely sucks though!

Maybe it is a Midwestern thing to resign over that. It'd be a southern governor who' d go, yeah I tied her up, took her picture and wore blackface throughout the whole thing. What you gonna do about it?

Every month, we publish this regular report from Creighton University, and every month, my editor and I just look at each other and go, Welp...

https://i.imgur.com/J4aeRxi.png

You can't ever have owned slaves or started a catfish farm in the Midwest. They just had a machine-gun shooting governor resign over a weird S&M episode – that ain't the Midwest I know!

― pplains

excuse me are you familiar with the political career of ex-cincinnati mayor jerry springer

also, sorry about your slower economic growth

Every month, we publish this regular report from Creighton University, and every month, my editor and I just look at each other and go, Welp...

― pplains, Saturday, August 31, 2019 9:03 AM (three hours ago)

I guess ND, SD, NE, KS, and OK are the pplains states.

https://i.imgur.com/Ekxncoy.png

Cool map, but I think using the label "Cultural Areas" shows a misunderstanding of what is required to make a distinct culture.

not quite sure how to break it up, but i don't think you can put new england all in one

also aimless otm

"Resides within Cultural Area #27" is pretty much all that a Las Vegas casino owner, a west Texas oil rig mechanic, a Scottsdale tax attorney, a Navajo sheep rancher, a Santa Fe pottery thrower, and a Yuma lettuce farmer have in common culturally except for the fact that they all smoke hella weed.

Deep South too big. You need some sort of Delta region in there too.

I get that this is a "Cultural" map, but c'mon. Sallisaw, Oklahoma, ain't the Deep South.

listen everybody, i did the best i could on this map

i'm open to feedback but let's keep it constructive

after 2 years, the washington post study we commissioned is finally done! here are the results:

https://i.imgur.com/tht9XVl.png

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/29/airbnb-the-most-midwestern-things/

additionally, the team at the post was able to come up with the definitive list, so there should be no need for any more disagreement on this subject until new states are added or subtracted to the united states

Note: The 12 Midwestern states are Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and South Dakota

Finally, all of these states have been ranked by midwesterness. sorry South Dakota, you have been relegated, and Ohio you are *this* close to getting the boot:

https://i.imgur.com/6h0NjG3.png

that's right

I question the methodology of that last list. Notice that it’s the states with bigger cities that place nearer the bottom of the list. Maybe if you’re listing an Airbnb in a place like Detroit or Chicago or Cleveland you don’t have to add the descriptor “Midwest” bc everyone knows what those places are like. Also the Midwesternness of those areas is not in question, whereas a more borderline case like some town in Iowa, which is not obviously Midwestern, would call for “Midwest” in the listing to sort of suggest to renters what they’re getting into.

You'll never convince me that Iowa's Midwestern status is a "borderline case."

https://i.imgur.com/FKkonnE.png

xp I would make the same case, Josefa. Nobody in even southern Minnesota is going to post about Midwestern ambience, it'll be about lakes, fishing, or proximity to Minneapolis. And the vast majority in Illinois are in Chicago and they'd mention local amenities

also Iowa is insanely midwestern, what are you talking about

I've previously mentioned my corn index for Midwesterness (you can argue historical standards and the midwesterness of the rust belt as alternatives) but imo the more corn planted, the more midwestern. So you get Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, eastern Nebraska, etc etc

not-xp: corn sweat is real, 38% humidity today and 100 degrees outside

Pretty sure these points are made in the article itself iirc

38% humidity today

OH POOR YOU.

In my state, the humidity is so high that the air smells like corn sweat ... and we don't have any corn.

More like soybean sweat.

the humidity wasn't terrible, the 100 degrees on top of it was a bit more irritating