How do you define the Midwest?

[Scott5114]

That's a pretty good question for the "Great Plains is not the Midwest" crowd—what exactly is the difference supposed to be between Kansas and Indiana, anyhow?

[freebrickproductions]

That's a pretty good question for the "Great Plains is not the Midwest" crowd—what exactly is the difference supposed to be between Kansas and Indiana, anyhow?

Honestly, to me, I always mentally associated Indiana and other more directly "Midwestern" states around it as being part of the Rust Belt, but not so much the Plains states.

[Scott5114]

That's a pretty good question for the "Great Plains is not the Midwest" crowd—what exactly is the difference supposed to be between Kansas and Indiana, anyhow?

Honestly, to me, I always mentally associated Indiana and other more directly "Midwestern" states around it as being part of the Rust Belt, but not so much the Plains states.

The Kansas City and Indianapolis metropolitan areas lost roughly the same number of manufacturing jobs between 1954 and 2002.

West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York are generally considered part of the Rust Belt, but are clearly not Midwestern.

[kphoger]

That's a pretty good question for the "Great Plains is not the Midwest" crowd—what exactly is the difference supposed to be between Kansas and Indiana, anyhow?

This is exactly the point that Chris and I have been hammering home.

[JayhawkCO]

Honestly, to me, I always mentally associated Indiana and other more directly "Midwestern" states around it as being part of the Rust Belt, but not so much the Plains states.

The Kansas City and Indianapolis metropolitan areas lost roughly the same number of manufacturing jobs between 1954 and 2002.

Agreed.

Kansas City


Youngstown

[vdeane]

While I try to understand opinions on this subject are different, I struggle to get in the mindset that people are seemingly trying to argue the Plains and Midwest are as radically dissimilar as Georgia and Washington or something. ND/SD east of the Missouri are definitely Midwestern; the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD would be just as much in place in most of MN, IA, IL, IN, or WI if it was built there.

In my mind, "Midwest" implies a part of the country that is still fairly populated (and with more trees), so while I can easily see places like Kansas City and Omaha, the western parts of those states and the Dakotas are more of a stretch.  In fact, it took driving through Illinois and seeing what the rural areas of that state looked like for me to begin to understand, although it's still hard to picture sometimes with parts of the country that I still picture as being like the Kansas scenes out of The Wizard of Oz (or worse - the Little House books).