Which states are Upper Midwest?

[AN63093]

Green- upper Midwest

Blue- Midwest

Red- border states that are not wholly in the Midwest, but have portions that are (for MO, the St Louis MSA, for KY, the Louisville MSA and Cincinnati MSA).

The Dakotas are not in the Midwest.  They are Plains States.

[AN63093]

Green- upper Midwest

Blue- Midwest

Red- border states that are not wholly in the Midwest, but have portions that are (for MO, the St Louis MSA, for KY, the Louisville MSA and Cincinnati MSA).

The Dakotas are not in the Midwest.  They are Plains States.

Clearly you haven't been to the upper midwest much.

I strongly argue that the Upper Midwest is based around Minnesota and western Wisconsin, the northern half of Iowa, the eastern half of the Dakotas, the very far north of Illinois outside of Chicago, and the UP of Michigan.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is the capital.

There is no other interpretation.

On the contrary, I've been to every state in the Upper Midwest multiple times (and, actually, every state in the US except two), the Twin Cities probably half a dozen times, every single major MSA in the Upper Midwest except Fargo (that is if we're counting ND as the Upper Midwest, and again, I am not).  Additionally, I have family in Chicago that I see almost every year, and a good friend in Madison that I visit almost every year.  So no, the Midwest is not some foreign area of the country to me.

Let's try your response again, this time with less snark and with some actual reasons.  Presuming you want to have an adult conversation, that is.  If you don't, well, carry on then.

So what's your reason then?  Scandinavians?  Presence of Lutherans?  I mean, I've heard it all before, so if you want to convince me, you'll have to actually type out more than a few sentences.

[AN63093]

The Dakotas are not in the Midwest.  They are Plains States.

Thank you.

This implies that the Pains states aren't part of the Midwest.

The problem with including the Plains States is that in doing so, you start expanding the region to such a degree that the region becomes meaningless.  For example, I know some people that, with a straight face, say everything between the Appalachians and the Rockies north of Texas is the "Mid-West."  Which is rather silly, since that's basically a third of the country, and at that point, there's no reason to define a "Mid-West" region at all, since everything is in it.

Some people do the same thing with the South- having it cover everywhere you find either Scots-Irish people or the farthest extent of the Appalachians, which again, is silly, since at that point, you'd be calling practically half the country "the South" and including states that are decidedly un-Southern, like Vermont.

You have to draw boundaries somewhere, and that necessarily means that there will always be some overlap and areas near borders that have characteristics of both.  You will also have "pockets" of different region's cultures in another region.  For example, visitors often derisively say that parts of middle PA feel like "Alabama."  Well, that may be true, but PA is not in the Deep South.

I do think using state boundaries is a crude way of drawing regions.  Check out the map in my signature, to my definitive map of US regions.  I draw regions there by county.  In that map, I have the Mid-West ending at the border between MN and the Dakotas.  I could be talked into including areas like Fargo and Sioux Falls, but that's about as far west as I would go.  Were I to draw an Upper Midwest "sub-region" by county, it would probably include parts of northern IA in it, and may leave out parts of eastern WI.  In my upper midwest (by state) map on the last page, I only colored in MN/WI and did not include IA since not enough of the state is "Upper Midwestern" in my opinion.  In a county map, I could get more precise.

[AN63093]

How can states in the eastern third of the country be considered Western? Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are clearly Eastern or Near Eastern, to distinguish from the Extreme East. Only someone from the New York Times who believes that the West begins at Hoboken would argue otherwise.

The Midwest is not considered Western...

This.

Jimrtex, the Mid-West does not refer to either the "West," or "Western" states.  Nor has it since before the Louisiana Purchase.

[AN63093]

Dude I grew up in NY, and have lived most of my life either there, DC/VA, or Boston.  I have literally never met a single person that "grudgingly" called places like Cleveland part of the Mid-West.  Every single person I've ever known considers it part of the Mid-West.  I'm not trying to be a dick, but do you actually have any personal experience with this?  Have you lived in these cities?  Or are you just making an assumption?  Because it sounds mostly like the latter.

While some of us in this thread are squabbling about finer points of where to put the Upper Mid-West, I don't think anyone, ever, has limited the Mid-West to NE and KS.  KS is arguably not even in the Mid-West at all (I consider it part of the Plains States).

[AN63093]

Jimrtex, click the thread in my signature going to my US regions map.

We have a discussion going on about just that.  Classifying where to "put" those cities is difficult, because on one hand, they are in the states that are traditionally defined as Mid-Atlantic.  On the other hand, yes, they do in many ways have more in common with Mid-West Rust Belt cities than cities on the coast.  A place like Pittsburgh is more architecturally similar, and "feels" more like other cities in the Ohio River Valley (e.g., Louisville, Cincinnati) than it does, say, Philly or NYC or Baltimore.

I have them officially in the Mid-Atlantic on my map, but I can easily see the argument for Mid-West as well.

[AN63093]

Excellent post muon.  Let me ask you this then- do you think there ought to be a Plains States region (such as the one in my regions map) at all then?  Or do you think the Mid-West goes right up to the Mountain West?

I've never thought it makes sense for the Mid-West to stretch all the way out to the Rockies.  For one, the region becomes so big at that point, that it's unwieldy and unhelpful, because there is too much regional variation within it.  For me, a good barometer is this- if the region is easily broken up into distinct and large sub-regions, then maybe it shouldn't be one single region, but multiple regions.  Here's an example- could you put New England and the Mid-Atlantic into one "super-region" and call it the "Northeast?"  Sure.  But it makes a heck of a lot more sense to just split it into two regions.

Second, a Mid-West that large would seem to capture areas that do not have much in common with the "classic" Mid-West.  Example- places like North Platte NE, or Wichita KS.  What do these areas have in common with say... Cleveland?  Basically nothing.  To have one region encapsulate both seems just ridiculous to me.  Thus why I made my plains region.

[AN63093]

Jimrtex, if places like Ohio are not in the Mid-West, then what region do you think OH is in?

[AN63093]

I've always liked Garreau's map, but just think it's a little too imprecise.  For example, I believe pretty strongly in a "Plains" buffer-region between Mid-West and Mountain West, and a division between Upper South and Deep South.  Also, I think his "Foundry" was a bit of a product of the times.  At that time, NYC and Philly (and many large Northern cities) were in a period of decline, and I get the impression he just sorta lumped them all together, conflating them.

However, the Mid-Atlantic has always been distinct from the Great Lakes historically, and this became evident once again, when these cities turned around and the I-95 corridor from DC to NY developed into a megalopolis.  Since these cities hit their nadir, probably sometime in the 80s, the two regions have gone off on their own paths.. much like they always have throughout US history.

Muon, have you read Woodward's American Nations?  

He has a map and draws his regions based heavily on original settlement patterns.  I think its a good read, but my main criticism of his regions is that he considered the original ethnic settlement too much, and did not consider cultural changes and migration patterns post 1800s enough.

My regional map was an attempt to improve on both Woodward and Garreau.  I'm not so vain as to think it's "better," but at least I'm more satisfied with it.