I lived there for a few years. If you're not in a bigger city it can be frustrating. There's a lot of religious communities and proselytizing. People do not take big risks design or otherwise for the most part.
i live and work in chicago. the quality of life i have here is far superior than i would have in new york or san francisco. i've lived in the bay area and i wont be able to go back and live comfortably there any time soon, at least until the tech bubble bursts.
many architects here remind me of Donna Sink - proactive, helpful and great mentors. dan wheeler, peter landon, mark sexton are all well known local architects that do great outreach mentorship with younger designers in the community. i can't think of another city filled with so many down to earth and successful architects. of course, we have our egos, but what city doesnt.
also, you can afford to buy a three flat here on an architect's salary. can't say the same of any other major city, save Detroit.
I've lived and worked in Chicago, NYC, and LA, and currently work in Cincinnati, so I guess I'm as qualified to answer as any. This is a question I routinely struggle with. I generally hate the Midwest, but I have personal roots in Cincinnati and in many ways the city has more of an east coast feel to it than your typical Midwestern city, so for me it's a step above living someplace that's surrounded by cornfields in every direction.
The pros mainly involve cost of living (you can actually afford to live like a real human on an architect's salary) and general lack of pretension. Nobody cares if you went to a public university or an Ivy League school. A mid-sized city like Cincinnati tends to be dominated by a handful of "legacy" firms that are technically competent but not particularly innovative, and an ambitious design-oriented architect with the right connections could open an office and carve out a nice niche for themselves here. As others have noted, the economy tends to be more stable, and the booms and busts maybe aren't as extreme. Frustrating during boom periods, but reassuring during bust periods.
The cons: the region in general tends to be very conservative, both in a political sense as well as in a design sense. Cincinnati is having the same arguments about design and urbanism that most other cities had resolved a generation ago. In both Cincinnati and Chicago, the architecture community can sometimes feel like an old boys club where outside people and ideas are treated with suspicion if not outright hostility. Most of the architecture here in Cincinnati tends to be very consumer-oriented (mainly retail and housing), and that usually means lowest common denominator design for risk-averse clients who only care about the bottom line. Think lots of orange brick and beige EIFS. Chicago is a bit more progressive, but IMO it's still very conservative compared to NYC or the west coast. Chicago's asinine building code and rampant political corruption convinced me years ago that I have no place in that city, and I've never had the slightest desire to move back.
I moved back to Cincinnati a few months ago because I have personal roots here and my housing situation in NYC imploded, and I pretty much gave up my dream job at a well-respected firm in the process. Lately I've been thinking that was a huge mistake. I'll probably never be able to afford to live in NYC again (and SF was never a realistic option from the start), but I have this crazy fantasy that someday I won't have to choose between a rewarding career and a decent quality of life... There's a decent chance I'll move to Seattle or Portland next year, although I worry about the rising cost of living and that region's notorious boom-and-bust economic cycle.
All that said, some people (including some architects) really love it here. To each their own... Your mileage may vary.
^ I was born, raised, educated and practiced my whole career in the Midwest, and while I have a love-hate relationship with the Midwest, in balance, it turned out okay…love the seasons, the Great Lakes (No Sharks), family values, safe in many ways, easy to live here….hate the architectural mediocrity (but it isn’t everywhere) and pockets of Blue-collar mentality.
The reason I’m asking is that the Midwest is largely in a population death spiral and I seek to understand why. Is it the weather? The lack of opportunities? I’m working to reverse it, but need to learn what’s wrong first. What do you think?
never heard of it......Carerra, read an article once, it basically said manufacturering went down in the north and midwest and weather is nicer in the south. 100 years ago 8 of the 10 biggest US cities were in the north and about half were Midwest including places like Cleveland etc.....now the stat is something like 2 of the 10 (NYC and Chicago). Cleveland, Detroit were part of the original list......actually I lived in the midwest for a while and go back occasionally. had i stayed woukd of been bored out of my mind. just fucking bored.
Carrera, imo it's because young people graduating from college with some talent are realizing there is very little there for them in terms of meaningful work and the culture is too conservative. There is a big world outside of the small town mentality they grew up in and that is a prime motivator.
i would actually retire in the midwest over the south any day. take my east property values and purchase acres in the middle of nowhere kind of thing.......this is attractive to usually older people. kids are bored out of their minds in this scenario.
It's kinda dumb that we talk about "the Midwest" at all. The Dakotas have very little in common with the Ohio River Valley. Hell, just go east from them to Minnesota and you're in a whole different place, culturally and geographically. Why do we accept the bureaucratic names given to census regions as a way of defining places?
We're a vast and diverse country - we should be celebrating that fact, and actively promoting the preservation and development of vibrant regional cultures. I really want to see us get away from Big-Box-Land where development in Texas looks exactly the same as development in Ohio (maybe that's a bad example, they'd slap some fake stucco shit on the CVS in Texas.) Part of making that happen is giving places meaningful names.
Probably, at least for a large city in the greater Great Lakes region (responding to anonitect's comment). I like the climate including the full range of weather, and generally find people there friendly without being intrusive. The older cores of the cities are usually richly expressive in a sort of lonesome Edward Hopper way.
The area stretching from roughly Syracuse NY to Minneapolis and as far south as Indy is fairly moderate in politics, and not too heavily invested in fundamentalist religion compared to the rest of middle America. I lived in Chicago for a while and it was great to be able to afford a nice apartment in a good area on an entry-level architect's salary. I could even walk to work.
Actually Carrera I've found people in a lot of these mid-sized rust belt cities have a great deal of pride in their architectural history. And there seems to be a class of elite patrons who genuinely love contemporary architecture too. Hence the surprising architectural gems in places like Cincinnati, Toledo, even Des Moines. Where contemporary architecture falls short it's probably more to due with the weakness in many of their economies.
Cincinnati would be the best of the bunch, you could live nearby in Kentucky. I personally would not touch Chicago because of the crime, corruption, and weather. Plus Chicago is going to try to implement massive tax hikes before effectively, or actually, going bankrupt.
I’ve heard the word “corruption” on many occasions as a factor, suppose it's most everywhere, suppose too that in massive cities it gets diluted, but it has poisoned cities like Toledo, Detroit, Youngstown, & Cleveland.
I do see anonitect's point on the definition of “Midwest”, think that the Great Lakes states defines “Midwest” more than North Dakota, even people in Minnesota feel more connected to the West.
No exp with corruption, but i can't think of anyone in Detroit who hasn't been a victim of theft or violent crime, my self included.
Got to fix that if you want anyone to raise a family in the city
Sep 12, 15 3:39 pm ·
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There are plenty of people who haven't been a direct victim of theft or violent crime. There are people who haven't but doesn't mean they were indirectly affected by theft or crime if they been around long enough. It happens in big cities riped with multiple cultures.
Aside from that, I agree with your key point. Got to fix the social unrest and public perception in order for people to want to raise a family in the city of Detroit.
Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas aren't Midwest, they're Plains.
I have lots to say on this topic but right now I'm too tired: spent the day working on two groups with whom I volunteer, first at a lovely open air art fair, second at the local AIA, then hosting a dinner for a group of smart, savvy local architects. Indianapolis had so much cool stuff going on right now!
And thank you ivorykeyboard for the kind words - I seriously rode my bike home from the art fair thinking how every person I interacted with today was friendly, helpful, enthusiastic, and happy.
I know, Miles. The two times I drove to the Hamptons for a project I was furious the entire time. Maybe you should move?
Not to make light of it, because obviously we all find ourselves tied to geographic places for all kinds of very complicated reasons. It's very hard to change locations, especially when one has family ties.
Not to go on too long, but I've lived all over the country for fairly long periods of time. I've never lived in the south, but that's where my deepest roots are: my parents were the first of eight generations to leave the South, and most of my extended family is still there. I can't say strongly enough how important it has been to who I am as a person that I have been uprooted or uprooted myself so many times.
No matter where anyone lives, they should try somewhere else. When I first moved to the Midwest, coming from the West, I was struck by how mean people seemed. Then I moved to Philly, and realized what I construed as meanness was actually super-friendly! I grew up in Arizona where people were too heat-addled to do much, so everything was super laid back. The Midwest, by comparison, was filled with people who believed in hard work, and if you didn't work too they would get frustrated with you! They weren't being mean, they were pushing me to do more.
In the Northeast of course everyone is working hard, too, but it's a much more intellectual kind of work, and hyper-competitive. The sense of the Midwest, to me, is that there is plenty of work, opportunity, and accolades to go around. My ability to rise up doesn't mean pushing someone else down, to be very metaphoric about it: Philly is crabs in a bucket by comparison.
Also, and I've said this many times here: the Western landscape is all about drama, big skies, big sunsets, big mountains...the Midwest's beauty is about subtle, predictable, seasonal change. By now (48 years old) despite having been raised in the desert, I don't think I would ever want to live somewhere that doesn't have seasons. Seasons mean you know change is coming, so no matter how good (or bad) things are right now, they will change. It's a physical and mental balance to live in seasons.
(The times I have driven across the Plains states they had much more in common with the big skies of the West than the close horizons of the Midwest - that's why I don't lump them together. South Dakota has an awesome empty beauty that doesn't exist in the more-populous Midwest.)
Back to the question: every reasonable-sized city in the US right now is seeing activity in their downtown. Arts groups, upstarts, younger people doing actions around building community. Indianapolis has TONS of this kind of activity. I can't even keep track of the local brewers popping up and the new restaurants, the arts walks, the bike trails...but this is all CITY activity. I wouldn't move to the rural Midwest because that's where the deep conservatism lives.
Interestingly, this 5-month-old article about all the cool happenings in Indianapolis is already out of date: Big Car has set up a new large-scale neighborhood renovation project on the south side (it was featured in the NYTimes), IMOCA has moved to cooler digs nearer to downtown, and Rocket 88 donuts has opened. Things change.
Donna, I'm surprised by your blanket dismissal of the census map: the Plains States aren't the Midwest and everything else is?
Your state, Indiana, is a good example that "the Midwest" is actually a collection of distinct regional identities. The Northwestern part is in the sphere of influence of Chicago- urban, industrial, and connected to the Great Lakes. When you get south of Indy, you get into rolling hills, and people start to speak with a little bit of a twang. More in common with Kentucky than Michigan CIty, for sure.
As someone who is a community booster, surely you must see the advantage of naming places in a way that describes them culturally or geographically, rather than simply accepting a bureaucratic label. Admitted, Indy is a kinda tough one - as the State capital, it would like to claim the entire state as being within its sphere of influence, but that just isn't true. It also straddles the line between the flat half of the state and the hilly part, so it really isn't part of either geographical region.
But, we should be a little more sophisticated than lumping together a gigantic, diverse area under the completely non-descriptive umbrella of "the Midwest."
I'm not sure I understand, anonitect? In my mind the Midwest is the states where the automotive industry was born - all of the states around the upper Mississippi, Wabash, and Ohio rivers have a history of large-scale manufacturing, especially around the automobile industry, but previous to that in timber and other natural resource extraction. The manufacturing mindset is an enormous cultural influence on those states. The Plains states don't have that, I believe; they tend to be more about ranching than agriculture. So I'm saying the lumping together of the Plains and Midwest is a mistake, is that your point? I'm not sure if you're asking me to be more specific or less specific.
If we getting into distinct regional identities, Texas is all its own, as, IMO, are Kentucky, Maine, and Montana. And California, of course; nowhere else is like California, really. Or Florida, thank heavens.
The reason I’m asking is that the Midwest is largely in a population death spiral and I seek to understand why. Is it the weather? The lack of opportunities? I’m working to reverse it, but need to learn what’s wrong first. What do you think?
I am from the midwest and used to work in the midwest - it would take a lot for me to relocate back there.
The biggest problem for me is that there are very few places in the midwest where it's possible to get around without a car and still have access to good schools and nature. I like being able to bike or ride public transit to drop off the kids and get to work. I like being able to walk to parks and stores... I do own a car, I'd just rather use it occasionally, not have it be a burden associated with commuting and daily life. The sprawl in much of the midwest is stifling. I guess this is true for much of the country, though... but the midwest is particularly bad in this regard.
^ And in many Midwestern cities, any attempt to build effective public transit is treated like some Agenda 21 UN conspiracy to force everybody into human habitation zones. Cincinnati has been arguing about transit for decades, and the local newspaper still talks about light rail the same way Fox News talks about Obamacare. (We're finally getting a modern streetcar downtown next year, but only after years of bitter debate, and it's a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over this dinky little streetcar project has left almost zero appetite for any other rail projects in the foreseeable future.) Even in ostensibly transit-friendly cities like Chicago, a car is still a necessity in many areas, and the idea of public transit is still looked upon as a form of welfare.
Situationist, very valid, problem being, in the Midwest that Donna defines, cars define us, with probably 1 in 10 jobs tied to the automotive industry, an anchor about our neck in many ways.
Donna, Indy is all about cars, what is the status of BlueIndy? Light rail or any hint of high-speed rail in your area?
BTW - I think that sprawl can only be partly blamed on the automobile, in the rust-belt.
David, hear you on that, Ohio Governor Kasich sent a check for $400 million for high-speed rail back to Washington declaring that passenger trains are “money pits”.
Blue Indy is everywhere, all of a sudden. I haven't tried it yet, but hear raves. We have a BRT line coming in 2016 to a street three blocks from me.
situationist, where is the wonder fantasyland that allows little car use AND good schools AND nature? Usually you get two of those three. (I actually have all three where I live, but that's because I lotteried into a fantastic magnet school program just five blocks from my house, and the river is one block in the other direction.)
Car-centered cities aren't a Great Plains/Great Lakes/Ohio River Valley/ Upper Mississippi (I'm sure that we can come up with better names) problem. My list might be incomplete, or debatable, but cities of more than 100,000 people where you can get around easily without a car are:
1.Boston
2. New York
3 Washington D.C.
4. Chicago (David Cole's experience is very different from mine, I lived w/o an automobile in Chicago for 3 years; it was easy, and everybody I knew took public transportation all the time without stigma.)
5. San Francisco Bay area.
Second tier walkable/public transportation cities, where you can make do without a car, but not without effort:
Philly, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Portland. Maybe Austin and Seattle? Maybe L.A.? Pittsburgh? I apologize if I left your awesome city off the list, please correct it.
Basically, the vast majority of places in the U.S. suck infrastructure-wise.
(Donna -way more specific. As I said above - we're talking about a huge, diverse area and "Midwest" is a bureaucratic label that doesn't describe anything.)
i'm going to echo anonitect in saying that Chicago is absolutely a walkable city. I moved here with my car and I quickly exchanged it for a bike, and have been happily wed to it for two years. Anywhere difficult to reach will usually mean an Uber ride, which is dirt cheap (as evil as that company is, I indulge).
I grew up in the heartland and it was my original intent to be a small city architect doing small projects. Why did I leave? It is complex but let's say there is a guy named Rush Limbaugh that people liked and it offended my sensabilities. I didn't know about politics when I was young and made that dream and dreams change as they are informed and so I left to go find like minds. If I lived in the Midwest again it wouldn't be in a city, it would be on a farm, so maybe for retirement.
Just got back from a week's vacation in the Midwest (Iowa). We go every year at the beginning of Sept to harvest grapes at my inlaws. It was amazing, I love the farm fresh foods, the simplicity of life and the landscape was breath-taking. Time goes by slower there so a week vacation felt like forever which was nice. My observation: lots of people trying to hire in the midwest... have more work to do than people to do the work...
I was jyst thinking last week too... if there was a large progressive city in western nebraska, I'd live there among the beatiful sunny sand hills. But then again, nebraska is just full of these pesky things called Husker fans that ruin the whole state, it is just sad, so nevermind.
One sad aspect about the Midwest is driving through the farmland at dusk. It is really beautiful until you start noticing that although the fields are under cultivation a lot the farmhouses are boarded up. The local farmers had to "get big or get gone", as one friend who lives there told me, and a lot of the farmers sold out. The scene looks like an Edward Hopper painting, but even more lonesome. Another epitaph for America.
I have Lived in Illinois, northern, east central, central just above the oil fields, southern, and Southern (capital S is important to the southern 5 counties)
To put it nicely the Midwest and Illinois as a state is a lot weirder than you might think. Blanket statements are hard to apply to "flyover states" so people are dismissive of it all. The states are vast and huge variations exist within each state.
For example in Illinois most people assume the majority of the democrats are in Chicago, not true maybe 1/3 but not most or even a majority, Most of the Republicans in Chicago are African American, most of the most tea party loyalist are from the suburbs of Chicago. Go south to Effingham and you have catholic Pro union Pro life democrats, Go to East St Louis and you have a southern democrat like you wold find in Memphis. Paul Simon the beloved Bow-tie sporting democrat is from Makanda IL a town further south than most of Virginia. Illinois is one of the top oil producing states(weird I know) we have lots of food based industry such as ADM. We are also dealing with a nasty racist past that is far from a distant memory (Sundown towns are an Illinois thing)
Chicago for me is good, not perfect but if you want to be miserable it is easy to find negative things about any place, when I visit family out east in New York City I am appalled that they put trash on the sidewalks because they have no alleys. No place is perfect but that is part of what we do we make things better.
Chicago's need for functioning government free of corruption and or the appearance of corruption and by extension schools and other civic services and infrastructure is just one of many things that can be improved on, but we have a good transit system, and we have city parks and green space that has the potential to be a world class amenity in all parts of the city.
In the Midwest you have to just deal. My favorite Midwestern thing in the summer time is the total silence the weather alert signal on the radio can cause in a crowded cafe. Tornadoes, we just deal with it respect nature neighbors and you will get on pretty well.
I lived in chicago (northland) for a couple years. i remember there was some deal about the trash going from private to public or something like that, and the trash company that got the contract was owned by the brother in law of the mayor. so, there was corruption, but the trash was still picked up. it's like al capone feeding poor people at soup kitchens. sure, it's corrupt and he did a lot of bad things, but people that needed to be fed got fed. my view was that as long as the corruption continued to serve the public good, then the public would continue to turn a blind eye.
Shuellmi- USDA: for the 2014 tax year, we estimate only 2.7 percent of farm estates would be required to file an estate tax return, with a much smaller share of estates (about 0.8 percent) owing any Federal estate tax.
A few years ago (maybe 10-15 years, not way back in Chicago's distant past), a former colleague of mine decided to run for alderman in his north side neighborhood. As an architect, he was fed up with horrible developments that were destroying the character of the neighborhood and driving out longtime residents, and he made that a central part of his campaign platform. One night, a couple of thugs came to his home, beat the living shit out him, and persuaded him that it would be in his best interest to drop out of the race. Him and his family moved away from the city pretty soon afterwards, and the message was received loud and clear that in Chicago, you keep your head down or it will get chopped off.
Then there was the case of a major Cook County construction project, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars... All but one of the county commissioners were in favor of Firm A to get that project, but one commissioner apparently had a friend or family member at Firm B, and Firm B got the project. Firm A ended up laying off a bunch of people.
Sorry, but Chicago is a banana republic city, and there's no amount of money you could ever pay me to move back there.
So is corruption worse in the rust belt as compared to elsewhere? Not sure that it really is so there must be another reason for the decline of the "Midwest."
David, that's pretty much how it works everywhere. The public school district, the small town government, etc. it's endemic to capitalist society and a reflection of human nature.
there must be another reason for the decline of the "Midwest."
Brain drain. I'm 38 and have seen it happen in Michigan in my lifetime. The smart, college-educated tend to move out of state; the people left are aging; younger people who stay tend not to be terribly ambitious. Employment is simply a means to raise your family in a "safe," usually suburban, environment. Contrast that to Harley Earl's GM. Automotive was a destination for the best and brightest; now it is simply a paycheck for most. I don't really know how you convince smart, motivated people to stay, and honestly don't see things changing much in Michigan in the near or long term future. Sorry to be so negative.
i'm not sure there is a decline in the midwest. industrial/distribution seems to be growing at a fairly rapid pace in kansas city. omaha's economy has been stronger than most for some time. i suppose you could look at a decline in manufacturing associated with the automobile industry as a decline in the midwest. even that is still there though, it's just kind of moving around and spreading out some.
perhaps it's only a decline in michigan? it sounds like north dakota isn't doing to well since they had the oil boom, which is drying up some.
i certainly don't think corruption is limited to the midwest.
Miles, I'm not naive enough to think there isn't some level of corruption in most places, but it's not uniform in terms of its pervasiveness. Some local governments have had citizen-led ballot initiatives and reform movements over the years with the aim of cleaning up corruption, with varying degrees of success. In Chicago, there has never been a successful reform movement, and a pervasive culture of corruption seems to be hardwired into the local DNA. The electorate just accepts it the same way they accept bad weather and a terrible Cubs season; as long as the street lights stay on and the trash gets picked up, nobody cares. Even in NYC, it would be considered a fairly major scandal if a city councilman was hauled away in handcuffs by the FBI. In Chicago, it happens every couple of years and it's just another day at the office.
The Midwest
If given a job offer in the Midwest, would you move to the Midwest? Also why? (To your yes / no answers).
If you already live in the Midwest – do you love it or hate it? And why.
hell. no.
null pointer... forgot to answer the why?
RWCB...forgot to answer the question?
i live and work in chicago. the quality of life i have here is far superior than i would have in new york or san francisco. i've lived in the bay area and i wont be able to go back and live comfortably there any time soon, at least until the tech bubble bursts.
many architects here remind me of Donna Sink - proactive, helpful and great mentors. dan wheeler, peter landon, mark sexton are all well known local architects that do great outreach mentorship with younger designers in the community. i can't think of another city filled with so many down to earth and successful architects. of course, we have our egos, but what city doesnt.
also, you can afford to buy a three flat here on an architect's salary. can't say the same of any other major city, save Detroit.
dunno...never been, worked with a dude from Ohio: partied hard, he loved it wanted to move home, nice guy.
I would consider it, given pay, location, schools, things like that...seems like certain areas would be nice to raise kids.
No to Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
Why do you ask?
I've lived and worked in Chicago, NYC, and LA, and currently work in Cincinnati, so I guess I'm as qualified to answer as any. This is a question I routinely struggle with. I generally hate the Midwest, but I have personal roots in Cincinnati and in many ways the city has more of an east coast feel to it than your typical Midwestern city, so for me it's a step above living someplace that's surrounded by cornfields in every direction.
The pros mainly involve cost of living (you can actually afford to live like a real human on an architect's salary) and general lack of pretension. Nobody cares if you went to a public university or an Ivy League school. A mid-sized city like Cincinnati tends to be dominated by a handful of "legacy" firms that are technically competent but not particularly innovative, and an ambitious design-oriented architect with the right connections could open an office and carve out a nice niche for themselves here. As others have noted, the economy tends to be more stable, and the booms and busts maybe aren't as extreme. Frustrating during boom periods, but reassuring during bust periods.
The cons: the region in general tends to be very conservative, both in a political sense as well as in a design sense. Cincinnati is having the same arguments about design and urbanism that most other cities had resolved a generation ago. In both Cincinnati and Chicago, the architecture community can sometimes feel like an old boys club where outside people and ideas are treated with suspicion if not outright hostility. Most of the architecture here in Cincinnati tends to be very consumer-oriented (mainly retail and housing), and that usually means lowest common denominator design for risk-averse clients who only care about the bottom line. Think lots of orange brick and beige EIFS. Chicago is a bit more progressive, but IMO it's still very conservative compared to NYC or the west coast. Chicago's asinine building code and rampant political corruption convinced me years ago that I have no place in that city, and I've never had the slightest desire to move back.
I moved back to Cincinnati a few months ago because I have personal roots here and my housing situation in NYC imploded, and I pretty much gave up my dream job at a well-respected firm in the process. Lately I've been thinking that was a huge mistake. I'll probably never be able to afford to live in NYC again (and SF was never a realistic option from the start), but I have this crazy fantasy that someday I won't have to choose between a rewarding career and a decent quality of life... There's a decent chance I'll move to Seattle or Portland next year, although I worry about the rising cost of living and that region's notorious boom-and-bust economic cycle.
All that said, some people (including some architects) really love it here. To each their own... Your mileage may vary.
^ I was born, raised, educated and practiced my whole career in the Midwest, and while I have a love-hate relationship with the Midwest, in balance, it turned out okay…love the seasons, the Great Lakes (No Sharks), family values, safe in many ways, easy to live here….hate the architectural mediocrity (but it isn’t everywhere) and pockets of Blue-collar mentality.
The reason I’m asking is that the Midwest is largely in a population death spiral and I seek to understand why. Is it the weather? The lack of opportunities? I’m working to reverse it, but need to learn what’s wrong first. What do you think?
never heard of it......Carerra, read an article once, it basically said manufacturering went down in the north and midwest and weather is nicer in the south. 100 years ago 8 of the 10 biggest US cities were in the north and about half were Midwest including places like Cleveland etc.....now the stat is something like 2 of the 10 (NYC and Chicago). Cleveland, Detroit were part of the original list......actually I lived in the midwest for a while and go back occasionally. had i stayed woukd of been bored out of my mind. just fucking bored.
i would actually retire in the midwest over the south any day. take my east property values and purchase acres in the middle of nowhere kind of thing.......this is attractive to usually older people. kids are bored out of their minds in this scenario.
It's kinda dumb that we talk about "the Midwest" at all. The Dakotas have very little in common with the Ohio River Valley. Hell, just go east from them to Minnesota and you're in a whole different place, culturally and geographically. Why do we accept the bureaucratic names given to census regions as a way of defining places?
We're a vast and diverse country - we should be celebrating that fact, and actively promoting the preservation and development of vibrant regional cultures. I really want to see us get away from Big-Box-Land where development in Texas looks exactly the same as development in Ohio (maybe that's a bad example, they'd slap some fake stucco shit on the CVS in Texas.) Part of making that happen is giving places meaningful names.
GO BIG RED !!!!1!!1!12!
Probably, at least for a large city in the greater Great Lakes region (responding to anonitect's comment). I like the climate including the full range of weather, and generally find people there friendly without being intrusive. The older cores of the cities are usually richly expressive in a sort of lonesome Edward Hopper way.
The area stretching from roughly Syracuse NY to Minneapolis and as far south as Indy is fairly moderate in politics, and not too heavily invested in fundamentalist religion compared to the rest of middle America. I lived in Chicago for a while and it was great to be able to afford a nice apartment in a good area on an entry-level architect's salary. I could even walk to work.
Actually Carrera I've found people in a lot of these mid-sized rust belt cities have a great deal of pride in their architectural history. And there seems to be a class of elite patrons who genuinely love contemporary architecture too. Hence the surprising architectural gems in places like Cincinnati, Toledo, even Des Moines. Where contemporary architecture falls short it's probably more to due with the weakness in many of their economies.
Cincinnati would be the best of the bunch, you could live nearby in Kentucky. I personally would not touch Chicago because of the crime, corruption, and weather. Plus Chicago is going to try to implement massive tax hikes before effectively, or actually, going bankrupt.
^ Agreed. Having lived in both cities for significant periods of my life, I'd pick Cincinnati over Chicago in a heartbeat.
I’ve heard the word “corruption” on many occasions as a factor, suppose it's most everywhere, suppose too that in massive cities it gets diluted, but it has poisoned cities like Toledo, Detroit, Youngstown, & Cleveland.
I do see anonitect's point on the definition of “Midwest”, think that the Great Lakes states defines “Midwest” more than North Dakota, even people in Minnesota feel more connected to the West.
No exp with corruption, but i can't think of anyone in Detroit who hasn't been a victim of theft or violent crime, my self included. Got to fix that if you want anyone to raise a family in the city
There are plenty of people who haven't been a direct victim of theft or violent crime. There are people who haven't but doesn't mean they were indirectly affected by theft or crime if they been around long enough. It happens in big cities riped with multiple cultures.
Aside from that, I agree with your key point. Got to fix the social unrest and public perception in order for people to want to raise a family in the city of Detroit.
I have lots to say on this topic but right now I'm too tired: spent the day working on two groups with whom I volunteer, first at a lovely open air art fair, second at the local AIA, then hosting a dinner for a group of smart, savvy local architects. Indianapolis had so much cool stuff going on right now!
And thank you ivorykeyboard for the kind words - I seriously rode my bike home from the art fair thinking how every person I interacted with today was friendly, helpful, enthusiastic, and happy.
The more I hear you talk about Indy, the more fabulous it seems.
Donna, you often give me a hard time about my POV. You may want to consider how a half-century in the Fabulous Hamptons has colored it.
you should move out to the midwest/plains miles. there are some decent people here.
I know, Miles. The two times I drove to the Hamptons for a project I was furious the entire time. Maybe you should move?
Not to make light of it, because obviously we all find ourselves tied to geographic places for all kinds of very complicated reasons. It's very hard to change locations, especially when one has family ties.
Not to go on too long, but I've lived all over the country for fairly long periods of time. I've never lived in the south, but that's where my deepest roots are: my parents were the first of eight generations to leave the South, and most of my extended family is still there. I can't say strongly enough how important it has been to who I am as a person that I have been uprooted or uprooted myself so many times.
No matter where anyone lives, they should try somewhere else. When I first moved to the Midwest, coming from the West, I was struck by how mean people seemed. Then I moved to Philly, and realized what I construed as meanness was actually super-friendly! I grew up in Arizona where people were too heat-addled to do much, so everything was super laid back. The Midwest, by comparison, was filled with people who believed in hard work, and if you didn't work too they would get frustrated with you! They weren't being mean, they were pushing me to do more.
In the Northeast of course everyone is working hard, too, but it's a much more intellectual kind of work, and hyper-competitive. The sense of the Midwest, to me, is that there is plenty of work, opportunity, and accolades to go around. My ability to rise up doesn't mean pushing someone else down, to be very metaphoric about it: Philly is crabs in a bucket by comparison.
Also, and I've said this many times here: the Western landscape is all about drama, big skies, big sunsets, big mountains...the Midwest's beauty is about subtle, predictable, seasonal change. By now (48 years old) despite having been raised in the desert, I don't think I would ever want to live somewhere that doesn't have seasons. Seasons mean you know change is coming, so no matter how good (or bad) things are right now, they will change. It's a physical and mental balance to live in seasons.
(The times I have driven across the Plains states they had much more in common with the big skies of the West than the close horizons of the Midwest - that's why I don't lump them together. South Dakota has an awesome empty beauty that doesn't exist in the more-populous Midwest.)
Back to the question: every reasonable-sized city in the US right now is seeing activity in their downtown. Arts groups, upstarts, younger people doing actions around building community. Indianapolis has TONS of this kind of activity. I can't even keep track of the local brewers popping up and the new restaurants, the arts walks, the bike trails...but this is all CITY activity. I wouldn't move to the rural Midwest because that's where the deep conservatism lives.
Interestingly, this 5-month-old article about all the cool happenings in Indianapolis is already out of date: Big Car has set up a new large-scale neighborhood renovation project on the south side (it was featured in the NYTimes), IMOCA has moved to cooler digs nearer to downtown, and Rocket 88 donuts has opened. Things change.
Donna, I'm surprised by your blanket dismissal of the census map: the Plains States aren't the Midwest and everything else is?
Your state, Indiana, is a good example that "the Midwest" is actually a collection of distinct regional identities. The Northwestern part is in the sphere of influence of Chicago- urban, industrial, and connected to the Great Lakes. When you get south of Indy, you get into rolling hills, and people start to speak with a little bit of a twang. More in common with Kentucky than Michigan CIty, for sure.
As someone who is a community booster, surely you must see the advantage of naming places in a way that describes them culturally or geographically, rather than simply accepting a bureaucratic label. Admitted, Indy is a kinda tough one - as the State capital, it would like to claim the entire state as being within its sphere of influence, but that just isn't true. It also straddles the line between the flat half of the state and the hilly part, so it really isn't part of either geographical region.
But, we should be a little more sophisticated than lumping together a gigantic, diverse area under the completely non-descriptive umbrella of "the Midwest."
I'm not sure I understand, anonitect? In my mind the Midwest is the states where the automotive industry was born - all of the states around the upper Mississippi, Wabash, and Ohio rivers have a history of large-scale manufacturing, especially around the automobile industry, but previous to that in timber and other natural resource extraction. The manufacturing mindset is an enormous cultural influence on those states. The Plains states don't have that, I believe; they tend to be more about ranching than agriculture. So I'm saying the lumping together of the Plains and Midwest is a mistake, is that your point? I'm not sure if you're asking me to be more specific or less specific.
If we getting into distinct regional identities, Texas is all its own, as, IMO, are Kentucky, Maine, and Montana. And California, of course; nowhere else is like California, really. Or Florida, thank heavens.
The reason I’m asking is that the Midwest is largely in a population death spiral and I seek to understand why. Is it the weather? The lack of opportunities? I’m working to reverse it, but need to learn what’s wrong first. What do you think?
I am from the midwest and used to work in the midwest - it would take a lot for me to relocate back there.
The biggest problem for me is that there are very few places in the midwest where it's possible to get around without a car and still have access to good schools and nature. I like being able to bike or ride public transit to drop off the kids and get to work. I like being able to walk to parks and stores... I do own a car, I'd just rather use it occasionally, not have it be a burden associated with commuting and daily life. The sprawl in much of the midwest is stifling. I guess this is true for much of the country, though... but the midwest is particularly bad in this regard.
^ And in many Midwestern cities, any attempt to build effective public transit is treated like some Agenda 21 UN conspiracy to force everybody into human habitation zones. Cincinnati has been arguing about transit for decades, and the local newspaper still talks about light rail the same way Fox News talks about Obamacare. (We're finally getting a modern streetcar downtown next year, but only after years of bitter debate, and it's a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over this dinky little streetcar project has left almost zero appetite for any other rail projects in the foreseeable future.) Even in ostensibly transit-friendly cities like Chicago, a car is still a necessity in many areas, and the idea of public transit is still looked upon as a form of welfare.
Situationist, very valid, problem being, in the Midwest that Donna defines, cars define us, with probably 1 in 10 jobs tied to the automotive industry, an anchor about our neck in many ways.
Donna, Indy is all about cars, what is the status of BlueIndy? Light rail or any hint of high-speed rail in your area?
BTW - I think that sprawl can only be partly blamed on the automobile, in the rust-belt.
David, hear you on that, Ohio Governor Kasich sent a check for $400 million for high-speed rail back to Washington declaring that passenger trains are “money pits”.
Blue Indy is everywhere, all of a sudden. I haven't tried it yet, but hear raves. We have a BRT line coming in 2016 to a street three blocks from me.
situationist, where is the wonder fantasyland that allows little car use AND good schools AND nature? Usually you get two of those three. (I actually have all three where I live, but that's because I lotteried into a fantastic magnet school program just five blocks from my house, and the river is one block in the other direction.)
Car-centered cities aren't a Great Plains/Great Lakes/Ohio River Valley/ Upper Mississippi (I'm sure that we can come up with better names) problem. My list might be incomplete, or debatable, but cities of more than 100,000 people where you can get around easily without a car are:
1.Boston
2. New York
3 Washington D.C.
4. Chicago (David Cole's experience is very different from mine, I lived w/o an automobile in Chicago for 3 years; it was easy, and everybody I knew took public transportation all the time without stigma.)
5. San Francisco Bay area.
Second tier walkable/public transportation cities, where you can make do without a car, but not without effort:
Philly, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Portland. Maybe Austin and Seattle? Maybe L.A.? Pittsburgh? I apologize if I left your awesome city off the list, please correct it.
Basically, the vast majority of places in the U.S. suck infrastructure-wise.
(Donna -way more specific. As I said above - we're talking about a huge, diverse area and "Midwest" is a bureaucratic label that doesn't describe anything.)
i'm going to echo anonitect in saying that Chicago is absolutely a walkable city. I moved here with my car and I quickly exchanged it for a bike, and have been happily wed to it for two years. Anywhere difficult to reach will usually mean an Uber ride, which is dirt cheap (as evil as that company is, I indulge).
I grew up in the heartland and it was my original intent to be a small city architect doing small projects. Why did I leave? It is complex but let's say there is a guy named Rush Limbaugh that people liked and it offended my sensabilities. I didn't know about politics when I was young and made that dream and dreams change as they are informed and so I left to go find like minds. If I lived in the Midwest again it wouldn't be in a city, it would be on a farm, so maybe for retirement. Just got back from a week's vacation in the Midwest (Iowa). We go every year at the beginning of Sept to harvest grapes at my inlaws. It was amazing, I love the farm fresh foods, the simplicity of life and the landscape was breath-taking. Time goes by slower there so a week vacation felt like forever which was nice. My observation: lots of people trying to hire in the midwest... have more work to do than people to do the work...
I was jyst thinking last week too... if there was a large progressive city in western nebraska, I'd live there among the beatiful sunny sand hills. But then again, nebraska is just full of these pesky things called Husker fans that ruin the whole state, it is just sad, so nevermind.
One sad aspect about the Midwest is driving through the farmland at dusk. It is really beautiful until you start noticing that although the fields are under cultivation a lot the farmhouses are boarded up. The local farmers had to "get big or get gone", as one friend who lives there told me, and a lot of the farmers sold out. The scene looks like an Edward Hopper painting, but even more lonesome. Another epitaph for America.
don't forget the impact of estate taxes on the land rich and cash poor farmers
GO BIG RED!!!!!!!
I have Lived in Illinois, northern, east central, central just above the oil fields, southern, and Southern (capital S is important to the southern 5 counties)
To put it nicely the Midwest and Illinois as a state is a lot weirder than you might think. Blanket statements are hard to apply to "flyover states" so people are dismissive of it all. The states are vast and huge variations exist within each state.
For example in Illinois most people assume the majority of the democrats are in Chicago, not true maybe 1/3 but not most or even a majority, Most of the Republicans in Chicago are African American, most of the most tea party loyalist are from the suburbs of Chicago. Go south to Effingham and you have catholic Pro union Pro life democrats, Go to East St Louis and you have a southern democrat like you wold find in Memphis. Paul Simon the beloved Bow-tie sporting democrat is from Makanda IL a town further south than most of Virginia. Illinois is one of the top oil producing states(weird I know) we have lots of food based industry such as ADM. We are also dealing with a nasty racist past that is far from a distant memory (Sundown towns are an Illinois thing)
Chicago for me is good, not perfect but if you want to be miserable it is easy to find negative things about any place, when I visit family out east in New York City I am appalled that they put trash on the sidewalks because they have no alleys. No place is perfect but that is part of what we do we make things better.
Chicago's need for functioning government free of corruption and or the appearance of corruption and by extension schools and other civic services and infrastructure is just one of many things that can be improved on, but we have a good transit system, and we have city parks and green space that has the potential to be a world class amenity in all parts of the city.
In the Midwest you have to just deal. My favorite Midwestern thing in the summer time is the total silence the weather alert signal on the radio can cause in a crowded cafe. Tornadoes, we just deal with it respect nature neighbors and you will get on pretty well.
Over and OUT
Peter N
I lived in chicago (northland) for a couple years. i remember there was some deal about the trash going from private to public or something like that, and the trash company that got the contract was owned by the brother in law of the mayor. so, there was corruption, but the trash was still picked up. it's like al capone feeding poor people at soup kitchens. sure, it's corrupt and he did a lot of bad things, but people that needed to be fed got fed. my view was that as long as the corruption continued to serve the public good, then the public would continue to turn a blind eye.
Shuellmi- USDA: for the 2014 tax year, we estimate only 2.7 percent of farm estates would be required to file an estate tax return, with a much smaller share of estates (about 0.8 percent) owing any Federal estate tax.
A few years ago (maybe 10-15 years, not way back in Chicago's distant past), a former colleague of mine decided to run for alderman in his north side neighborhood. As an architect, he was fed up with horrible developments that were destroying the character of the neighborhood and driving out longtime residents, and he made that a central part of his campaign platform. One night, a couple of thugs came to his home, beat the living shit out him, and persuaded him that it would be in his best interest to drop out of the race. Him and his family moved away from the city pretty soon afterwards, and the message was received loud and clear that in Chicago, you keep your head down or it will get chopped off.
Then there was the case of a major Cook County construction project, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars... All but one of the county commissioners were in favor of Firm A to get that project, but one commissioner apparently had a friend or family member at Firm B, and Firm B got the project. Firm A ended up laying off a bunch of people.
Sorry, but Chicago is a banana republic city, and there's no amount of money you could ever pay me to move back there.
I'm sorry, apparently I've been repeating a common myth
So is corruption worse in the rust belt as compared to elsewhere? Not sure that it really is so there must be another reason for the decline of the "Midwest."
blame the unions?
David, that's pretty much how it works everywhere. The public school district, the small town government, etc. it's endemic to capitalist society and a reflection of human nature.
there must be another reason for the decline of the "Midwest."
Brain drain. I'm 38 and have seen it happen in Michigan in my lifetime. The smart, college-educated tend to move out of state; the people left are aging; younger people who stay tend not to be terribly ambitious. Employment is simply a means to raise your family in a "safe," usually suburban, environment. Contrast that to Harley Earl's GM. Automotive was a destination for the best and brightest; now it is simply a paycheck for most. I don't really know how you convince smart, motivated people to stay, and honestly don't see things changing much in Michigan in the near or long term future. Sorry to be so negative.
i'm not sure there is a decline in the midwest. industrial/distribution seems to be growing at a fairly rapid pace in kansas city. omaha's economy has been stronger than most for some time. i suppose you could look at a decline in manufacturing associated with the automobile industry as a decline in the midwest. even that is still there though, it's just kind of moving around and spreading out some.
perhaps it's only a decline in michigan? it sounds like north dakota isn't doing to well since they had the oil boom, which is drying up some.
i certainly don't think corruption is limited to the midwest.
Miles, I'm not naive enough to think there isn't some level of corruption in most places, but it's not uniform in terms of its pervasiveness. Some local governments have had citizen-led ballot initiatives and reform movements over the years with the aim of cleaning up corruption, with varying degrees of success. In Chicago, there has never been a successful reform movement, and a pervasive culture of corruption seems to be hardwired into the local DNA. The electorate just accepts it the same way they accept bad weather and a terrible Cubs season; as long as the street lights stay on and the trash gets picked up, nobody cares. Even in NYC, it would be considered a fairly major scandal if a city councilman was hauled away in handcuffs by the FBI. In Chicago, it happens every couple of years and it's just another day at the office.
David Cole—
I think we get it, you hate Chicago.
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