Why St. Louis Should Move to Illinois

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

A car dealer commercial as your argument is insane. That cowboy hat shit is specific to THAT DEALERSHIP. It's their thing. I don't need to explain the culture of car dealerships.

I recall seeing cowboy-themed marketing in Quebec too, it's normal when you're selling fullsize pickups. In particular, anything related to Ford's "King Ranch" trim level with saddle leather (which is sold all over the continent) will always be cowboy-themed.

You can easily find King Ranch F-series trucks right now on Boston-area Ford dealership lots, therefore Boston is a southern city.

/off-topic

[Leo the Dog]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Native Chicagoans (people from the City of Chicago, not Naperville or wherever) are great drivers. Fast, efficient, and safe. If your experience driving is this town is that of getting honked at and cut off, it's probably the Cardinals bumper stickers and Missouri plate that's your problem.

Chicagoans have cars? I thought you guys took the El. jk

For the record, as an outsider, I've always considered STL as Midwestern. Interesting debate/rivalry you guys have.

So if STL isnt Midwestern and is Southern, then what is KC considered?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Leo the Dog

So if STL isnt Midwestern and is Southern, then what is KC considered?

St. Louis IS midwestern. so is KC.

Tom simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's confusing the great lakes region for the midwest. in reality, the great lakes region is mostly just a sub-region of the larger midwest (though things get muddled on the far eastern end of the lakes).

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

in reality, the great lakes region is mostly just a sub-region of the larger midwest (though things get muddled on the far eastern end of the lakes).

http://cornersideyard.blogspot.com/2...-overview.html

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

He's confusing the great lakes region for the midwest. in reality, the great lakes region is mostly just a sub-region of the larger midwest (though things get muddled on the far eastern end of the lakes).

I'm not confusing shit. Use whatever labels you want to describe St. Louis and Missouri, Midwest or something else. I doesn't matter. My point from the beginning has been that St. Louis is culturally distinctly dissimilar to the Great Lakes cities in the Upper Midwest. If you don't agree, well then you're absolutely kidding yourself or being decidedly stubborn.



I like this map as it fairly illustrates my original point. St. Louis (and Missouri) falls squarely in that "Midland Valley" region. I think this map more appropriately illustrates my original point, as "Southern" is taken as a pejorative word on this forum.

I also like this map because it illustrates the distinct cultural separate between Northern Illinois and the rest of the state, which was also something I mentioned. Look, you can call everything from the Dakotas to Missouri to western New York Midwest if you like, that's not really the issue. My issue has always been that I feel like Missouri and St. Louis in particular has very little, if anything, in common, culturally, with Illinois as a whole, especially Northern Illinois.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

My point from the beginning is that St. Louis is culturally distinctly dissimilar to the Great Lakes cities in the Upper Midwest.

no, this is what your point was in the beginning:

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Also, since when is St. Louis a Midwestern city? I realize some people consider Missouri a fridge Midwest state, but it is not.

you claimed that st. louis is not a midwestern city.

st. louis is a midwestern city.

and you are confused. about what constitutes the midwest and also about what your original point was.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

historical thunder thievery resentments die hard, i guess.

st. louis was supposed to be the great interior metropolis.

then chicago came along and fucked up the pecking order.

Steely, I really doubt that "historical thunder thievery" has anything to do with anything in 2015, at least not for the average St. Louisan. We're too far removed from that era. Any resentment expressed here likely comes from being constantly subjected to condescension and negativity both from "enlightened" peoples from other cities and from our own suburbanites. If you're somebody who cares about St. Louis you have to put up with a ton of negative shit, probably more so than most other places including Chicago.

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and you are confused. about what constitutes the midwest and also about what your original point was.

Sorry, Lord Skyscraperpage. You're right. My bad.

[fflint]

St. Louis is a Midwestern city. It's a Midwestern city that happens to be near an amorphous border with the South, and so like other borderland cities like Cincinnati it takes on some aspects of the adjacent region due to proximity, but remains a Midwestern city all the same.

[Centropolis]

might as well just kill this thread, or else im going to start babbling about midwestern 'gateway city' archetype banking hinterlands in 1890 (of which cincinnati had it's own appreciable empire, alongside st. louis and chicago), or something.

we could argue about louisville, too, which it sounds like tom is mixing up with st. louis.

[brickell]

Where's the Centropolis venn diagram of midwestern cities?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by brickell

Where's the Centropolis venn diagram of midwestern cities?

i'm pretty sure that i compiled one, once, lol.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by fflint

It's a Midwestern city that happens to be near an amorphous border with the South...

I am nearly sure the Midwest's borders are amorphous in every possible direction except Canada. (For the record, I have crossed the Midwest multiple times in every possible direction during the last 15 years, though of course I haven't been making detailed cultural analysis, just superficial.)

And even then, in Windsor and Sarnia you can detect some 'midwesternity' that isn't present in eastern Ontario.

Many cultural/regional borders are continuums.

[tablemtn]

Part of the issue is that people try to define regions like "the Midwest" using state boundaries, when clearly the region's borders are more of a gradient that cuts through such maplines.

For instance, does anyone really think that the small plains farm towns on the Kansas side of the line are "Midwestern," but those right across the Colorado line are not?

Returning to STL and Illinois, wouldn't that mean STL and its municipalities would get sucked into the Illinois public employee pension crisis, too?

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

St. Louis IS midwestern. so is KC.

Tom simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's confusing the great lakes region for the midwest. in reality, the great lakes region is mostly just a sub-region of the larger midwest (though things get muddled on the far eastern end of the lakes).

Exactly, a lot of people on this forum have a rather narrow view of what the "Midwest" is or try to break the Great Lakes away from the Plains as if there is no social, economic, or historical ties that link these respective sub-regions. The Midwest is just as large and diverse as any other region of the country, all of which could also be broken up into smaller sub-regions. With that said, I find it ridiculous that people on this forum use the "Southern" label as some sort of broad put down. If St. Louis is deemed to have Southern characteristics, that's great and honestly I agree. It just adds to the complexity and flavor of the city, but only a fool would think that St. Louis doesn't have many similar characteristics to the cities of Great Lakes.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

I'm not confusing shit. Use whatever labels you want to describe St. Louis and Missouri, Midwest or something else. I doesn't matter. My point from the beginning has been that St. Louis is culturally distinctly dissimilar to the Great Lakes cities in the Upper Midwest. If you don't agree, well then you're absolutely kidding yourself or being decidedly stubborn.



I like this map as it fairly illustrates my original point. St. Louis (and Missouri) falls squarely in that "Midland Valley" region. I think this map more appropriately illustrates my original point, as "Southern" is taken as a pejorative word on this forum.

I also like this map because it illustrates the distinct cultural separate between Northern Illinois and the rest of the state, which was also something I mentioned. Look, you can call everything from the Dakotas to Missouri to western New York Midwest if you like, that's not really the issue. My issue has always been that I feel like Missouri and St. Louis in particular has very little, if anything, in common, culturally, with Illinois as a whole, especially Northern Illinois.

I don't think anybody ever said that St. Louis was a "Great Lakes" city, which is obvious because St. Louis at the confluence of America's two largest rivers making it the quintessential American "river city". I think there was just push back because you said St. Louis is a "Southern" city, when it clearly is not by most definitions (including the U.S. Census). Also to say that St. Louis has little in common with Illinois is ridiculous, especially considering that about 700,000 Illinoisans are also St. Louisans. In case you forget, the second largest metro area in Illinois is St. Louis "Metro East" suburbia. Chicago is not synonymous with Illinois, just like St. Louis is not synonymous with Missouri. Cities and there metro areas are cultural islands and St. Louis is no different. State lines are also a bogus way to measure culture, St. Louis has always been a cultural island, politically and socially.

[mrnyc]

to be fair, there does seem to be some historic differences within the midwest:

[hammersklavier]

Saint Louis is just as much a Midwestern city as Boston a Northeastern one.

But you can definitely chop the Midwest up into subregions, just as you can the Northeast. New England is culturally dissimilar to the New York metro is culturally dissimilar to the Mid-Atlantic (i.e. the Philly and Baltimore regions). And you can even chop New England up into the urban lower half (Mass., Conn., RI) and rural upper half (VT, NH, Maine). Upstate New York and the Southern Tier are both their own cultural units, melding Northeastern and Midwestern sensibilities, as does the Pittsburgh region. And so on.

Is St. Louis part of the same part of the Midwest that is home to the major industrial Lakes cities? Of course not; the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley are very different parts of the Midwest. But that doesn't make St. Louis any less Midwestern.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

while we have the moving vans out -- minneapolis, detroit, cleveland and buffalo should probably move to canada.

Minneapolis isn't a border town.

Cowboy hats are as much Montana, Wyoming and Idaho as they are Texas. They're certainly not representative of places like Georgia, Alabama, Florida or Mississippi.

[JivecitySTL]

Tom Servo, you're stuck in an alternate universe. If St. Louis isn't in the Midwest, where is it? The United States Census Bureau defines Missouri as a Midwestern state, irrespective of whatever unqualified weird classification you attribute to it. St. Louis is really nothing like the rest of Missouri. The city is older than the United States, let alone MO. It was founded as a French colony in 1764, then transferred to the Spanish, then back to France, before joining the US in 1803. By 1850 it was already one of the largest cities in the country (before Chicago was), and it remained a top 10 city until 1970. Its dialect, culture, politics and socioeconomic dynamics are nothing like the rest of Missouri, and actually has much more in common with other Rustbelt cities (Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc) than with any place in the south. Someone well known to Chicagoans-- Harry Caray-- was born, raised and lived the vast majority of his life in the City of St. Louis. Do you think he "acts" or "sounds" southern? He typifies a quintessential St. Louis City accent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52uD-izpYh8

Get a clue, dude. You sound completely ignorant.