In the liberal era, the urban Northeast dominated the landscape. In the conservative era, it was in the South and in bedroom communities like those in Southern California. In the coming era, the center of gravity will move to the West and the Midwestern plains, and to the pragmatic, untethered office park suburbs sprouting up there.(TimesSelect link.)
Is something going to happen out here in the Midwest? I sure hope so.
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The nation certainly could use a good dose of good old Midwestern Common Sense and politeness.
Madison will be excluded from this power.
Surburbs are where all the growth is in the midwest. In 20 years most young adults will have been born and raised in suburbs. I lived in a residential section of the city for 8 years before moving to the burbs. I love the city, however, it is a poor place to raise kids. If you have kid. You move to the burbs - thats where families and kids live now.
I spent a decade one year in Cedar Rapids.
derve:
I don't think the growth of suburbs or exurbs around a big city proves that much, except that the city in question isn't completely moribund. The suburban growth may just be the city adapting to the current reality, and the current reality is suburban, pretty much, with pockets of urbanist impetus.
I don't see the political center of gravity shifting to the midwest unless people start moving to it instead of away from it, or unless the relative amount of economic growth here with respect to other regions of the country changes. Does Brooks claim either one of these things is happening?
I could imagine that life in the big attractive cities outside the midwest (NYC, Washington, LA, SF, whatever) has gotten so painful and/or expensive that people are looking for alternatives, and these midwestern cities with their relatively cheap housing and unuderused urban infrastructure look attractive.
If there is some kind of midwestern rennaisance, I certainly hope Cleveland manages to participate...
Let's see...
The 2004 election was decided in Ohio.
The 2000 election was decided in Florida but Wisconsin and Iowa were almost as important.
Control of the US Senate could be decided by races in Missouri, Ohio, and Montana.
Control of the House of Representaitves could be decided by races in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Works for me. For the moment.
An era with a new appreciation for fried food and mysterious meatstuffs? I'm all for it!
(Dibs on the Maid-Rites!)
Madison Man,
Having spent a bit of my childhood in the early suburbs of Kansas City and visiting since then relatives in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota and Illinois, the Midwest character has its pluses.
The main flaws? Everyone has their nose in everyone else's business. Did you see her hair? Everyone has an opinion on EVERYONE else. Well, if they'd just shut up once in awhile. Most of them are unfailingly polite to your face, but, like the British, they are quietly convinced that they are better than you.
The true Wisteria Lanes are in the Midwest.
Yes, they're all individuals there in New York. I can hear them shouting that en masse now!
If everyone is voting how their friends tell them to here -- does the 50/50 split in WI say more about the number of conservatives vs. liberals, or about the number of friends that conservatives have vs the number of friends liberals have?
dick,
There's problems with people everywhere, I would agree.
But I'll take coastal know-it-alls over Midwestern better-than-thous most days, and be thankful I only vacation and holiday with the b-t-t's.
Spend some time around a bunch of New Yorkers or Californians some time. Then you wil know what a bunch of people who think they know it all are like.
I'll have you know I thought I knew it all *well* before I moved from flyover country to California.
Seriously, though, I grew up in a flyover state and people there were just as convinced they knew everything about California as Californians are that they know everything about flyover country. People generally think southern California is either a modern-day Sodom or like something from "The O.C.".
dick,
The socialist(idiot) that wrote What's the Matter With Kansas was Thomas Frank.
Who grew up in Kansas City.
Another example of Midwestern better-than-thou's
Wanna challenge me again?
Check out that dingbat who wrote the book about Kansas and how the people there don't vote the way they should
Yeah, but I have to contrast that with the prevailing flyover country view that California consists of nothing but "fruits, nuts, and flakes". Actually I find a lot less ignorance in Calfornia about the rest of the country than I find in the rest of the country about California -- if only because almost none of the people I know here are actually *from* here.
dick,
then perhaps that would make Franks an example of that even more terrifying species:
the know-it-all-better-than-thou,
whose adjusted acronym is KIABUTT.
I fold.
The people I met from California (almost all native) and the people I know in New York and Massachusetts all share one belief. Civilization ends at the border of their state.
Not sure how that's different from how midwesterners see the world. There's certainly a mentality in flyover country that they're the "real Americans", in spite of the fact that the majority of Americans live on the coasts. The attitude is exacerbated somewhat by the fact that flyover country has a disproportionate amount of power in Congress and in Presidential elections due to the two-senators-per-state thing.
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