"It seems that everywhere in the USA is the mid-west or west, and how far west of the Atlantic ocean you actually live determines how much of the eastern side of the country you consider to be posers and liars. For example, a poet in Nevada made fun of me for living in Texas, because it isn't the real west. We in Texas make fun of Ohio and Indiana for saying they're in the west." -A friend from Wichita Falls.
Back in 1995 when Oklahoma City endured a domestic terrorist attack, many different media outlets paraded around a lot of different words. One of these words was "heartland", a term used to describe what politicians and others have long felt to be the core of American society. The heartland, in this sense, is a place of a strong moral compass, hard-working communities, and simple people that go to church, watch their neighbor's homes while they are away, and never ask for more than they are willing to give, that sort of thing. While New York and Los Angeles have lost their ways, the right proclaims, the heartland is a place where you can still find all that is good and true of America. Well, so they say, and yes, career politicians like to talk, don't they? So where is the heartland? Pretty much anywhere outside of the east and west coast, oh, and the Mexican part of Texas, oh, and the larger industrial cities, oh, and... you get the picture, and you can probably see where I am going, but first, read on.
Now, is there anything wrong with being a Caucasian, Republican-voting, evangelical Protestant, country-music listening farmer from Davenport, Iowa? Not at all, no more so than being a Hispanic, Democrat-voting, Catholic, pop-music listening factory worker from Rochester, NY. The "heartland", in fact, is a pretty nice place. Attitudes are a bit more relaxed, the pace is hectic only when it needs to be, and yes, you can pretty much see one of the many cores of traditional American culture. Sadly, most people who bring up the term heartland want to use this sort of atmosphere and concept as a weapon, missing the point that the heartland truly consists of many great elements in the mosaic that is the United States. Let's take a tour of the United States, leading out to the heartland, wherever that really is. Let's start in the melting pot of New York City. It's a great place! It's full of life, and a rich depository of so many different cultures that actually do manage to not only assimilate, but add into the essence of "America". At the same time, it can also be extremely insular. Being from New Jersey, New England, or even the rest of New York state can seem backwards to New Yorkers, even in childish ways (e.g. why are your freeway exits miles apart, why is there no Starbucks in your town, how come you don't drive a hybrid, and why is that car a Ford?!).
Let's move up and down the coast, from say Boston down to northern Virginia, and take in the Hudson river valley as well. You are the real east, and anything past the first line of hills in the Appalachians is the frontier (and here I figured Daniel Boone opened up the Cumberland Gap back in 1775). I know people from Albany who think that Buffalo is in the Midwest, and that Rochester is, at most, the front door of the great eastern manor house. So we see a trend developing thus far, and it is mainly based on skewed notions of cultural superiority. You see, "east" means life, development, class. Ah... now look at those terms. Development, you say? Surely that means the presence of advanced commercial and civil infrastructure? That's part of it. The other part is, well, consideration of the presence of what those on the left consider to be progressive social institutions, meaning everything from support-groups, safety nets for the impoverished, embracing of cultural diversity rather than simple tolerance, etc.
Now this next part might be a bit controversial and dangerous to admit, and don't worry, leftists, I will get to the rightists as well. Those lands west of, well, the east coast, those are mainly red states, and where they are not, they are apparently economic and social embarrassments in comparison to the shining capitals of prosperity and progress of the land of the sunrise. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and so on? Rural, lower-income, and tending towards conservatism. The places that seem to vote blue? Detroit, Cleveland, Gary, Buffalo, Flint, Toledo? Who would want to live there, those places are wastelands created by the mistaken concept that "buy and produce American" can get you anywhere, because everyone knows foreign trade is where vitality is best sustained. Ah, things are looking a bit more ugly now, no? The bias against the interior looks a bit less political, and a bit more based on class and economic discrimination, the very thing the left claims to loath. The shining cities of glowing lights and international trendiness looks down on the interior which helps to support foreign trade. Now remember this statement, I will call upon it soon.
Let's go further inland, to the heartland, and say to Michigan itself. Now yes, Michigan is a blue state, but its record for voting Democrat mostly stems from the concerns of the working class rather than liberal social agendas about cultural freedom or even, surprisingly, a desire to promote welfare and safety nets. Here, the raw issues are about employment, affordability of health care and housing, and the living wage movement. Conservative social agendas are an election year issue here as well, though. As such, the people here disdain any sort of link to the northeast, and the more conservative types like to be associated with the Midwest. Quite frankly, the people in the northeast like to stuff them off in that category too, including the Federal Census Bureau. So here we start to see that the concept of "Midwest" is one of social and political weaponry. Being a part of the Midwest is either really good if you are rightist, or really bad if you are leftist. Entire parts of the country get left out of their ideal vision of America just because they don't agree eye to eye on some issues (and yes, by no means do I mean to the trivialize the issues, even while I advocate for some semblance of democracy to fight back against extreme partisan interest groups). The funny thing is, the people further west feel the same way about the Nearwest that the Easterners do; "you are not a real part of us", unless of course, it is an election year. So, enough of this anti-political political rant, you are probably requesting. How does this have anything to do specifically with Michigan, northern Ohio, etc. not being a part of the Midwest?
Well, aside from all the historical details of cultural makeup I have given already in various posts (look for the label Midwest in the right hand column menu if you need to catch up), the Nearwest is just wired differently from other regions in the country. For one, we are impacted a great deal by Canadian economic movements as much as we are from the rest of the country. Autos, industrial materials, food, and even energy are traded back and forth across the Niagara, Detroit, and St. Clair rivers, far more so than most people know. Simply put, it's where our transportation corridors have always linked to strongly. From there, Detroit connects to Chicago and Buffalo to New York, and thus the traffic between the United States and its largest trading partner (China is still second, look it up in various sources) still goes through the Nearwest. This, of course, means that the region has a unique role as an economic corridor that both heavily depends on domestic and foreign economic vitality at the same time. Cities like Los Angeles and New York and their environs are great gateways between the United States and the world. Cities like Chicago and Denver and their environs are great gateways between different parts of the United States. Cities like Detroit and Buffalo and their environs are BOTH. As such, the political concerns of these areas tend to focus on this concept. They have to. That said, no state is an island.
The Nearwest is thus considered to be the Midwest by so many people because of political desire, even while the political mindset of the region is "Rustbelt bi-national" rather than interior or coastal. The region either gets absorbed or cast aside by those interests, and in doing so, it tends to mostly just get ignored, forgotten, or treated as an embarrassment by everywhere except itself and optimistic neighbor southern Ontario. One day, perhaps, the region will rise again and be noticed not as a place that serves as a chip on the table in the poker game between the shores and the interior, but as a legitimate player in its own right, every bit as impressive as Mr. East Coast, Mr. Midwest, or any of the other Mr. regions out there. The Nearwest has its own history, its own climate, its own environment, and definitely its own political voice, just like the other great parts of this nation and continent. Come and discover it, for the Nearwest is a region of its own, not a tool in political jargon.
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