REALLY IMPORTANT POLL

[brigdh]

rm and I have been having this argument discussion for years, and I need to ask your opinion. Also, I'm totally not going to sway your opinion by telling you that Ohio is in the East Coast timezone.

[Poll #1733722]

ETA: I mean culturally, not geographically (though obviously the two are linked).

Comments

[pocketmouse]

I lied, I wouldn't actually call it midwest to it's face, but it's totally not on the east coast, due to it not being on the coast.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

This.

I wouldn't call WV, Kentucky, or Tennessee "east coast," either.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I picked "Midwest" because it's west of Pennsylvania, and Toledo and Detroit are close enough for weekend trips.

I'd actually probably call it in the Snow Belt, but that doesn't mean anything to most people.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I see that. I feel like part of the problems is a lot of regions overlap- Snow Belt and Great Lakes and East Coast and Midwest all share some areas.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Michigan's in the Eastern Time Zone, too, and it's so very not East Coast. You have to at the very least be on the other side of the Appalachians to even be in contention.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize Michigan was in the Eastern Time Zone! I totally thought it was in Central. But regardless, I think most people call Pennsylvania East Coast and it's sort of split, with part on one side of the Appalachians and part on the other.

[4hour-ramona.livejournal.com]

(here via rm)
it is neither east coast (not within one state of the ocean) nor midwest. if anything, i'd call it a great lake state.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Grew up in Indiana. Of course it's Midwest.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Considering people from Ohio are called Midwesterners, I'd say it's Midwest.

It's not the East Coast -- at no point does it have a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Here via rm, and I voted Midwest for the same reason - folks from there are called Midwesterners, ergo, they are from the midwest.

That it was dubbed the "midwest" when the country was half the size it is now is beside the point IMO.

[contrarywise]

I think of Ohio as East but not East Coast. I haven't spent enough time there to have any idea how I'd classify it culturally.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

This. Although I'll note I've met people from Ohio and wouldn't consider them New Englanders.

EDIT: I meant East Coasters, though I certainly wouldn't consider them New Englanders either!

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Nebraska, I thought I was in the Midwest and Ohio was in the East. After I moved to upstate NY, I gradually became convinced that I'd grown up in the Great Plains and the Midwest started considerably further east than I realized. Now I think of Ohio as being the eastern edge of the Midwest.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of the answer to this question does seem to depend on where you're looking at it from.

Great Lakes Region

[batkonehat.livejournal.com]

I chose Midwest because that is what I would say to outsiders. I grew up outside of Cleveland and usually think about it as part of the Great Lakes region. Snow Belt someone said upstream is used too, but only with insiders I think. Both Snow Belt and Great Lakes Region kinda exclude the rest of the state, but then I think that taps into the divide/competition between the Cleveland environs and Cincinnati which seems like a different world.

Re: Great Lakes Region

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of the answer to this question really does depend on which part of the state you're talking about.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

It's not East Coast, although parts of it (Cleveland, Cincinnati) wish it were.

It's definitely not Midwest, but I have really strong opinions about what is Midwest, since I was born in Missouri and lived in Kansas most of my adult life until I moved to Canada.

I'd say, like a lot of the eastern border of the Midwest, it's sort of its own thing. (I also don't think Minnesota is Midwest--Minnesota is upper Midwest.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, it seems like the right answer might be "something in between".

[rax.livejournal.com]

(Also here via rm.)

I have a good friend from Ohio (well, sort of) who claims that Ohio is not the Midwest, but a "plains state." I disagree, but that's another possibility, perhaps?

Personally, I've lived in New England, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and I'd say Ohio (where I work, and thus spend time pretty frequently) is more like Indiana and Wisconsin than like anywhere I've been on the East Coast. But this may have more to do with city/exurb distinctions, too, I dunno.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

Haha, Ohio wishes it were a plains state. XD

[tantra-cat.livejournal.com]

I've lived in DC and I now live in Ohio...The culture is definitely midwest...though things do move at faster clip here than say...Louisville, which is only an hour and half away. Louisville is still midwest geographically, but they operate like the South...However, they are much more progressive than Cincinnati....Go figure.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Louisville; that's interesting!

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

I said Midwest, though I will freely grant that it is less Midwest than where I grew up in Oklahoma. Although people can't agree what Oklahoma is, either, so I'm probably not the most solid basis of comparison.

Mostly I feel like it's closer to Chicago than NYC, in a not necessarily exclusively geographic way, and that is what I hinged my answer on.

Unhelpful rambling answer is unhelpful.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

Mostly I feel like it's closer to Chicago than NYC, in a not necessarily exclusively geographic way, and that is what I hinged my answer on.

this

[thepyromanical1.livejournal.com]

Maybe we could compromise and call it the Mideast? :D

I'd definitely classify it Midwest before East Coast, though.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee, I like that compromise.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

It's East Coast penumbra. It's on the other side of the Appalachians/Adirondacks, which is my psychic dividing line between true East Coast and, as it were, Greater East Coast.

But it's not the Midwest, which starts in Indiana or maybe even Iowa. Really the region needs its own designation, Northeast Central or something: it would have parts of Michigan in it too.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee, I love "Greater East Coast". I may adopt that definition.

[tempestteapot.livejournal.com]

I'm from Minnesota, and it was always grouped in with the "Midwest states".

[pineapplechild.livejournal.com]

Me too, and the same, but if we're breaking down the cultural lines, I'd consider Minnesota "Great Lakes" before I'd go Midwest, so I don't know what to do about Ohio.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Cass is from western Ohio, and I lived there for several years. Culturally, I'd say it's a divided state. Western Ohio is Midwest, eastern Ohio is East, but not East Coast.

Geographically, it seems to depend on where you're from. To Cass, it's Midwest, and the divide between East and West is the Mississippi River. To Señor, who's from Utah, and to me (born in Oregon), the divide is the Rockies. It wouldn't surprise me to hear an East Coaster considers it more West.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

For me , in Western Canada, the west is all but the floppy bit of Manitoba, all the way to the Pacific or Better Ocean.
The Rockies mark the edge of the middle part.

So BC is the far West, Alberta & Saskatchewan are the Midwest, Manitoba is the almost but not quite east West,save for the Easty bit, everything else is The East, save for the part of the east that is actually in the Atlantic, which is The Atlantic.

If you can drive to the ocean in 28 hours, you are on the East Coast.

Parts of the U.S. south of us belong to the same places they would if they had a King.

[lordlnyc.livejournal.com]

(Also here via rm)


Well per the Census Bureau Ohio is in the Midwest and per this map you could
use "East North Central"
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Good idea!

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

Here via rm

It's the Midwest. I've always grouped it all the other Midwestern states -- Indiana, Illinois, etc.

In no way would I ever consider it the East. When somebody says "East", I automatically think of all the states on the Eastern seaboard.

[kuangning]

I spent a year in Toledo, but have spent the rest of my teens and adult life in NY, NC, and FL. Ohio is not East Coast, though it may be less Midwest than other places.

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

I, too, have spent several years living in Ohio and even more on the East Coast, and Ohio is definitely not the East Coast to me.

[sqwook.livejournal.com]

I'm originally from MI, and MI is midwest, and I consider OH to be, too. (Culturally). Geographically, you can get around this by grouping MI, OH, WI, IN, IL, MN as Great Lakes.

[sqwook.livejournal.com]

ETA: Oh shoot. I just looked at the results and see that your side of the discussion is the east coast side, and so far you're the only person who has voted for that option in your own journal, so I feel a little bad.

So I will say this: One way that Michigan at least (don't have as much knowledge about Ohio but we could extrapolate that it would likely be similar) can be considered east is in its voting/political views. I find that there are many more people who believe in social liberalism, which is an east-coast thing culturally. Well, a coast thing, I guess. I now live in the west (AZ) and it's a different world out here. (Tangent, CA is not in "the west", culturally.) OH & MI both have been shifting more to the right politically over the past 8-16 years, but before this change they seemed to generally align w/the east.

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm from Iowa, and I've always thought Ohio was the Midwest. But sort of suspiciously so, like they've been contaminated by their proximity to the Atlantic or something. :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Great Lakes region. I live in Michigan, west of any part of Ohio (ETA: and also in the Eastern timezone), and I definitely do not live in the Midwest.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting. What does Great Lakes region mean to you, other than the obvious geographical definition?

[snufflesdbear.livejournal.com]

Sorry, still getting over the bout of LOL over "cultural" and "Ohio" in the same sentence.
Since I am surrounded by redneck, everyone is related somehow or other and the WalMart is the big store to go to, I hope you understand. I think of it as neither place. I like someone's "eastern midwest" idea.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I suppose it depends on what part of the state you're in! I always lived in Columbus, and have spent very little time in the rural parts of the state.