i moved to the midwest from the san fran bay area. i could not have imagined it. people from the coast think they know but they dont know. coastal people have absolutely no idea about the midwest. like this guy says, if you tell a coastie some midwestern city or state they just stare blankly. two minutes later they will refer to your city/state again but mix it up with some other cliche midwestern city/state.

the experience of living in this place and sharing a house with natives has been mind bending. i have been to a dozen countries and these people are less like me than any other people i have met. it really makes you see how there are so many things that we take for granted that are really totally invaluable triumphs of cultural curation and accumulation. there are sensibilities that simply dont exist here and you didnt even realize that these things were sensibilities at all or that a person could not have them. there are so many gears and cogs that are essential to a good quality of life and a civilized standard of living that are invisible and whos names arent in the lexicon. to see a place like this is to see those pieces finally, through their absence. i really believe that raising a child in the midwest is form of child abuse.

many of these places are in need of nothing besides more intelligent people. they just suffer from poor planning, a lack of intellectual rigor within public institutions... if a bunch of coastal people would just come back then these midwestern cities would be the best cities in the country without a doubt. but its still a great choice if you just want an affordable place to escape to that has a functional economy/society.