As a Pacific Northwesterner, having traveled on occasion to the Great Lakes region, I have always felt more at home and that I fit in more in the Great Lakes and Midwest than I do on either of the Coasts. I am way too direct of a communicator and attracted to cities (as opposed to nature) for the West Coast and too much of a work to live guy for the East Coast.
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New York and LA are just bigger cities than Chicago etc, and the majority of the country lives in states that border the ocean/gulf coasts, not the great lake region.
i don’t know. the great lakes are beyond underrated and the best part of this country.
maybe winters keep people away? or people don’t actually understand just how big the lakes are. people talk about them like they are “lakes” but they are really inland seas.
with amazing nature, islands, towns and culture.
but maybe it’s best that they stay a little “underrated”.
Mediocre Lakes just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Think of the cities on the west and east coasts and what draws people to them: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and a slew of others. All of those have a common perception of being thriving centers for culture, entertainment, and business.
Now think of those cities on the Great Lakes: Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Duluth, Buffalo. These are all fine cities in their own ways, but aside from Chicago, Toronto, and Detroit if you’re feeling generous, these are all seen as shells of their former selves without much going on. A lot of that perception is pretty unfair, and I personally prefer these smaller cities to those on the coasts, but that’s the way most of the country sees them.
Recently I e heard Michigan referred to as “ a climate haven “ I assume this will bring more and more positive attention to the beauty of the Great Lakes region .
I think it is paradise
Because they never developed a major media industry, both coasts did. Same reason NYC specifically is so overwhelmingly represented compared to the rest of the east coast, and LA does the same on the west. Those two in particular are where the creators are concentrated.
Well, a lot of the US Great Lakes cities have gone down a bit since the glory days. There’s still a lot of cool places/cities in the region.
No idea why Chicago doesn’t get more attention. I suppose the cold weather, given that we’ve seen a migration pattern towards the warmer zones in the USA and away from the colder zones.
I guess Chicago just does not currently have the popular mindshare of the warmer regions right now. Well, that and it’s gained a lot of attention in recent years for the violence, but that’s a tricky topic.
Definitely should be hyping up the region more though. I personally don’t really get along great with the culture out there, but the region has some great things to offer.
I’m a bit biased, but I’d definitely choose to move to Chicago over Texas or most places in the Southern US any day of the week.
Because winter.
Having grown up near Lake Erie…winters can be absolutely horrendous if you’re not used to them. But summer days (that aren’t too humid) and autumn are absolutely gorgeous. NW Pennsylvania and southern New York is great if you like to do outdoorsy stuff. There’s also some interesting historical places.
It’s super cold and there’s no surfing. Try going there in March. You’ll freeze to death!
Also, it’s not the ocean.
>too much of a work to live guy for the East Coast.
Never been to NH or Maine then huh?
I don’t mind if it keeps tourists down in Chicago
Most culture and media originates on the coasts, in New York and Los Angeles… the Great Lakes are our great little secret. Don’t tell people, because I love that Chicago offers 90% of what New York does at 1/2 the housing costs.
It’s the Rust Belt. It snows a lot. We have thunderstorms. We get tornados. There are lots of MAGA-type people.
I’m from Chicago, and the “Third Coast” gets thrown around sometimes, but yes, some areas are very beautiful that don’t get enough credit. Door County is fairly well know, but the U.P. (Upper peninsula of Michigan) can be very picturesque.
Cause it sucks
Source: i live here
Partially the lack of a major media producing city, partially because the Great Lakes region has a cultural habit of not touting itself. We don’t care about popularity, and we don’t want to become overrun with douches.
MidWest born and raised here, who lived on the East coast for 10 years before moving back. The MidWest does not get the appreciation it deserves! My East Coast born and raised husband absolutely loves it here. Too many people shit on the MidWest without having any concept of what the area or people are like. They think it’s all corn fields.
Because we don’t want the rest of the world to know what percent of the worlds remaining fresh water we have. I will go full on militia if western states or foreign countries try to buy up our lake water.
Northern Michigan, the UP, Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota Great Lake coast lines are hidden gems out there. I’m sure other parts of the Great Lakes east from me are good as well, I haven’t explored that area yet. But in the winter it can get brutally cold, especially with that frigid dampness in the air, you’ll feel it in your bones.
Surfing and dolphins? Although…we sometimes have surfing too
I will say that, growing up in California, it felt to me (I haven’t done a statistical analysis of them) that TV shows and such were almost always set in what I perceived as “normal places” like Michigan and only rarely in California. I even had a sort of informal list of the characteristics of a “normal place” in my mind: enclosed, multi-story schools, regular snow in winter, strong support for the area’s sports teams, a culture of neighbors knowing each other and interacting with some regularity, and so on. None of these seemed to apply to the area/ neighborhood where I grew up, but always seemed to apply on TV.
I actually remember asking my mom why they don’t make a lot of tv shows in California, and her being a bit shocked and saying most are probably made here. I realize now they were probably being filmed here but set elsewhere.
If you’re talking about the “east coast vs west coast” rivalry thing, part of the point is excluding the middle
Overall, though, I’m not sure they really get less attention. Your post description also seems a little stereotypical. There are plenty of big cities in the west coast and people who work to live in the east coast, as well as in the middle. The Midwest isn’t as much of a Mecca for relaxation as you’d think.
As a woman living along Lake Erie in Michigan, I wonder too… I grew up on Lake Michigan. Love my state. Love the lakes..
It’s not a coast, it’s a lake. It’s also a hidden gem. Let’s keep it a secret before Californians find out about it.
The Great Lakes region is actually a bigger megalopolis than the two coasts.
Gordon Lightfoot wrote the last great shipwreck ballad and no one else wanted to try and top it.
The southern/gulf coast also exists but was seemingly forgotten in this question, yet you ask about the lakes?
Beaches trump other bodies of water!
I don’t think people realize how big they are because they’re lakes. They’re so big that they have islands on them with towns where people live. Even when standing on the long side of them, you can’t see across them. Lake Erie is about 57 miles wide. That’s wider than the distance from DC to Baltimore for reference. If you tried to put a bridge across it, you’d be driving for at least a good 30 or 40 before you got to Canada.
Fuck the great lakes. The finger lakes are where it’s at