Brewed Fresh Daily

Frank Gruber

Culture means different things to different people. Whatever it means, the Midwest isn’t known for it. Motown may have changed the face of music forever, but the company also moved to L.A. when it wanted to expand. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a (widely derided) article about how Midwest food culture is so retro it’s still impossible to be a vegetarian here.

People often mentioned a lack of culture as something that sent them packing from the heartland in submissions to our Midwest Migration project.

But we’ve also heard from plenty of people who think the Midwest has culture to celebrate. Here’s a mash-up of those submissions. We’ve created a pretend conversation using the real words of some of the people we heard from.

Chris Molnar: I always wanted to leave the Midwest. Although I was raised in Iowa City, Iowa, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, I identified with the idea of the big coastal city. I knew that I would be accepted there for who I am, someone craving culture and rejecting homogeneous provincialism.

Chris O’Neill: Over the course of my 20 year career in banking, I’ve relocated now eleven times, three of which brought me to the Chicagoland area.  The quality of life and the cultural offerings provided by the city is hard to find elsewhere.  Not to put down my new home of Dallas, but it’s certainly no Chicago.

Chris Molnar: I worked for three months, six days a week, at a factory which manufactured brake shoes for semi-trucks. I took a Greyhound to New York when I had saved $5,000. I didn’t care what job I got – I just wanted to be young and bohemian. But I’ve found a series of increasingly satisfying jobs. I love my solitude and the grimy greatness of New York City. It is a haven for all, where people are brought together by their aspirations, not because they were born there or found larger places anxiety-inducing.

Jamie Dorman: I miss Fourth of July parades, church picnics, little antique shops, and the sense that you’d better get along with the neighbors you have instead of finding a self-reinforcing community of sameness.

Chris M: I will never go back, and even visiting the Midwest makes me extremely uncomfortable, seeing how quickly the unchanging mediocrity and faceless strip malls can swallow you up and turn you into the exact replica of those around you. Here, I don’t have to work in factories in order to write in my spare time. I don’t have to drive three hours for Chicago or Detroit’s meager culture. I don’t have to filter my opinion through dominant religious or ethnic groups. New York City is the American Dream, and I invite everyone to move here.

Kaila Frymire: Minneapolis and Chicago in particular have extremely strong arts communities that rival those of Boston and New York in some aspects. There are a lot of original ideas coming out of Minneapolis. Many top-notch artists who have worked in NYC, LA, and overseas have returned to the Midwest to produce their own projects.

For me, the Midwest has the best of all worlds – reasonable cost of living, a strong arts community, great healthcare, friendly people, a beautiful natural habitat, and a general pleasant atmosphere.