In Defense of the Midwest • Hacker News Board

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#121

Post by kelnos » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 8:46 AM UTC

I'm getting a bit weary of people putting down others for where they live, while glorifying their own choices.

Guess what? It's just a location. Everyone has different tastes and different priorities. Some people are happy with where they live and wouldn't consider living anywhere else. Others wish they could move somewhere else where the pace of life is different -- slower or faster. Some people want a big house and plot of land. Others don't want to deal with the hassles of home ownership and like renting a modestly sized apartment.

Why do we feel the need to keep arguing this? Just let people live where they want to live, and stop wasting time evangelizing any particular city. No one needs to justify their city of choice.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#122

Post by chaostheory » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:00 AM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #44

I think the main reason the author prefers the midwest is because he was raised there. Property values and migration flows attest to people generally preferring the coasts. I've lived in a lot of places: The UK, Alabama, Illinois (for a short time), Guam, Washington, New York, and California. Not having a home town, I think I'm better positioned to evaluate these places. My least favorite region is the south, followe…

> The reason is simple: overt racism. Nowhere else have I seen such blatant and hateful discrimination

I'm not white, and I've lived in the South for most of my life. From my experience, the South is less racist than either the West Coast or East Coast. Why? Because minorities are forced to hang out with people that aren't their own ethnic group. When this happens the larger ethnic groups become familiar with your own ethnic group as well as some of the culture that comes with it. Conversely in the larger metros in both the East and West coasts, this seems to happen a lot less often because there are enough ethnic minorities here so that there's a lot less mixing socially. Consequently, I've actually been the subject of inadvertent racism in the Bay Area at work. There wasn't any malice behind it, just ignorance, but it was really unpleasant and that would be inconceivable in a Southern metro (from my experience).

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#123

Post by chaostheory » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:07 AM UTC

bglazer wrote: post #9

I live in Memphis TN and I've found that comments on HN towards the middle of the US are skewed negative. Perhaps I have a bias for remembering negative comments. Nonetheless, I find this attitude perplexing from the HN crowd. I understand the value of physical proximity to lots of other like minded, smart people. However, I would have thought that the tech crowd would be the first to decry the inefficiencies of havi…

I lived in the South longer than I've lived in the Bay Area and I can tell you why I feel that the Bay Area's culture is better for technology (this goes for the midwest as well).

In many places like the South (and Mid-West), most people tend to say variants of "Why?", "That's stupid", "That's crazy"; when you tell them what ridiculous, nonsensical or seemingly useless thing you want to build. Here in Bay Area more people say, "Why not? That sounds fun." and they either help you build it or fund it. Yeah a lot of times the things built here are crazy and make no sense... but sometimes, sometimes you end up with a Google.

Of course I could be wrong, since places like Atlanta have institutions like Georgia Tech. Maybe things have changed (or will change) like in New York? ...but I haven't seen strong evidence of that yet.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#124

Post by hueving » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:13 AM UTC

meritt wrote: post #56

msutherl wrote: post #24

(1) Cleveland gets all the Broadway shows once they go off Broadway, but at about half the cost, (2) We have great music here, including the world-renowned Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and tons of bands come through, (3) We have some great sports teams (hi, OSU) and a ton of great sports fans (hi, Browns fans), (4) We have great food at very affordable prices Yes, exactly. As someone who lives in New York, this is the v…

Nobody gives a fuck about you, nor your hipster definition of culture.

He is from New York, and therefore immune to that type of response. Regardless of any argument you can come up with, the typical NY fanatic will brush it off as uninformed word diarrhea coming from the scum not smart enough to live there.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#125

Post by Ollinson » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:14 AM UTC

STRML wrote: post #120

Ollinson wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subway makes the culture in NYC different than almost any other major city in the US. If you lived in NYC maybe you understand. In other cities you can get around with public transportation, in NYC it's unquestionably the way to get around by everyone from day laborers to movie stars. Also, your narrative of grittiness is very different than the other popular narrative, that NYC is now "disney" full of tourists,…

Have you been to other cities with underground metro lines? The NYC subway is the dirtiest, noisiest, most claustrophobic metro system I've ever used; it even gives London a run for its money. There are other great cities out there. Many of them do things differently, and do quite well at it. Try Hong Kong or Singapore's underground, or in Europe, Vienna's - even the ones in China are cleaner and easier to navigate.…

Notice how I qualified my statement by saying in the US.

I'm perfectly open to criticism of the subway compared to other countries more modern systems. As it stands though, for a person with only a US passport, the NYC subway is in a class of its own. On a global scale it is still one of the largest underground systems.

I was born in NYC and have also traveled extensively internationally. Foreigners and transplants often have this misconception that NYC = Manhattan. If I shared that sentiment then I would agree that NYC is not the greatest place to live. Try spending an afternoon in Astoria, Queens or Williamsburg, Brooklyn (two of the most trendy places in NYC at the moment but they work to prove the point). Tourists rarely see these places but residents live comfortable lives there with literally a 5 minute commute to the city.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#126

Post by hueving » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:17 AM UTC

ChainsawSurgery wrote: post #74

joelrunyon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a guy has not lived round the world before deciding Ohio is the best place to live, then it's not a very convincing argument. I would venture to guess that you haven't been to Ohio. I'm not claiming that it's an epicenter of amazingness, but I can count at least one person that's decided that's the case (Dave Chappelle).

I'd say that's heavily biased by the fact that Chappelle spent lots of time growing up in Ohio (and specifically Yellow Springs). Lots of people have seemingly irrationally strong attachments to their hometowns - not quite the same as randomly stumbling upon OKC and deciding it's what you've wanted all along, you know? And Chappelle's probably not the greatest example, since he very famously got fed up with his celeb…

>Lots of people have seemingly irrationally strong attachments to their hometowns

Nobody with a modicum of intelligence thinks that is irrational. Of course people are going to have strong attachments to a place where they spent a major portion of their childhood making memories and relationships.

The only seemingly irrational thing would be indifference. You don't spend 18 years in a place and not have any emotional reaction to it (good or bad).

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#127

Post by hueving » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:19 AM UTC

msutherl wrote: post #111

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is your idea of culture?

Artists, musicians, artisans, chefs, writers, cultural institutions, etc. producing new, non-derivative cultural products that address current issues, articulate forward-thinking ideas, or otherwise awaken, expand, deepen, and question our understanding of and relationship with the world and all its myriad facets.

And what important forward thinking ideas have exclusively come from NY recently? Skinny jeans?

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#128

Post by hueving » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:24 AM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #44

I think the main reason the author prefers the midwest is because he was raised there. Property values and migration flows attest to people generally preferring the coasts. I've lived in a lot of places: The UK, Alabama, Illinois (for a short time), Guam, Washington, New York, and California. Not having a home town, I think I'm better positioned to evaluate these places. My least favorite region is the south, followe…

Europe in general is pretty bad for bigotry along different divisions. The stuff people in the UK could get away with saying about immigrants and people in other countries was pretty disgusting.

Every country I've spent time in over there (France, UK, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany) seems to have a culture that accepts making blanket offensive statements about people from other countries (or religions in the case of the UK).

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#129

Post by hueving » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:28 AM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #31

When I think of the Midwest these days, I think of St Louis/Ferguson. I think of the price for housing and how it reflects demand . I live in Seattle, so my viewpoint is slightly different, but, eh. I used to live in a rural place, and I don't plan to go back, for a long time, if ever. Let me pick apart this article a bit, and demonstrate how skew these high points are from things I care about. * Housing cost. That's…

>I think of the price for housing and how it reflects demand.

You should think supply instead. San Francisco is quite small geographically. It doesn't take much demand to drive the prices quite high under those conditions. Most places in the Midwest can grow in any direction as necessary.

>* Broadway shows, okay. But wouldn't you rather be in a vibrant place where creation happens, than be the "second hand"? >* Same for music. Do you want to be in the place where creation happens, or a pit stop on the tour?

As someone involved in tech all of the time, I frankly don't care if I'm "where the creation happens", and most people I know don't. You don't have to be where art was originally made to enjoy it and to argue otherwise is pretty stupid.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#130

Post by wwweston » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #118

wwweston wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> start with the assumption that all computer programming can be done remotely, from China or India. Now ask yourself, what kind of computer programming can not be done remotely? Just about any kind of software development can be done remotely, really. It's really a function of the skills possessed by everyone involved in a distributed team vs the obstacles distribution may or may not present (and there's different d…

...though sometimes they strangely don't all want to invest in a slick social deals pyramid or revenue-free chat app or whatever else is hot at the moment... You can't argue with returns, and "slick" VC returns trump Smallville's every day of the week.

One "smallville" startup I worked for turned about $2M in investment into a $60M sale.

How'd Groupon's investors make out on their returns?