Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
The Midwest Mindset
A previous posting on attitudes towards change in the Midwest prompted commenter “pete-rock” to email me regarding Michigan football. According to pete:
The University of Michigan Wolverines have since the early 1900s been a dominant team on the college football scene. The legendary coach Bo Schembechler took over the team in 1969 and, while he did not win any national championships during his 20 years there, he did lead them through another particularly dominant and popular era. His teams had a very physical and straight-forward style that basically told opponents, “even if you know what we’re going to do, you can’t stop us.” He always emphasized his talent and power advantage over opponents when possible. After he retired in 1989, he was followed by coaching protégés (Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr) who continued to coach in more or less the same fashion.Here’s where the “Midwest Mindset” analogy kicks in. Michigan did win a national championship in 1997, but then began a subtle decline over the next 10 years. Why? Many Michigan fans were saying that the game was changing, and the team and coach Lloyd Carr were not adapting to it. Over the last ten years there has been a greater emphasis on player speed in the college game, and less so on size and strength. An emphasis on spread offenses that create mismatches on the field. An emphasis on speedy defensive players that can get to where you want to go before you do. Yet, Michigan was continuing to play the same old way, with steadily diminishing results.
Coach Lloyd Carr retired after the end of the 2007 season. Michigan replaced him with Rich Rodriguez, a far younger coach who had plenty of success implementing a spread offense and fast defense at West Virginia University. Rodriguez implemented his system for the 2008 season, with disastrous results – a 3-9 record, and the first losing season at Michigan since 1967. Rodriguez has been given somewhat of a pass so far, in part because his system was not a good fit for the players he had. He has maintained that once he gets players that fit his system, the results will be better. However, Rodriguez has taken some flak from fans, casual observers and the media for uprooting/disrupting school traditions (one player transferred to uber-rival Ohio State and said Michigan was getting away from its “family values”).
There is some anxiety among U-M fans. Can Michigan succeed with a system that is quite possibly the polar opposite of the template for success that’s been passed down for four decades? If not, can Michigan ever again return to glory? If so, then what does that mean about the way we used to play? I’m sure there is plenty here to explore how the “Midwest Mindset” is coming into conflict with changes to big-time college football.
This reminds me a great deal of Indiana University basketball in the post-Bob Knight era. Knight won three national championship with a style built around team basketball, aggressive man to man defense, and the motion offense – not that dissimilar to Schembechler’s Michigan Way. He also maintained a squeaky clean program when it came to compliance with NCAA rules, and his players had excellent graduation rates. Knight was fiercely loyal to his players long after they were gone, and despite his famous antics and tirades, they were loyal to him in return.
But after then 1987 national championship, the Knight style lost its touch. His teams won games, but struggled in the NCAA tournament. It became more difficult for him to recruit. And as his record deteriorated, he became more vulnerable to consequences for his antics, and was eventually fired.
Knight was replaced with assistant coach Mike Davis, who took the team on a run deep to the title game in the NCAA tournament. This got him a contract. But Davis was a rookie head coach. I think it was a profound disservice to a good guy to put him into that pressure cooker environment. Had he been able to gain experience elsewhere for a while, the same way Knight did at Army, I think he could have been a great top program coach one day. Unfortunately, he was put into that role too soon, and at an impossibly time for anyone really, eventually cracked under the pressure, then left. He was replaced with Kelvin Sampson, a questionable hire who trashed the reputation of the university and its basketball program with his sleazy behavior. Now a new head coach, Tom Crean, has taken over, and we’ll see where that leads. Crean had a disastrous record in his first season with a decimated squad of players.
These declines are noteworthy because they are as much a spiritual crisis as a success crisis. Just like the failure of the Midwest. The old Michigan and IU programs didn’t just win, they won in a style and manner that perfectly fit the character of their state and fans, and which those fans deeply believed was “right way to win”. Now that right way no longer seems to lead to success. But the new ways aren’t embraced, and indeed the transition to new styles and new regimes have been painful and frankly not yet produced results. Both teams have fans looking back to a better era when the world seemed to work like it should and the good guys won.
It is a metaphor for the Midwest economy generally. The agro-industrial economy of the Midwest wasn’t just jobs and economic success, it was a way of life that people embraced and believed was the right way to do business. Financial gimmicks, offshoring, breaking the jobs for life contract, etc. are not just hurting the Midwest, they are viewed as fundmentally wrong. The change in the globalized isn’t just a technical change to be managed to, but a moral affront.
Again, we see various attempts at reinvention, but never totally embraced and none yet showing the results we are promised – at least certainly not for the vast bulk of Midwesterners.
Nostalgia we’ll always have with us, and I’m not totally immune myself. I still think high school class basketball in Indiana is a betrayal. And I say that as someone who came from a graduating class of 50 people. I would rather have won the sectional back in the day, than the state title in a diminished modern era. Bo Schembechler and Bob Knight were giants, legends in their own day, and among the last of that generation of larger than life coaches. Only the octogenarian Joe Paterno clings on at Penn State. It is the passing of an era, and a lot of goodness has been lost.
Maybe if the Michigan and IU can find a way to reinvent themselves on in the athletic arena, the Midwest can figure out how to recreate itself generally. In the meantime, one can look to the way they approach sports to catch a glimpse of the Midwest mindset and dilemma.
On a related note, reader Ironwood sent me this gem:
My long-held hypothesis is that the Midwest constitutes quite probably the most engaged, critical audience for what the coasts generate. If only because we in the midwest tend to LISTEN. Which, as our dads always told us growing up, you can’t listen while your mouth is flapping. A generalization, of course; I’m talking about a segment of the Midwest. But that segment benefits from a little distance from the creative hotbeds, and gives us an irony and perspective missing from the some of the very, very busy, self-absorbed coastal people. This is the double-edged quality of the Midwestern mindset, I guess. The ability to point out that the emperor has no clothes, the absence of self-importance, the humor that can deflate the silliness and grandiosity of a Chelsea gallery owner — nudge it a millimeter and you’ve got defeatism, lack of confidence, phobia about looking foolish, thinking small, not taking risks. All crystallized in that most lethal expression: “Who do you think you ARE?”
Words to think about.
Share on Facebook
Email This
Tweet ThisTelestrian Data Terminal
A production of the Urbanophile, Telestrian is the fastest, easiest, and best way to access public data about cities and regions, with totally unique features like the ability to create thematic maps with no technical knowledge and easy to use place to place migration data. It's a great way to support the Urbanophile, but more importantly it can save you tons of time and deliver huge value and capabilities to you and your organization.
About the Urbanophile
Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive and find sustainable success in the 21st century.
Contact
Please email before connecting with me on LinkedIn if we don't already know each other.
Urbanophile in the News
The Wall Street Journal: New York City Explores Private Deal for Meters
The Washington Post: Will the exurbs ever make a comeback?
The New York Times: Are Some Buildings Too Ugly to Survive?
The Washington Post: Is DC Becoming America's True Second City?
Richard Florida/Atlantic Cities: Why Some Cities Lose When Others Win
Twitter Feed
RT @Diggingpitt: It's not just that debt matters. Return on capital matters, or one never gets the money back.
Polis: A Tale of Two Technology Cities - http://t.co/xKWv6FOA
WSJ: Competing Agendas Push Back East Side Access Project - http://t.co/rSo3DKFC #nyc
Latest blog post: New York City Considers Parking Meter Privatization - http://t.co/P4bDmyr7
Spike Japan: The End of the Line? - http://t.co/G3Q8mskI
National Blogroll
- A Daily Dose of Architecture
- Atlantic Cities
- BLDGBLOG
- CEO's for Cities
- City Ledes
- Cogito Urbanus
- EconoMetro
- Economics of Place
- Everybody Walk
- GOOD
- Human Transit
- Kaid Benfield
- Mammoth
- Market Urbanism
- MetroTrends
- New Geography
- Next American City
- NYU Rudin Center Blog
- Pedestrian Observation
- Places: Design Observer
- Planetizen
- Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space
- Shareable
- Steven Can Plan
- Streetsblog
- The Architect's Newspaper
- The Avenue / Brookings
- The Corner Side Yard
- The Heidelberger Papers
- The Overhead Wire
- The Transport Politic
- Urban Omnibus
- urbanOut
- Where
World Blogroll
Midwest Blogroll
- ArchitectureChicago PLUS
- Bill Testa Midwest Economy
- BlogKC
- Brewed Fresh Daily (Cleveland)
- Broken Sidewalk (Louisville)
- Buffalo Rising
- Burgh Diaspora (Pittsburgh)
- Cityscapes / Blair Kamin
- Columbus Underground
- Detroit Blog
- DiggingPitt
- Global Midwest
- Grid Chicago
- I Will Shout Youngstown
- Milwaukee Talkie
- nextStL
- Property Lines (Indy)
- Rust Wire
- Twin City Sidewalks
- Urban Indy
- Urban Milwaukee
- UrbanCincy
- VanishingSTL
Great insight as always. The period the midwest is nostalgic for is only a short time removed from the current one. At the outset of this era I recall the cries for a shift to the FIRE economy in the late 1970s ( Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) and it worked for a while. But what we are witnessing now is no less than the false promise of the various new economies that have come and gone. Maybe our fathers had it right after all? No doubt the new economies have offered advanced opportunities in medical and financial fields and have special transformative power for older decaying urban areas, but I personally think we should'nt surrender to the forces of globalization so easily, but as someone posted in another thread, become a "controler" of the flows of power that define the trade landscape and rules of fair play throughout the globe. If we cant compete with a place that runs a fast offense via neglecting their pollution responsibilities, fair wage laws and international tarrifs, why should we be playing in the same league anyways? Aren't we better than that and shouldn't we as Americans set the standard? A saying my old man always said was "hang out with sh*t you'll smell like it". Maybe those old timers knew something about the world we dont.
Thanks for writing this blog it's possibly one of the most interesting out there.
marko, thanks for sharing – and for the nice words.
marko, I would agree that trend hopping is probably not the answer. But fighting globalization? I'm not sure that's a battle the Midwest can win. Certainly, it doesn't have to try conventional responses and can try to come up with strategies for controlling the flows as you might say. Maybe water, for example, gives the Midwest an opportunity to turn the tables. But I don't see us ever being able to recapture that previous era. You can never go home again, alas.
Heck, the midwest can't even beat Arkansas, let alone globalization, when it comes to jobs
marko is right, of course, in that the economic policies pursued by the US government since the seventies has been hard on the working class (and increasingly the middle class). Keep in mind that real wages throughout the United States, not just the Midwest, have stagnated since the 1970s (for everybody except the rich, that is.). The policies responsible for this, including "globalization", were made by the rich and for the rich, so that isn't surprising.
It is a cruel irony, though, in that states like Michigan and Ohio were bastions of the "Reagan Democrats", the Reagan administration being when the war on the working class gathered a head of steam. You can still see the Reagan mentality in Midwest governments. In Michigan, for instance, the legislature would rather let its roads deteriorate (it will be forgoing $740 million in deperately-needed federal highway funds, because they can't come up with the 20% match) and revoke scholarships from Michigan students than raise taxes on the rich. I understand some people think raising taxes during a recession is bad, but cutting government services is undoubtably worse.
There's probably nothing that the Midwest alone can do to reverse this, though. Trying to "fit in" with the new order, though, by destroying unions, lowering wages, and generaly eroding workers' rights to favor the upper class, won't really improve anybody's life.
I don't think Ironwood is right. As far as I can tell, the main audience for the culture that's generated in the gentrified neighborhoods of Brooklyn is in more established upper-class neighborhoods in Manhattan.
The comment about Midwest irony is something others have noticed. At the pop culture level the Midwest has produced a number of ironic comedians:
Bob Newhart, Johnny Carson, Martin Mull, David Letterman, and (if you can consider him ironic and a comedian) Garrison Keilor.
This is sort of contrary to the stereotype of the literal-minded Midwesterner.
I don't think it's "critical distance" or anything of the sort–it's just "critical" of the coasts. The coasts are dynamic, changing, and the midwest for all intents and purposes is not. The aversion to change even seems to manifest itself in a willful ignorance of anything deemed too "foreign" or "exotic" simply because it is "out of the local norm."
The midwest can keep saying "no" to whatever creative, new ideas come from the coasts, and while some instances will allow the midwest to gloat over an impetuous trend adopted by the coasts, that doesn't negate the many instances where saying "no" wasn't the productive response and caused the midwest to lose out big.
One can reject many things under the guise of having a critical eye, but if new suggestions aren't proposed in place of the rejected ones, the net effect is that of an ornery toddler.
Can someone clarify what trends you are talking about? In business? What do midwestern companies not do that would have helped in the long run? Our car and steel companies lost out to foreign competitors, not coastal ones.
Technology? Do we insist on not buying the latest hardware or software for six months after release?
Fashion? Are we buying last years stuff at TJ Maxx for half price?
Do we prefer re-runs to never-before-seen episodes?
If its family/sexual norms then we're better off running in the opposite direction. I will be making substantial efforts to keep my kids away from the porn culture I saw in LA and the hard drug culture I saw in NYC. Fun for a few minutes, then it ruins your life.
The Detroit Lions were the first team to try the novel spread offense known as "run and shoot" in the NFL, though even with Barry Sanders they never went far in the playoffs.
I really don't know how much high level sports teams really reflect the spirit of a region. It's a simple tool where one can pick and choose facts to fit his impressions on the world, when one needs a narrative.
The Chicago Bears are historically a running team and much is made of this "tradition", but when they were winning with passing their fans were happy.
Just an aside: this blog is REALLY GREEN, Aaron.
Also a bit hard to read, even on a high-res screen.
Thundermutt: I think it's about solidarity with the Iranian protesters. I approve.
Re: “Midwest Mindset:”
It’s a subtle, elusive, subtle combination of attitudes, beliefs, values, emotional reactions, traditions. It’s subtle, because some of the ingredients are shared by other parts of the country. (Which is, I think, what Alon Levy is getting at in his post here and in a previous post, when he describes east coast attitudes.) It’s elusive, because it often exhibits itself situationally, and not everyone in the Midwest shares it. So it’s easy to find exceptions.
But it’s there, for better or for worse, just as surely as there is a Marin County attitude or a Southy attitude.
It’s there, like a flavor, an aroma and texture that lets us taste the differences in Irish stew, gumbo from a pot au feu or just a plain old vegetable soup. They have a lot of ingredients in common, but it's not just the ingredients; it's how fresh they are, their proportions, how long they're cooked.
As a transactional lawyer working in Chicago, I have often felt it – on the receiving end – when dealing with lawyers in Milwaukee, Indy, St. Louis. And on the giving end, when dealing with lawyers from NYC. In comparing notes with other lawyers, this is common, at both ends.
The Midwestern mindset is what makes Garrison Keilor’s stories so pointedly funny.
The Midwest mindset is what Sinclair Lewis was describing in “Main St.,” and, more recently what Jonathan Franzen was describing in “The Corrections.”
This concept can be over-emphasized and over-analyzed. It doesn’t explain everything; sometimes it explains nothing. It’s just one factor among many. Depending on the circumstances, it can be central or peripheral. It’s just another piece of the puzzle we’re collectively trying to assemble on this blog.
The Corrections is, more than anything, about New York, and its self-absorbed superiority. Iowa is just a placeholder there for mediocrity; even Philadelphia is not good enough for Franzen's odious characters. It's a book written by a resident of Park Slope, which is Brooklyn's most gentrified and snooty neighborhood, for residents of the Upper West Side. It's not intended for Midwesterners any more than a minstrel show's intended for black people.
If you are looking at sports analogies, you could also point to Ohio State football. What is interesting about Jim Tressel's teams is while they will look like a traditional midwest fottball power team on the surface, the subtleties of the team changes from year to year to reflect the personnel and experience of the players. I think this is akin to the Midwesterner's scrapper attitude. Also there is Michigan State basketball which kind of fits the fundamental steady progression mindset. Izzo's teams never seem too concerned about other teams buzzing up and down the polls during the season, but they are always poised to make a deep run in the tournament. This can analogous to the Midwesterner's mindset of knowing what is right and sticking to it.
But as others have pointed out, we can pick and chose all day long.
But to get to the larger topic, I think where Detroit missed is that they actually abandonded what they had been doing and allowed themselves to be seduced by trends in the financial sector and outsized lifestyles. It is interesting that it was the current Governor of trendy, innovative, try anything, California that really popularized the Hummer; a vehicle who's success was a key to the undoing of GM.
I think the two analogies are good ones. The Midwest Mentality has its positive side, precisely because I don't we believe our own hype, unlike what is more common on the coasts. Understanding our own insignificance leads to the ironic look at life that some have mentioned. This especially seems to be true if you're from the Upper Midwest, because when you live in an icebox for 4 months, it makes you a bit wacky.
But as Aaron adds, it also leads to a mentality that can lead people to be stuck in ruts. Particularly in non-Chicago cities, there is far too often a "we've always done it this way" type of mentality that might not reflect the reality and tools that an area has. I'm no fan of the way Bob Knight acts, but I think the bigger problem he had at IU is that the recruiting game had changed in such a way that players felt they needed a school to be their ticket to the NBA- winning games was not enough. This wasn't acceptable to Coach Knight, so he continued to do it "his way", and IU became mediocre his last 7 years. While Coach Knight may have been feeling he was being honorable, the results tell you that it wasn't working. But many people didn't care as long as the guy in the red sweater was making his sort of stand in the doorway against the new era of college basketball.
Lots of mid-size Midwestern cities are provinicial places with a shurgging acceptance of "the way things should be." There needs to be more dynamic leaders in these cities with the vision to see the way things can be, and enough citizens with the guts to understand that asking for new approaches is not selling out the special things that makes Milwaukee or Cleveland the unique places that you take pride in. It's merely making those special things even better and accessible for a wider audience, because now this is a city that acts like it's going somewhere, instead of muddling through. And it means acknowledging the things about your area that may not be so great, and tackle them, instead of ignoring them and running away to the suburbs.
Thanks for the comments, everybody.
And yes, I decided to "go green" today to show my support for democracy in Iran. Back to our regularly scheduled color scheme tomorrow.
Thanks for this post. Can we be comfortable in the unknown?
I am forced to comment on the Garrison Keillor reference, having spent more than one Sunday occasion in a Lutheran church basement eating casseroles and jello molds and drinking Lutheran Lightning (not moonshine…strong coffee from a huge pot that's never washed).
Keillor's is kind of like old-time Jewish humor: the people who get it most fully are the people most like the kind he describes (German or Scandinavian-American Lutherans). For us, it has a depth and richness that is unspoken. We laugh not just because it's funny, but because we all KNOW those characters. (Sometimes they are us.)
Keillor's humor started out being "for us and people like us" (no one else would get lutefisk jokes or references) but because the German-Americans and Scandinavian-Americans form the nucleus of the Midwestern agrarian culture, it has become a placeholder for that way of life in the broader popular culture.
It isn't just about mindset. That's only a small part of it.
Anonymous: The trends I'm referring to aren't restricted to a single category. Doesn't matter whether it has been in embracing scientific validity, social progression, civil rights, "going green" or any other arena–by and large, the midwest has largely earned its reputation for being stuck in the past and not part of the future.
Reliance on dirty industry, subsidies for long-time companies despite massive pollution, etc. have screwed the midwest in the globalizing society. "We don't want that" was the mantra 30 years ago, and an awful lot of manufacturing left town in those 30 years despite being "company towns" and giving away the farm to those companies.
The midwestern states will continue losing out until they can find ways to become desirable places to live, that people WANT to move there, not just because they have to due to work. The brain drain will end once this point is reached.
And most of all, the culture of suspicion of outsiders needs to end; how else will new residents feel welcome in a midwestern state when the judgment and suspicion of them is so great?
No one is forcing you to agree with coastal trends, but don't say "no" without trying it on for size. It's like someone saying "I don't like sushi" when they've never even tried it, and this unwillingness to explore the world, to experience something different from one's own culture, is a really large hurdle to attracting businesses and residents in this global village we live in today.
Crocodile – you are generalizing that the entire Midwest suffers from being 'stuck in its past'. That can be applied to every section of the US in one degree or another.
Quick adoption of trends from either coast would result in yet another section of the country that is soul-less and lives happily from fad to fad without putting any roots down (ok, so generalization about the coasts as well)
If you have actually lived in the Midwest or the South for any length of time you are entitled to your opinion based on that experience;if, however, it is based on occassional visits into fly over country or from what you have read or heard…then you are completely ignorant as to the people & place of that great expanse of land west of the Hudson and east of the 5
I guess my view is that the Midwest is generally conservative. Actually reactionary in that it would like to go back to the past. There are a large number of forward thinking people, but they lack the critical mass in most places to make an influence.
The observation on imitation of the coasts is correct. The Midwest can't just refuse to get with the times. Well, it can, but then it gets the inevitable follow-on to that. But it also can't just be a passive importer of ideas. It occasionally has to innovative and generate the ideas and trends as well.
What new idea has come from the Northeast lately?
I think it is fair to say most big ideas in arts, media, finance, and other fields originated on the coasts. The bulk of technology innovation as well.
Midwest Zeitgeist | 2009
Old Conservative = Mugged Liberal
New Liberal = Globalized Conservative
Carl, I like that one!
Thanks.
You know, I consider myself an independent, but generally support our Federal government and vote Democratic.
That said, right now our country needs a functional and conservative loyal opposition. Unfortunately, you could paint the voice of conservatism (Rush, Michael, Shaun, Bill, et al) with a big fat Nut Brush.
That's no help for the gainfully unemployed or those like myself who may soon be joining the ranks.
Many of the most significant recent innovations in finance and financial technology have been taking place in Chicago.
Same with 2 other huge innovations that seem to be reshaping the world: the mobile phone (Motorola) and global navigation (Navteq). Also, the beginnings of the Internet as we know it started at the University of Illinois. I don't think one can think of bigger innovations that have reshaped contemporary life more than those.
Just wait till the world's most powerful supercomputer is completed in Urbana, Ill–scheduled for 2012.
My point isn't to deny that the midwest is conservative and lacking in innovation–I totally agree with that. But each region of the country has its innovative regions, and not-so-innovative regions. Coastal regions just happen to be much larger nodes of innovation in sheer venture dollars than the midwest because of clustering, whereas Chicago is kind of the big powerhouse that has to fend for itself.
Finance and media aren't exactly the top performing industries right now…
Moving to some place "you want to live" is a luxury unique to the last few decades of human history. Before that, people moved where there was tillable land, transportation routes, and factories (which were placed on transportation routes).
To say the Midwest or the Northeast have to be "places people want to move again" is illogical. People have never wanted to move to Detroit. They went there for JOBS.
I'm not denying that we built nice neighborhoods or impressive skylines in the Midwest. These are important for attracting people now, but they weren't in 1910 or 1950. Industrial cities were dirty, smelly, noisy places that people flocked to by the millions.
As far as moving on from industrialization, that's great for those of us who hold degrees, but for the 3/4 of the adult population that doesn't, its like saying "give up your job for community progress!" What do we offer them in this grand future we're leading them to? Could it be that areas that have made the transition are the one where the educated elite have successfully imposed their will on the uneducated? Those of us who live among the uneducated need to learn how to thuroughly crush their aspirations and silence them. Then we'll have progress!
By the way, thank you Chicago and New York for Credit Default Swaps and Adjustable Rate Mortgages. I'm glad you provided those innovations to our "conservative" banks and millions of low-income residents (who got to be home owners for six whole months!).
Urbanophile: "I think it is fair to say most big ideas in arts, media, finance, and other fields originated on the coasts. The bulk of technology innovation as well."
The Midwest has delivered some very big ideas…the airplane, assembly line manufacturing, bar code scanners, supercomputing, artificial heart/kidney, etc etc etc…that legacy has arguably had as big an impact on the world today as anything that originated on the coasts. (much of that legacy from places like Dayton, Detroit & Cleveland).
Anon 7:40
- agree with your post.
When you slice up the population of the US…
EAST Coast = Maine to Florida
is 111M
WEST Coast = Alaska to California + Hawaii is 49M
FLYOVER COUNTRY = everything else is 143M
Taking the more narrow view of the coasts (ie BOS-DC corridor) and the (SEA to SAN corridor)you roughly get 54M in the East and 47M in the West leaving the balance of 202M in Flyover.
Lots of othr ways to slice and dice but the facts remain…there are lots of people (a majority of Americans) who choose to live in the Midwest/Flyover Country
What do we offer them in this grand future we're leading them to?
We offer them degrees. It's really not that hard. Back when only 25% of the adult population was literate, the government set a goal of universal literacy, rather than of good jobs for illiterates.
Alon:
"We offer them degrees"
Should start with high school degrees and move that to 100% (@20% do not have one).
"Nirvana" for the majority is not a college degree but a hs degree and specialized training/education after hs to prepare for a job and ongoing education/training thoughout their lifetime to be prepared for the inevitable job changes that will occur. That type of education is not 4 yr college; I would argue that 4 yr college is a waste of time/money for many people (particularly of the private & ivy covered wall variety)
I disagree. College isn't "vocational training" (unless you're studying nursing or engineering).
Tech schools and professional schools (med/law/biz) are vocational.
4-yr. college is about learning critical-thinking skills. It allows one to adapt and change and to apply lessons learned in one endeavor to another endeavor.
Seems kind of patronizing to insist that education really isn't suitable for some. People in some countries still say that education isn't for women. People in this country used to say that education isn't for African-Americans. Both viewpoints are discredited today.
I'm getting a whiff of a suggestion that the children of the industrial Midwest are today's poor Southern sharecroppers…what they really need to learn is how to work with their hands because they're all too dumb to learn anything else.
Hogwash. I'm with Alon on this one.
I would add the effect of the prominent religious and ethnic communities on much of Midwestern culture. German Catholicism is very different from the Italian and Irish Catholicism dominant along the East and West Coasts. The various Slavic faiths would certainly be closer to Germanic religious culture. The other massive group in the midwest is Methodism, which has a deep pietism that mitigates against a dynamic culture that prevailed elsewhere. The third group across the midwest is the various Lutheran churches which share the deeply Germanic attitude to the ordering of society.
Only the Southernization of parts of the midwest through Appalachian and Southern migration by white and black has introduced a substantial Baptist and Evangelical streak in the Midwest.
Thundermutt said most of what I wanted to say. But I'll add that 70 years ago, the standard route in most developed countries consisted of middle school education and a vocational high school. Only the elite was allowed to go to an academic high school. The US became richer than Europe in part because it shunned that tradition and tried to make everyone go to academic high school. Europe then spent the first few decades after WW2 trying to catch up to the US in giving everyone a high school education.
David, the Midwest did deliver many of those innovations – a hundred years ago. The Midwest was the Silicon Valley of the industrial age and was hugely successful because of that. But, while there are pockets of success, the big transformational ideas are elsewhere.
anon 7:40, you are right that is an anomaly. But if you look at world history, we're in an era of anomalies: equal rights for everyone, for example. I do think there are two sides of the coin. You are right, there needs to be jobs and people. I think it was a commenter on another blog who talked about this and how the different strands of civic development have to go together.
In regards to education, the Midwest/Flyover Country could start by focusing on 100% high school graduation from High Schools that actually prepare their graduates for College..be that 1-2-4 year degree's.
Parallel with that is a focus on the 1-2 then 4 year degree programs who's result is to produce someone who is best prepared for a position post-college.
While some would suggest that a 4 year degree followed by post-graduate work is the 'ideal'…the reality is most people today who enter college do not graduate….and that attests to the fact that a) the students are not prepared/not motivated to complete and b) the 4 yr degree program is not for everyone
I think it's narrow to focus on places being the sources of innovation. You can't walk 10 minutes in any major West or East coast city without tripping over a Midwestern refugee. Midwesterners are among the best educated people in the world; it's just that we don't stay put for long. Those who remain or return are not indicative of the whole Midwest story.
Isn't one of the midwest's leading exports to the rest of the country college educated people?
The guy who invented Mosaic went to California and started Netscape.
It's not for lack of universities that we ain't innovating.
I guess am not aware of any big transformational ideas from either coast that has had as much impact as the airplane or assembly line manufacturing. Would be curious to see some examples.
anon 1:08, those ideas changed the world 100 years ago. You can't hang your hat forever on what your great-great grandparents accomplished.
Urbanophile: The point is the really big transformational ideas do not happen with much frequency. The fact is these and many other (not as notable) innovations are generated in the Midwest all the time. The coasts do not have a lock on 'innovation'…particularly innovation that makes money.
Example: Dayton, Ohio is actually responsible for the creation of the largest commercially successful searchable database followed by a similar development by a 100+ yr old outfit from St. Paul, MN almost 30 years ago. They are still successful but do not garner the headlines.
Yahoo is a West Coast innovation on that concept…yet 12 years later Yahoo has likely seen its best days; Google innovated even further and their best days 'could' also be behind them. (as measured by market cap)
anon 3:07, so what is the real message you are trying to give? That things are ok? Clearly, the Midwest is an economic and demographic failure in general. Sure, there are plenty of "green shoots", but they are the exception that proves the rule.
What changes, if any, would you suggest are needed?
Am saying that the Midwest/Flyover Country is not as dead as is made out by many of the posters to this board
To clarify: my impressions are based on living in the midwest for over 2 decades.
And yes, the midwest has a lot of good colleges–it should! It's a huge geographical area.
But the midwest exports its college-educated–that does the coasts a huge service to the detriment of the midwest. Why did the guy go to CA and start Netscape? Most likely it is because the culture is adventurous and open to new ideas.
Another thought: Kelley school of business is an excellent business school. Yet, anyone who wants to make the most of their degree has to leave Indiana because there are (relatively) no major financial or business headquarters in the state. What's up with that?
Another thought: IND isn't a hub for any commercial airline. Shouldn't something be done about that?
Crocodile, do you suggest an airline hub at IND would reduce the number of people that leave the Midwest for the Coasts?
anon 5:33 – you can feel that way, I guess. Unfortunately, way too many people do. Therefore, no urgency to change and continued decline.
croc, the decline of regional finance centers (and business services generally) was discussed by Richard Florida in his recent Atlantic cover story. It's a problem for those small cities.
It is very unlikely IND would be a hub ever, especially with airlines in retreat. And it is debateable whether or not it would even be valuable. Cincy has a hub, but it has not aged well and it came with the downside of the highest air fares in the nation. It would be nice if there were more non-stop cities served, but I don't see a hub as essential or likely.