Just a note: the size of the urban population of Chicago is to St. Louis as the size of the urban population of St. Louis is to Grand Rapids [0]. Which is to sa

Just a note: the size of the urban population of Chicago is to St. Louis as the size of the urban population of St. Louis is to Grand Rapids [0]. Which is to say that the quantitative and qualitative differences between each are enormous. You can't really talk about "The Midwest" as a monolith. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_ar...