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Then again, that stretch also has Gary. Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on t
by Arainach 1y ago
Then again, that stretch also has Gary.
Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc.
If you read the history of westward expansion, "got tired and decided this was good enough" is literally true for how much of the area got initially settled (by white people)
- Waterluvian 1y agoI took a moment to realize there’s a place called Gary, Indiana. And that there isn’t just some guy who is so infamous that he’s just known as Gary.
- hinkley 1y agoClearly not a fan of musical theater. The Music Man ~~takes place in~~ repeatedly refers to Gary. Ron Howard sings a song called Gary Indiana in the movie version. He’s about waist high in that movie.
- Rendello 1y agoThe town's even referenced in Futurama: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUW1pabZpLE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUW1pabZpLE
- phlakaton 1y agoIt is known for not being Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome.
- kens 1y agoGary, Indiana is still memorable to me 50 years later from when we'd drive through it, handkerchiefs pressed to our faces to block out the terrible smell from some sort of toxic industry. Is Gary still like that or has it been cleaned up?
- bookofjoe 1y agoReminds me of driving through Eureka, California in the early 80s and the overpoweringly horrible smell from the paper mills in the area.
- stockresearcher 1y agoIt doesn't stink much anymore. It's still extraordinarily poor, but this is also Gary: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6196019,-87.2547571,3a,75y,340.06h,77.8t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1schMwtoXJPq769UpSss5hBA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D12.196019189803692%26panoid%3DchMwtoXJPq769UpSss5hBA%26yaw%3D340.0626135412815!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkyNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6196019,-87.2547571,3a,75y,3...
- jb1991 1y agoIt’s actually a very famous city, but not for entirely good reasons. For starters, it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States. However, Michael Jackson is from there. So there’s that.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States. > However, Michael Jackson is from there. There are no coincidences.
- ykonstant 1y agoBunch of murderous psychos going heehee as they murk you smoothly.
- cipheredStones 1y agoEvery guy named Gary is named after Gary, Indiana. Gary Cooper named himself after the town, and then got very, very popular.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- o11c 1y agoNot all, only most Americans. For Brits it's usually after Sir Garfield (spear field) St Aubrun Sobers. And even before Gary Cooper there were people using it for Gerald (spear power), Gerard (spear hard/brave), and (old) Gerbert (spear bright). It is a cousin to, but believed not historically derived from, Garrett/Garrod. It is unclear whether German/Germain derive from this root or not. It is usually unrelated to Jared (which is usually a Hebrew name, but does have spelling variants that overlap Garrod).
- Taikonerd 1y agoThank you, I thought this was interesting!
- hinkley 1y agoIllinois has a few rust belt towns as well. Decatur is the asshole of Illinois, with a water supply to match. Though for variety, it smells like old gym socks instead. Corn processing plants are almost as bad as paper mills, and when I lived there it had two, ADM and the very aptly named Staley.
- W-Stool 1y agoEast St. Louis, Illinois would like to have a chat with Decatur about which is worst.
- hinkley 1y agoThe thing about the middle of Illinois is they consider Chicago to be a separate state and East St Louis to be Missouri’s problem. “Oh you’re from Chicago” is a common reply any time you found out you’re from an exurb. Often said with just a hint of dismissal. That’s not the real Illinois. Nobody talks about Rock Island and Moline (the Illinois half of the Quad Cities) this way, for instance. Carbondale is slightly better, but I think it’s a notorious party school for very good reasons. Small town Midwest has a saying that “there’s nothing to do here except drink, fuck, and knock over mailboxes”. Most Iowa this is especially true, but Carbondale also gave me that vibe. Also that’s a fucking long drive. St Louis too. Nobody appreciates that Illinois is half as tall as California (not that anyone appreciates how long a trip up and down CA is either).
- macintux 1y agoIndiana is seriously considering annexing much of central/southern Illinois. It’s amazing just how aggressively divisive politics have become in the last 20 years.
- EFreethought 1y agoThey might think they are serious, but they are not. Illinois would have to agree to it, and Illinois will not.
- klardotsh 1y agoYep. Even worse, the problem is recursive: a town I lived in for a while growing up, Vandalia, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton, itself not exactly a booming metropolis in this millennium, but I digress) was settled by westward migrants aiming for Vandalia, Illinois - a town in the absolute middle of nowhere that just so happened to be the end of the National Road, presumably because the road builders got bored and/or ran out of money. Anyway, the travelers got bored and/or ran out of money on their way to Illinois, gave up, said "good enough", and named their new Ohio settlement after the place they failed to reach. The Midwest is many things, but for quite a lot of it, "where anyone really wanted to get stuck" is not one of them.
- tomcam 1y agoI’m just praying that your football team was called the Vandals
- tptacek 1y agoGary is basically part of the Chicago metro area; it's not characteristic of the run of the state you go through between Michigan and Illinois. You don't see it until after you commit to getting onto the Skyway.
- kyledrake 1y agoIt's really easy to write off a giant part of the country that millions of people live in as tired (and the implication underneath is usually "backward"), it's also dehumanizing them and makes assumptions about their quality of life when it might actually be a lot better than the people making these assumptions. Spend some time not just driving through them, and one may be surprised to find plenty of diverse and interesting people that live full lives with rich family and social bonds, reasonably priced housing, ample winter outdoor activities (a lot of people actually want snow because it's beautiful and you can do fun things with it) and plenty of nearby nature and recreation opportunities, which I would contrast less unfavorably than the zeitgeist against the crowded, expensive vagrant culture that tends to dominate the more popular places on earth.
- sgarland 1y agoThe giant parts of the country routinely vote against their own self-interests, and refuse to accept evidence to this effect.
- jb1991 1y agoThe phrase “got tired “is not referring to the modern populations but rather the people who founded those original settlements in those states centuries ago.
- kyledrake 1y agoThey didn't "get tired", they found rich soil and ample water to do farming and milling, which is what they were intending to find. It's called the bread basket of America for a reason.
- hollerith 1y agoAgree: a farmer coming to Indiana having previous farmed in New England or New York would have thought he'd died and went to farmer heaven.
- jb1991 1y agoIn some places, some people absolutely could not endure the long travels to the West Coast, for example the Oregon Trail was extremely difficult and many people quit somewhere in the middle and settled into those Midwestern states. Yes they did in fact get tired, in some situations.
- 1123581321 1y agoGary is also interesting, though. It used to be interesting for good economic and cultural reasons, then bad reasons. Now it's experiencing some revitalization in the manner of Detroit or Rockford, which might actually make it more boring, though better to live in. I thought the Indiana aside was odd as an objective assessment, but it worked well as a flavorful bit of travel writing to help me understand the perspective of the visitor to Greenland.
- mothballed 1y agoGary is fine during the day compared to a lot of the surrounding areas because the population is actually fairly diverse. White, black, latino, there are enough of you that it's possible to blend in as long as you dress poor enough. If you aren't into drugs or banging and out during daylight hours and don't flash valuable you'll probably be fine. Vs. say some parts Cleveland, where I've been robbed at gunpoint the second my vehicle broke down and people noticed I'm not from around there.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoCleveland rocks!
- sandworm101 1y agoGood enough, but also the abject fear of seeing the rocky mountains rear up from the plains. For someone walking beside a wagon in late summer, a horizon of tree and snow-covered mountains topped with jagged peaks would seem like the end of the earth.
- uwagar 1y agoand gary was where michael jackson was born.
- petre 1y agoI regulary watch a youtuber from OH and think it's actually nice compared to NY (crowds, cars, construction sites) and SF (intoxicated homeless people). Yup, the weather sucks for half of the year, there are abandoned Rust Belt industrial buildings all over the place, it's kind of flat, but apart from that, it still looks kinda nice. Also great beer joints, places to bike around. https://youtu.be/eClMVj9GLAA?si=IxXxgdWfCsGge9yT https://youtu.be/eClMVj9GLAA?si=IxXxgdWfCsGge9yT
- m463 1y agoAfter living in a good number of places... I think the people who have found their "good enough" place to live have more down-to-earth personalities. And people living in "the best place to live" places or "all the people who do X should live here" places have different personalities (not always good).