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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

by ggreer 12y ago

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, followed closely by the midwest. The reason is simple: overt racism. Nowhere else have I seen such blatant and hateful discrimination. Even if the weather, food, jobs, and night life improved, I'd still shy away from living there.

justin66 12y ago
> Not having a home town, I think I'm better positioned to evaluate these places. My least favorite region is the south, followed closely by the midwest. The reason is simple: overt racism. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's worth noting that the black population has been increasing in the south for a while due to migration. It's an interesting trend. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?pagewanted...
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Property values and migration flows attest to people generally preferring the coasts. Actually, migration flows show people preferring the Sun Belt, despite the lower salaries and productivity rates. The coasts simply can't build housing fast enough to both accept migrants and maintain their own native-born populations.
chaostheory 12y ago
> 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).
hueving 12y ago
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).
- DanBC 12y ago
  I agree that there are some really unpleasant openly racist people in England. Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population; they're six times more likely to be imprisoned; as of 2001 one in six black men had been incarcerated; http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet Laws are unjustly applied, one example is the rates that black Americans or white Americans are arrested for cannabis drug crime. http://nytimes.com/2014/07/29/opinion/high-time-the-injustice-of-marijuana-arrests.html http://nytimes.com/2014/07/29/opinion/high-time-the-injustic...
  - dagw 12y ago
    Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population; Based on the numbers I find the the ratio for blacks in the US is 40-45% prison to population vs 12% general population. In the UK the numbers seem to be about 12-15% prison population vs 2.5% general population. If you look at Muslims instead of blacks then you'll find similarly lopsided ratios in many European countries. According to some sources as many a 70% of prisoners in France are Muslim (read North African or Turkish in most cases) compared to 10-12% of the general population. So to answer your question in one word "Yes".
  - dagw 12y ago
    Actually the just as interesting questions to ask is what % of senior and C level positions at large companies are filled by blacks? What % of senior government ministers and elected officials are black? What % of senior lecturers and researchers and universities and black? What % of the wealthiest top n% are black? No matter how bad these numbers may seem in an absolute sense in the US, I strongly suspect they'll stomp all over equivalent numbers in Europe.

by ggreer 12y ago

justin66 12y ago

> Not having a home town, I think I'm better positioned to evaluate these places. My least favorite region is the south, followed closely by the midwest. The reason is simple: overt racism. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's worth noting that the black population has been increasing in the south for a while due to migration. It's an interesting trend. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?pagewanted...

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Property values and migration flows attest to people generally preferring the coasts. Actually, migration flows show people preferring the Sun Belt, despite the lower salaries and productivity rates. The coasts simply can't build housing fast enough to both accept migrants and maintain their own native-born populations.

chaostheory 12y ago

> 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).

hueving 12y ago

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).

DanBC 12y ago
I agree that there are some really unpleasant openly racist people in England. Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population; they're six times more likely to be imprisoned; as of 2001 one in six black men had been incarcerated; http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet Laws are unjustly applied, one example is the rates that black Americans or white Americans are arrested for cannabis drug crime. http://nytimes.com/2014/07/29/opinion/high-time-the-injustice-of-marijuana-arrests.html http://nytimes.com/2014/07/29/opinion/high-time-the-injustic...
- dagw 12y ago
  Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population; Based on the numbers I find the the ratio for blacks in the US is 40-45% prison to population vs 12% general population. In the UK the numbers seem to be about 12-15% prison population vs 2.5% general population. If you look at Muslims instead of blacks then you'll find similarly lopsided ratios in many European countries. According to some sources as many a 70% of prisoners in France are Muslim (read North African or Turkish in most cases) compared to 10-12% of the general population. So to answer your question in one word "Yes".
- dagw 12y ago
  Actually the just as interesting questions to ask is what % of senior and C level positions at large companies are filled by blacks? What % of senior government ministers and elected officials are black? What % of senior lecturers and researchers and universities and black? What % of the wealthiest top n% are black? No matter how bad these numbers may seem in an absolute sense in the US, I strongly suspect they'll stomp all over equivalent numbers in Europe.