the midwestern United States known for being the birthplace of the skyscraper the home of cheese curds America's manufacturing Powerhouse or at least it used to be the transportation Crossroads of the nation first with the railroad and later the automobile and of course one can't forget about those Great Lakes one of our greatest geographic features so back in 2023 I went on a massive road trip around the midwestern United States starting out in Dallas Texas back in June I roughly took this path around that part of the country checking out all the major cities as well as parts of Canada Upstate New York and Pennsylvania but on this video we'll stick strictly to the midwestern portion of that trip I'm going to share with you guys eight things that I learned while traveling around the Midwest for 6 months now we'll be mostly sticking to infrastructure but I throw a few other things in there when necessary so hit that like button subscribe if you love the content and let's talk about the midwestern United States first we'll get right into perhaps the biggest shock about the Midwest and that is that it is a land of extremes when it comes to weather being from North Carolina I'm used to getting a pretty nice dose of all four seasons but in the midwest it can get really hot in summers but it also gets quite a bit colder in the winters when I first started this trip it was in the middle of the summer so of course you could expect very War temperatures 90° days were no surprise but what I did notice was quite a few days where the temperatures reached 100 or pretty close to it by the time I had reached Kansas City Iowa and the 20 cities it was scorching hot I'd say it was a little hotter here than back in the South perhaps due to the lack of the ocean nearby now I was expecting it to be warm but not this warm this far north but on the flip side it also got cold a lot sooner here than other places while it was scorching hot in the Twin Cities in August just up the road a couple hours in duth it was Sweater Weather not only that but the summer ended quite abruptly October was all there was to fall and winter came quickly with a Vengeance by November I had reached the other side of the Midwest and entered the Cleveland area you don't need to dream about a white Christmas in the midwest because it was already white and snowy by Thanksgiving when winter comes up here it snows hard and it gets cold very cold fortunately they're used to it up here and usually have most of the roads clear quickly after a snowstorm unlike some places in the south Nashville so basically put in the midwest the summers are hotter the winters are colder spring and Falls are shorter the land of extremes in terms of temperature now that we know that the Midwest is a place where one can bake or freeze within a span of only 3 months let's talk about the major metros that make up this region and the overall hierarchy first off Chicago is King centrally located by far the largest metro area in the region and the crossroads of tons of rail and roadway infrastructure the heart of Midwestern culture lies in Chicago land despite some recent struggles at over 9 million people Chicago's position at the top in the midwest won't be threatened anytime soon the second tier metros in the area are Detroit and the Minneapolis St Paul areas the location for these metros is also fitting Detroit lies in the eastern part of the region on the Great Lakes serving as the hub for that side of the area attracting folks from Ohio Indiana and ont IO Canada while the Twin Cities lie to the west of Chicago and serve as a center of gravity for people in the surrounding states such as Iowa Nebraska Wisconsin and the dtas now I know some of my Detroit folks might take issue with this but despite the Detroit area having a higher population I found the Twin Cities to be the more vibrant and healthy of the two metros Detroit proper had a legendary decline in the late 20th century and while it has made some improvements recently it has that depressing feel that you get when you have tons of wealthy suburbs surround surounding a poor hollowed out core city you'll find a similar look in places like St Louis and Baltimore while Minneapolis has had a more diverse economy and had more nice areas in the core city than Detroit proper by some measures it has already surpassed Detroit economically speaking the Metro as a whole has always posted steady growth while Detroit has around the same population that the Metro had in 1970 Minneapolis of course isn't without its struggles as the events of 2020 started there and some things haven't been the same since however it is still more vibrant than Detroit and has a better looking Skyline today the third tier is where things get a little more interesting in this tier I'd put both Missouri metros St Louis and Kansas City all three Ohio metros Columbus Cincinnati and Cleveland along with Indianapolis and Milwaukee Wisconsin what you'll find in these metros is populations under 3 million but more than 1 million cities that have older more built up Urban cores with the exception of Columbus these metros typically serve as smaller hubs for their local region and rar reach across multiple States in terms of influence unless they sit on a state border Indianapolis being the central hub for it State Kansas City and St Louis influenc in their halves of Missouri and a bit of Kansas to the west and Southern Illinois in the case of St Louis the final tier is the small metros under 1 million people that serve as the center of activity for otherwise very rural surrounding areas these are your Omaha de moin witch and Madison's Madison might be the exception concerning surrounding areas being ruled as this not too far from Milwaukee and the third thing I want to talk about are some of the names of these places in the midwest now I can always count on you guys to hold me accountable in the comments with some of these local pronunciations and the Midwest has a lot of places that someone not local might pronounce wrong the first one that threw me for a loop was in the Minneapolis area the small suburban town on the lake looks like it should be called way but the locals inform me that is actually pronounced y Zetta who would have thought also in the area is Dina which at first glance I called Adena not far away in Wisconsin is all Clair I actually got this one correct as it is all cair but I can see how one might call it oair also in Wisconsin was the city just outside of Milwaukee called wakashaw I called it wakisha in a previous video and you guys let me know quickly in the comments that it is wakashaw and over in Michigan they have a fake Charlotte that they like to call charlot being that I lived in the real charlot for 13 years this pronunciation for the fake Charlotte didn't and still doesn't make any sense to me but hey it's Michigan they copied our state highway sign too so it's only right that they copy and modify Charlotte to meet their needs now these other two places I didn't have time to actually visit but I just have to throw them out there and that is Pier South Dakota and KIRO Illinois now you would think these would be easy ones Pierre and French and Cairo as in Egypt but not in the Midwest West they just had to create their own way it is Pier South Dakota and KIRO Illinois only in the midwest next we'll talk about one of my favorite subjects and that is the traffic those of you on the east coast in heavily populated places like New York or those in the sun Bel cities where people are flocking to and droves are familiar with the traffic Wes as State Department of Transportation struggle to keep up with the infrastructure demands of all those new residents well in the midwest that is not much of a problem except in Chicago of course but overall in the midwest traffic flows very well compared to other parts of the country if you look at a map of the interstates in the midwest you will see a very high density of them compared to the South and even the northeast Kansas City in particular has the highest freeway density of any Metro in the country the primary reason for this is that the Midwest was a much more prominent region of the country in terms of population back when the interstate highways were first conceived many Americans have since left the region for the Sun Belt the unintended results of this is that the Metros in the midwest generally have smoother flowing traffic than metros in places like Texas or Florida in Kansas City I was able to travel around the area at 5:00 p.m. without experiencing much congestion Detroit in particular is perhaps the best example of this with the metro population that has virtually sat unchanged since the 1970s and as a result officials here have been able to easily design a roadway system that can handle this unchanging population during my time in Detroit it was pretty much smooth selling unless there was an accident or some type of road construction Indianapolis was a breeze Cleveland light work St Louis what traffic in fact the only Metro outside Chicago that was even somewhat of an issue was Minneapolis but in the Minneapolis St Paul area it wasn't so much of a capacity issue rather all the poorly design interchanges you'll find tons of short 1950s era merging areas on freeways into Twin Cities and usually when you see a Bott neck that's what it's from luckily the Minnesota people are known for being nice so often times they will let you in and overall I'd say the folks in the midwest are just more relaxed than calm drivers in general people didn't seem to be as in a hurry or rush to get places around here a lot more people drove at or near the speed limit than I typically see in other parts of the country but again Chicago was the exception here because the drivers were wild out there so if you want to escape the woes of traffic then it might be a good idea to look at these metros that aren't gaining a million people per census period and that leads us into the fifth thing and that is the population decline being that the Midwest was once the heart of America's domestic manufacturing industry it only made sense that this region was hit the hardest by the de industrialization of the late 20th century and the offshoring of large sectors of American manufacturing to other countries as such you'll notice significantly more older rusted or decaying infrastructure around these cities you'll see more bridges and expressways that are in need of repair or some type of Maintenance and who can forget the i35e bridge collaps in Minneapolis though they have since replaced it with a much more modern durable structure many parts of the Rust Belt overlap with the Midwest and you will certainly see plenty of rust up here this is in contrast to the Sun Belt where you'll find lots of shiny new infrastructure and modern clean structures that population loss might be most depressing in some of the smaller towns of the Midwest traveling around this area I saw some towns that have lost more than half of their populations some of them you've already heard of East St Louis Illinois Gary Indiana KIRO Illinois among others hland Park Michigan was a stark contrast to Park Texas these places have had extraordinary levels of population loss that are pretty much unheard of in other regions of the country Gary has gone from 175,000 to 70,000 people today East St Louis has fallen from 82,000 to only 18,000 people in 2020 and KIRO is not far from being a ghost town going from 12,000 people to only 1,700 today just traveling around these towns can be quite depressing endless amounts of abandoned homes and businesses in some places Nature has begun to reclaim claim the land from human development it's almost post-apocalyptic as you see some of these places when the jobs fade so does everything else if anyone thought economics wasn't the most important factor in everything then I'd invite you to check out the Midwest I like to call these skeleton towns all the bones are still here from when they were larger but much of the meat is long on and the next shocking thing is the insane number of suburbs now suburbs of course are not unique to the Midwest they can be found in pretty much every American metro area they Remain the dream like lifestyle of most Americans and where most of the overall growth of the country is occurring but in the midwest the number of suburbs surrounding its largest cities is simply staggering you thought Atlanta had a lot of suburbs well try Chicago while Chicago itself does cover a decent sized footprint you'll find an endless number of small towns Villages and other municipalities surrounding the city it goes Way Beyond the core of Cook County suburb after suburb after suburb you can find the same thing in the Twin Cities does anyone think Blain or or mountains view really need to be separate cities just consolidate and join Minneapolis already it will be better for everyone then of course there is Detroit while the city has declined many people don't realize that all this time Detroit has been surrounded by some quite prosperous Suburban towns while the core City struggles to maintain its infrastructure that these suburbs benefit from of course the suburbs here are also vast every little development needs to be its own little city how redundant it's no different in Ohio and Cleveland another Metro that has seen better days you have more suburbs than you can count does there really need to be a Cleveland Heights or University Heights sounds more like something that should just be neighborhoods in Cleveland proper so it appears that the Midwest should also be known as the home of the suburb and at number seven we're going to talk about the geographical features geographically the Midwest is mostly flat no mountains no ocean no real beaches yes I know some might consider the Frozen half of the Year land on the Great Lakes a beach but that doesn't quite cut it if you're you're looking for Mountain activities such as rock climbing or skiing you won't find much of that here in the Midwest Peaks under 1,000 ft don't count and likewise if you want to experience some nice ocean waves at a proper Beach the Midwest isn't the place to enjoy it but what I will say is if you enjoy a nice River or lakefront and you happen to come here in the summer then you're in the right place several Midwestern cities either lie on the front of a major river or one of the Great Lakes Minneapolis was highly walkable and bikable up and down the Mississippi Riverfront the state as a whole is also known for its large number of lakes as the greatest NBA franchise the Los Angeles Lakers actually got their name from these lakes and the people of Minnesota actually like to have a lot of fun on those frozen lakes in the winter in Chicago it goes without saying how busy things were on the lakefront as well as the Chicago River whether it was the beautiful lak Shore Drive or the Chicago River architecture tour the city had plenty of Waterfront things to offer even Little soue Falls had a cute little Riverfront area for the locals to enjoy and being that it gets so cold here in the winter and those Winters are so long you can tell that the folks here in the Midwest Place high value on their limited time to be outside in the sun and last but not least let's talk about the food when I traveled around the Midwest I ate pretty well many cities have their own dishes and Specialties that they're known for and I had to work out pretty hard to stay in shape while I was up here in Kansas City it was the barbecue if you're in the city then q39 is the spot you don't need any outside sauce because they have their own it rivals or exceeds the barbecue from any part of the country and I highly recommend it you can find one in Midtown and one in Overland Park I checked out the Midtown location and it was phenomenal then in Minnesota I found a couple things first the Juicy Lucy from Matt Steiner was a must try then there was some amazing Scandinavian food in the area as it has a heavy ancestry from that part of Europe in Wisconsin of course you have your cheese curds and it is home of the fast food joint C Chicago had their famous deep dish pizza and of course Detroit had their own style of pizza as well though it's not quite as good as the Chicago sty Pizza in my opinion one thing I will add about Detroit is that you need to check out this place in Madison Heights called The Sushi coupe the dish of choice is called the sushi Sando it's this sort of Sushi sandwich that uses rice patties and buns and it was amazing I haven't seen this offer at sushi spots anywhere else so I'll assume that is just a Detroit thing and that is it guys eight things that I learned while traveling around Midwest for 6 months now I will say that since I've been doing this full-time traveling thing that was by far the longest trip I've ever taken the longest time I've been on the road consecutively without stopping by the time I got done with Canada Upstate New York and Pittsburgh I was completely exhausted but overall I have to say I did enjoy it got to meet some great people got to see some interesting things finally got to see Chicago got to experience that Cleveland Lake affects snow but let me know what you guys think about the list as well as what you think about the Midwest in general and I'll be doing some more in-depth videos on these cities and their infrastructure in the coming months so stay tuned to the channel thanks for watching see you on the next one
