UNBOXING NEBRASKA: What It's Like Living in NEBRASKA

is nebraska a bunch of corn grown farmers does everyone in nebraska hate everyone from iowa and is nebraska football like the biggest thing ever here we're going to talk about that stuff and a whole lot more so grab our renza that's a sandwich we're gonna unbox the state of nebraska ah cool it's a cattle ranch ranchin's a very honorable profession here in america folks like cattle ranchers and farmers are the cream of the crop their hard work puts food on our tables every single night nebraska's cattle ranchers are a big part of the state's economy and as we'll see without them we'd be in a heap of trouble because 92 percent of nebraska's total land is taken up by farmland and cattle grazing that's a lot but there's more to nebraska than just big old cattle ranches farms sorta there's a bunch of small towns scattered throughout and there are two big cities in this big old state we'll get to that later but to really get to know nebraska you got to visit all the different areas right that way you can understand what it's like to live here and you'll know which part of the state's best for you this is nebraska geologically it's a really diverse state with some high plains and fertile valleys as we'll see the western side of the state is way different than the central part of the state which is way different than the eastern side of the state and we're going to start way over here in western nebraska this is the nebraska panhandle almost all of this state's mountains and forests are in this part of the state so hunting and fishing is a big deal out this way about four percent of the whole state lives in the panhandle so it's really isolated for the most part but there's a few areas of note like there always are if you're from nebraska you either live in lincoln omaha or a small town one such small town is scottsbluff over here now this is a terrible place to live perhaps the worst place in the state when you look at things like unemployment rates poverty crime and drugs and you're super isolated out there like you'd have to drive 90 miles to cheyenne wyoming for fun yipi but don't be so sad it gets a lot better here as we'll see here's a nice little place the small town of chadron it'd be slim pickens for jobs though unless you worked in ag friendly people though it's quaint white and isolated here nebraska is the 12th widest state of all where 86 percent of folks are some shade of caucasian and the other 14 is in north and south omaha everyone knows everyone in these small nebraska towns which is good or bad depending on how you view things i mean that's how it is in many of nebraska's little places way on sticks most of them are a bunch of shrinking towns how do you pick one over the others beyond me right here is the nebraska national forest the largest hand planted forest in the world people how did they plant all those trees by hand right here is alliance it's a small town with about 9 000 people like scott's bluff it's also very uninspiring and poor nearby is something you may have heard about though carhenge which is a tourist attraction made of old cars kind of stacked up like england's stonehenge there's actually all sorts of hidden gems in nebraska like this it's a state where you can find the world's biggest ball of stamps and there's a caterpillar made of tires and a giant ice cream cone okay it's actually not really all that exciting maybe for nebraskans it is nebraska isn't for everyone that's actually their state motto nebraskan honestly it's not for everyone a lot of people in nebraska weren't too thrilled about that campaign they said it wasn't interesting enough to make people want to come there in fact many made fun of it like this one nebraska honestly why bother nebraska sure nebraska nothing matters might as well be here nebraska shrugging emoji thing stan's from nebraska he agrees nebraska certainly is not for everyone when you're going to spread your wings and go and find start a family where are you going to go are you going to stay in nebraska or are you taking off oh yeah i'm taking off i i don't think okay yeah i know i mean omaha's definitely fun but i don't think there's like a ton of stuff necessarily for teenagers to do here a lot of stuff i have to do with my friends to find fun is just stuff that aren't really events but after that then you kind of have to make your own fun i guess like to find to be fun like as a teenager here so you're bored yeah yeah yeah it can be really cheap for a home in western nebraska here's an example of a home you can get right now people for 127 000 doesn't look like much but you get a lot of land way out here in small town nebraska you have to stick together especially during nebraska's snowstorms or during their crazy tornado season i mean you're 30 miles away from the next big town for the most part out this way it's just small town after small town where people are a little suspicious of outsiders but once they take you in you're like family certainly not exciting out this way and it doesn't really get much more exciting as we move to the central part of the state either this part of nebraska is made up of a different terrain a lot of this part of the state's sort of a flattish region made of grass prairies and sand dunes they call them the sandhills a quarter of the states made of stuff because of this it's a great place to grow crops you may think nebraska is all corn fields but that isn't the case i mean nebraska's only number six in the country for percentage of land that's used for farming or 45 percent of the states and crops nebraska leads the nation in the production of great northern beans but corn is the biggest crop grown here that's why they call people from this state corn huskers nebraska leads the nation for production of popcorn and a lot of the corn grown here is also used to make ethanol there's 50 000 ranches and farms in this state and one in four jobs in this state are farming related that's a lot that's one reason kids drive tractors to school not all kids and not every day but some do on some days these young future farmers of america seem to think they have a bright future i mean the world needs to eat right and despite all the trade wars with china the government provides subsidies so these farmers can weather the ups and downs of large-scale farming production some americans consider farming subsidies as a form of corporate welfare but that's a whole other video we won't go into that today did you know bill gates owns the most farmland than anyone else i did not know that mappy he's such a rich guy and he's a smart guy so if he's buying up farmland i guess that's a good sign do you like eating corn i love to eat sweet corn i can tell it looks like you have a little kernel stuck in your tooth here let me get that for you buddy there like mappy nebraska people love to eat corn cornbread candy corn corn casserole corn salad corn pudding while 60 of the average human is made of water 60 of a nebraskan is made of creamed corn they also eat a lot of steak and potatoes and all you can eat buffets with dorothy lynch dressing on top but their favorite thing to eat are sandwiches from runza can't you just taste them all right now well you can at the runs of huts and runs of drive-ins of america and you thought all we had were runses [Music] nebraskans like runs it so much they have sammy's shipped to themselves when they leave the state yeah that's true they actually call larunza and have a sandwich shipped to him in another state they miss it that much it's better than fazzoli's they say and a lot of people here wash those sanis down with kool-aid which was invented in nebraska it's the official state drink oh yeah over here in the middle of nowhere nebraska is north platte they need people to come there so badly they're paying them ten thousand dollars to move there would you move there for ten thousand dollars i wouldn't let's call somebody from north platte and ask them if anybody actually did that hey how you doing hon good how are you i'm good my name's nick and i'm working on a video about nebraska and i hear that north platte is paying people ten thousand dollars to move there have you heard that yeah no no [Music] so there's nobody that moved there because they got paid to be there that's my knowledge well heck on it's too bad you didn't know about that you could have maybe uh moved to town and made 10 grand all right do you like north platte yep what's it like in a small town in nebraska [Music] well does north platte seem like the kind of place that people would move to to get paid ten thousand dollars to do so uh i don't think that somebody would pay ten thousand dollars get people to move here you don't think it's that cool of a place to move to for 10 grand oh just my kind of money don't just float around these parts just for moving here most of the rest of central nebraska is very uninspiring if you're not a farmer an example is another small white boring town little mccook home to 8 000 people where you can get this home for 60k but it might not be your liking here's a mccook resident who calls his hometown the most boring small town in all of america where all there is to do is go to walmart or get fast food and where the runza's disgusting and there's flies inside what right here is kearney it's a college town it's one of the few smallish places in the state that isn't losing people here grand island nebraska is also a terrible place to live sadly lots of crime and drugs and poverty there really isn't a lot more to talk about in central nebraska outside of corn but up here in northern nebraska it's super exciting no it's not it's actually pretty much the same thing except while much of central nebraska is a farming hub a lot of northern nebraska way up here along the south dakota border is cattle ranching two counties up here cherry and holt have the most heads of cattle in the country in fact there's four times as many heads of cattle here in nebraska as there are people it goes back and forth but lots of years nebraska has more heads of cattle than any other state even texas and they're so proud of that here and the combination of all the farm outputs and cattle puts nebraska third in the country for agricultural outputs good for you nebraska you get an a areas of note up here or none really there really ain't much going on in these parts i guess it's worth discussing the small and i mean small town of monowai which has two people in it and a bar every small town needs a bar there's no churches though you'd have to drive a half hour to praise jesus from here actually there's kind of a stereotype that nebraskans think sundays are all fun days when you look at the data nebraska is only about average when it comes to religious fervor of its residents just over half the population says religion is important it's interesting okay we're going to see some real population hubs here now pal while the rest of the state's all small towns with boring white kind of poor people the eastern side of nebraska is where all the action's at areas of note outside of the big cities in this part of the state are beatrice and norfork yeah i know they say city names weird up here it's kind of a nebraska thing beatrice is also kind of a dump you wouldn't want to live there and norfolk is an example of how drugs have kind of dug their claws into small town nebraska communities meth is a big deal here sadly though overall though statewide it's kind of a mixed bag when you look at the drug statistics here nebraska ranks last in the nation for people dying from an overdose but then when you look at surveys as to which cities have the most drug users omaha ranks first in the nation for people who admitted to using drugs if you can believe that omaha ranks first in the nation for people who say they smoke pot third in the u.s for people who say they've used coke and their first in percentage residents who say they've tried heroin and meth what omaha that's just random i don't know if i believe this survey if you live in omaha add a comment about if you think this study's true or not i don't know but what does make sense are the alcohol statistics apparently twenty percent of nebraskans drink excessively which is the ninth highest rate in the nation and where a lot of that drinking happens is here in lincoln the state capitol it's not the lawmakers getting popped all the time though i'm sure that happens too it's all the college students the university of nebraska's flagship campus is here in lincoln they call it unl just about everything in lincoln centers around the college campus here if you haven't heard college football is huge in this state husker football on saturdays is a big thing memorial stadium in lincoln becomes the third biggest city in this whole damn state by itself on game days and nebraska football fans are loyal this stadium holds the record for consecutive sellouts for 50 years straight wow you guys love you some football now lincoln's a very safe place to raise a family the cost of living still pretty low it's somewhat entertaining if you like bar hopping folks here lead an unhurried lifestyle so if you're into upward mobility you should move over to omaha the big difference between nebraska's two largest cities is that in lincoln it's more of a community focus in omaha it's more of a career focus it's a very tight-knit group here in lincoln and if you moved here you might find it's hard to kind of crack into the groups everyone's already friends if you want big city living this isn't it if you want to raise kids in a safe place this is it and then we come to the omaha metro area about 80 percent of this whole state's population lives either in the lincoln or omaha metro area if lincoln's a big town then omaha is a small city there's some various suburbs worth of discussion here in the omaha area bellevue here on the south end of town it's a great place to live it's a military town home to afoot air force base it's safe here you can kind of divide the omaha metro area into three main areas north omaha is the most dangerous part of the city where a majority of the crime happens in town this is also where a lot of the black folks live anything in this general area here is bad news fella they're trying to fix things up but they're having a hard time here in this part of town now south omaha's majority hispanic it's much more of a blue collar part of town where you're going to find a lot of the meat packing and industrial sections it's also a much older part of town now west omaha is mostly white and much wealthier that's just how it is the further you get from the omaha metro area heading west the more rich it gets places like gretna stand out as being where the wealthy people live homes here are 315 thousand dollars which is a lot for nebraska of course you'd also find homes like this in gretna too other western omaha burbs that are very safe and super great places to live where a lot of folks have good jobs or chalco la vista papillion and ralston again anything in this general area is likely where you'd settle if you wanted upward mobility and a great life this is an area you don't want to live there's a lot of crime that's just how it is now omaha proper has a lot going on there's a lot of growth here and they've put a lot of work into making different areas of downtown fun and inviting an example of this is the blackstone district it's kind of a historic part of town that's seeing a lot of revitalization they're also fixing up the riverfront district here too for fun omaha has a world famous zoo and the city hosts the college world series every year if you're into baseball there's festivals all the time there's a surprisingly great music scene there's a lot of bars and restaurants per capita you certainly wouldn't be bored and if you're into technology and you're fleeing places like seattle or san francisco or la omaha is quickly becoming a tech hub they call this place the silicon prairie because of all the new tech companies relocating here to take advantage of the friendly business climate and low-cost living ebay and paypal are based here there's a lot of banks with headquarters in omaha too this is also home to the oracle of omaha mr warren buffett himself so you'd certainly be in good company overall omaha's doing quite well economically it's a very family-friendly place for the most part it's very welcoming to newcomers so it's easy to make new friends and business connections it's what they say anyway if you like the idea of rural living but hate country life you might like it here it's big enough that there's stuff to do but not big enough that traffic's a problem yet despite its size omaha has a low cost of living the median home price is 140k and rents 800 bucks that makes it one of the most affordable u.s cities to live in actually and the word's out too because of the safety and low-cost living and great hospitals in nebraska one somewhat reputable website called nebraska the best place to retire and another website claims the state of nebraska has the third hottest housing market in the nation right now so get in on it fast because a lot of people say nebraska is the secret of the midwest shh don't tell anyone nebraska is just a bread and butter type place one that's unpretentious and uncomplicated while folks work hard there's no real sense of urgency here at least when compared to what you may experience back home it's a very generous population and a kind one well we learned a lot about nebraska didn't we yes we did it's a state that was once full of cattle wrestlers and tough and tumbled lawmen and pioneers and gold miners sure has changed a lot man they can sure make some good popcorn nebraska is the kind of state that parents want to raise their kids but kids don't want to grow up to be parents here it's all this boring talk it's certainly not an exciting place to be is it but boring is a sexy word for parents right now who want refuge from all the crap that's happening in america today in fact it's such a nifty state i think it deserves a nifty song what do you think if you want to have a simple dinner with your family that's full of corn [Music] nebraska yeah if you're into feeling like giving up the fun and you can't be bored nebraska yeah how about if you want to live in a farm and read by candlelight nebraska nebraska where the land looks all the same and people need a simple life [Music] if you wanna drive a big old tractor to work one day nebraska yeah if you want to live somewhere where everyone knows your name [Music] nebraska yeah it's a boring state thanks to alex and stan for their help in making this video you guys are awesome hey guys if you learned something new about america or what it's like to live in america great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more you can also now buy my songs on itunes and other formats click the link in the description thanks for watching and remember while we all might have different views we should all be nice to each other and try to make the us a better place in a positive way this is sage nyx manager this has been a corner house entertainment production

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 119,793

Rating: 4.6064706 out of 5

Keywords: living in nebraska, nebraska, what is nebraska like, nebraska research, i live in nebraska, nebraska travel, nebraska food, what is nebraska, nebraska trivia, why do people live in nebraska, nebraska map, nebraskaresidents, nebraska culture, nebraska cost of living, moving to nebraska, nebraska realtor, nebraska mortgage loan, ranching, omaha realtor, whats omaha like, nebraska hotels, lincoln, omaha, scottsbluff, huskers, cornhuskers, corn, farming, is nebraska cheap, move nebraska

Id: T9OTqMFMInM

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021