For more than 100 years, Americans have generally agreed that Detroit is located in the Midwest.
But is it really?
Iowa is also assumed to be in the Midwest. Have you ever been to Iowa? Driving out west, you might have stopped in Iowa for gas. It does not look like metro Detroit.
Gas stations in metro Detroit are busy, messy and filled with lots of different people, including people of color, people with accents and people who look kind of scary. I’ve never seen any scary people in Iowa.
Iowa’s gas stations are tidy and clean, and they don’t have Plexiglas separating the customers from the employees. More than nine of every 10 people in Iowa are white.
What does Detroit have in common with such other Midwestern towns as Joplin, Fargo or Bloomington? For that matter, what does the Rust Belt have in common with the Wheat Belt?
And Detroit, sitting on an edge of America, sharing a border with a foreign nation, really doesn’t have the feel of the Heartland, as do Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas, states whose Midwesterness is never in dispute.
When you think of it, there seems to be a certain amount of confusion as to Detroit’s precise location.
The National Basketball Association assigns the Pistons to the Central Division of the Eastern Conference. The National Hockey League has put the Red Wings in the Central Division of the Western Conference.
Detroit is in the Eastern Time Zone, but the Michigan Wolverines are the champions of the west.
During our great grandparents’day, people still considered Detroit to be in the old Northwest, as in the Northwest Territories of the 18th Century.
Perhaps the most confusing definition of all -- or is it the most accurate? -- come from the U.S. Census Bureau, which places Detroit in the East North Central region of the country.
Detroit has a lot more in common with Buffalo and Pittsburgh than with many so-called Midwestern cities. But does Detroit have an Eastern feel? People from the east certainly don’t think so.
Despite its northern location at 42 degrees latitude, Detroit is home to many people with roots below the Mason-Dixon Line. Many observers think the area has a southern ambience.
Whatever. I’m totally confused. When in doubt, you might take the suggestion of a geographer who once said you can’t go wrong linking Detroit with the Great Lakes.
And I always liked the definition of a Chicago-born writer who lived in Detroit for several years and thought it was kind of exotic. He referred to the metro area as “suburban Canada.”
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