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{{quote|''Boasting some of the most spectacular public restrooms, gas stations, and 24-hour Hardee's drive-thrus in the country, America's Midwest is conveniently located between where you are and where you are going.''|'''''[[The Onion]]: Our Dumb World'''''}}
{{quote|''They've never drove through Indiana
''Met the man who plowed that earth
''Planted that seed, busted his ass for you and me
''Or caught a harvest moon in Kansas
''They'd understand why God made those fly over states|'''[[Jason Aldean]]''', "Fly Over States"}}
Where do you live? [[Big Applesauce|New York]]? Awesome. [[Los Angeles|L.A.]]? Awesome. [[Kansas City]]? Uh... where is that, like, in
That's Flyover
Setting a show or a novel here can be shorthand for [[The Fifties|'50s-style]] [[The Fundamentalist|social conservatism]], [[Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here|small-town insularity]], or [[Place Worse Than Death|a crushingly unhip, even dorky ambiance]]
Needless to say, the truth is a little different. While the states of the central U.S. do skew more rural than urban, the cities therein are as cosmopolitan as any coastal town. There's plenty of culture and nightlife to be found in cities like [[Twin Cities|Minneapolis]], [[Kansas City]], or Omaha (a full listed of often-featured cities is included at the end), and they have a much lower cost of living than the coasts. And even some of the smaller towns, like Boulder, Colorado<ref>where ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' was set</ref> and Ann Arbor, Michigan,<ref>home of the University of Michigan</ref>
Politically, the cities and their metro areas are also more liberal than the surrounding region. Many of them are ([[Dying Town|or were]]) industrial towns with a strong presence of labor unions and minorities, plus college students who stuck around after graduating or dropping out. In fact, people in the surrounding, rural areas who don't fit in with the arch-conservative lifestyle will tend to relocate to the nearest decent-sized city. These factors lead to interesting scenarios where you have Democratic islands within states that are Republican strongholds.
These nuances and many more tend to be lost on Hollywood. Shows based in one of the coasts will lovingly show details of the landmarks and locales (''[[Sex and
The part about the boring landscape, however, is true for the Great Plains, which covers much of the region but not the whole thing. While the cities can be quite interesting, outside of the cities is mostly just hundreds of miles of corn, wheat, and soybeans, broken by the occasional vast and ungodly foul-smelling cattle feedlot. Things do change once you hit Indiana, however, as it and everything to the south and east have a fair deal of hills, ravines, and forest, providing slightly more to look at from the highway than cornfields.
Line 37 ⟶ 36:
* [[Milwaukee]], Wisconsin
* [[Twin Cities|Minneapolis and St. Paul]], Minnesota
* Pennsylvania (outside of [[
* [[Everything Is Big in Texas|Texas]]
* [[Utah]]
* [[New York State|Upstate New York]]<ref>Technically outside the region, but often given the same treatment, especially by people from [[New York City]].</ref>
See [[
{{reflist}}
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