Tagged: midwest

To Mike Draper, the Midwest is a mystery.

Draper is the author of “The Midwest: God’s Gift to Planet Earth,” a jovial investigation of the region and the major figures who have come from it.

Deemed by those on the coast as “flyover country,” the states of the Midwest receive the portrayal of a land populated only by farmers and fried food junkies.

But the image is a false one.

Without the Midwest, New Yorkers would have no planes in which they could fly across the country.  

“The Midwest is viewed as the American Gothic farmland, which as a region, is only a minority of it. The Midwest has never been a primarily agriculture economy,” said Draper.

When doing his research for the book, interesting Midwesterners seemed to manifest themselves in every corner of the history books through which Draper flipped.  

The Wright Brothers and Henry Ford reinvented the ways Americans could inhabit the world.

Using their literary prowess, authors like Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain formed new standards for American fiction.

With such rich cultural icons as these, one begins to wonder how anyone could dismiss the Midwest as plain or timid.

It is a question Draper raises throughout “God’s Gift.”  

And with its mysterious beauty, the Midwest provides its answers on every page of his book.

-Cameron Stewart

There are two ways you can podcast "Stateside with Cynthia Canty"

• Podcast of the entire show
• Podcast of each segment
  

According to the 2011 Expenditures on Children by Families annual report released by the USDA today, raising a baby born in 2011 will cost a middle-class family about $234,900 in today's currency.

According to the report,

This represents a 3.5 percent increase from 2010. Expenses for transportation, child care, education, and food saw the largest percentage increases related to child rearing from 2010. There were smaller increases in housing, clothing, health care, and miscellaneous expenses on a child during the same period.

The report states that most of this money will fund the child’s housing, child care, education and food expenses through age 17, representing roughly 64 percent of all costs. As the study only follows children from birth through high school, costs associated with pregnancy and post-high school education are omitted from these numbers.

Andy Case thinks the Midwest has an image problem. Even worse, he says, is that Midwesterners buy into the characterization of the Midwest as “flyover country,” or not as interesting as the East or West coasts.

Case, a native of Plymouth, Mich., says this mentality causes people to leave the region in search of economic opportunity. He decided to do something to try to change that way of thinking -- and that led to his blog, Midwestern Gentleman.

“I didn’t see anything that said ‘I’m proud to be from the Midwest and here’s why,’ And, I think my blog is highlighting things that make the Midwest great, and why it’s great,” said Case.

“Hopefully, (people) identify with that and choose to stay in the region, and follow their professional careers here instead of somewhere else.”

Case started  Midwestern Gentleman while a student at Michigan State University. When he graduated, in May of 2009 it took him months to find a job .He eventually landed one in advertising and works in Detroit.

Despite the long search, Case was a little frustrated with those in his graduating class who left the state.

Things continue to look bad for the Midwest housing market. Seven of the lowest performing major markets in the nation are from the Midwest and Detroit leads the pack. Sean McSweeney is with Clear Capital, a national real estate valuation company. McSweeney says while Detroit faces many challenges, there are still reasons Detroit home owners should be hopeful.