urbanMSP

I'm in the "North" camp as well. It's not like this kind of re-branding is unique. Look at Texas for a successful example. The lone star state has several well-know saying about it, "Don't mess with Texas", "Everything is Bigger in Texas", all referring to a now well-known cultural identity. This is despite the fact that The South already had its own unique image and branding much like the Midwest does now. Heck, thanks to 'Dubya Texas is what most people think of all the US between the coasts.

Texas has a pretty unique history compared to other states, to be fair, since it was its own sovereign nation for a while.

Again, I didn't state anything about Target.

Fine. Different, related question more specifically to do with what you said.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ott-walker

The disaster Dayton's GOP rivals predicted never happened. Two years after the tax hike, Minnesota's economy is booming. The state added 172,000 jobs during Dayton's first four years in office. Its 3.6 percent unemployment rate is among the lowest in the country (Wisconsin's is 5.2 percent), and the Twin Cities have the lowest unemployment rate of any major metropolitan area. Under Dayton, Minnesota has consistently been in the top tier of states for GDP growth. Median incomes are $8,000 higher than the national average. In 2014, Minnesota led the nation in economic confidence, according to Gallup.

Here's my question. Are the problems you're predicting and observing based on any actual data?

I'm in the "North" camp as well. It's not like this kind of re-branding is unique. Look at Texas for a successful example. The lone star state has several well-know saying about it, "Don't mess with Texas", "Everything is Bigger in Texas", all referring to a now well-known cultural identity. This is despite the fact that The South already had its own unique image and branding much like the Midwest does now. Heck, thanks to 'Dubya Texas is what most people think of all the US between the coasts.

No self-respecting southerner would ever include Texas in the South.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to promoting Minnesota, which I truly believe is the best state in the union. I just think A. it's weird that promoting Minnesota means rejecting the Midwest, and B. the term "North" is already taken anyway.

As a transplant, I actually think one of the neatest things about Minnesota is how well it does most stuff while being unflashy, and, well, Midwestern. I love the idea that we're the place where middle America built its great, progressive city.

EDIT: And it's not like Minnesota doesn't have an unusually well-known and basically accurate cultural identity -- hockey, Scandinavians, efficiency, cold. (I mean, we're the only place in the entire middle of the country with an identifiable accent!) It's that people are self-conscious about embracing that image because they think it's too provincial. But I'd rather brag about what we've got than try to sell some made-up identity on the country.

I dunno, 150 years after the conclusion of the Civil War, I think "North" is probably a free agent.

Terrible comparison: but look at "Tea Party". It means something almost completely different and most of the people who identify with that label probably know very little about the original Boston Tea Party. Heck, a bunch of them think it means "Taxed Enough Already", though in practice it just means "very conservative person, except for stuff I like."

The idea that we can't be "North" because of "The North" during the Civil War is kinda ridiculous.

The South is... different.

EDIT: in case I wasn't clear, in my (pretty considerable) experience, the terms "north" and "northerner" are still very much in active use in the south. I know people from the north find that baffling, and maybe it is, but it's a practical reality.

The North is really only a label really taken by people in "The South." Nobody north of the Mason-Dixon in this day and age refers to themselves as a "northerner" in the same context as those from the South use it.

Plus, the South lost anyway

Having been born south of the line myself I want to point out that it was the War of Northern Aggression after all

I am definitely in favor of us identifying as The North - and if that confuses us with being diametrically opposed to the South, I doubt many Minnesotans would be upset.

Finally, interesting Civil War fact: Minnesota was one of only a few explicitly "states'rights" abolitionist states.

Typical? Really, what should Minneapolis have done to prevent Target from making bad business decisions?

Where did I state anything about Target? The loss of headquarters, jobs, and talent has been an ongoing issue here for a number of years now.

OK, you didn't -- I apparently had Target on the brain. Still, the underlying question remains -- what, exactly, should municipal and state leaders be doing to "keep corporations and talent here" that they aren't doing now?

Amazon is looking here for talent. That tells me that we have a reputation for having an attractive work force, which should be a good thing, right?

And which headquarters losses would you attribute to something under the control of state and local officials? The losses I can think of relate mostly to mergers that have occurred... not much that can be done about that.

Amazon is looking here for talent. That tells me that we have a reputation for having an attractive work force, which should be a good thing, right?

Everything I've seen out of Target these last few days has indicated this is isn't true. In the same presentation as they announced thousands of layoffs in Minneapolis, they were giddily talking about expanding their talent and innovation centers, not here, but in San Francisco and New York. MSP is a market dominated by large companies in mature industries, and while we like to think we have a fully diversified economy, we're severely lacking in high technology companies compared to many cities our size. That affects our start-up and small business scene, not necessarily in quantity, but in composition. For example, because Kansas City has a large telecom and internet base (Sprint), it drives education and innovation in that area, so much so that Google chose KC as the first city to roll out their Fiber network.

Also:

http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 04221.html

I'm in the "North" camp as well. It's not like this kind of re-branding is unique. Look at Texas for a successful example. The lone star state has several well-know saying about it, "Don't mess with Texas", "Everything is Bigger in Texas", all referring to a now well-known cultural identity. This is despite the fact that The South already had its own unique image and branding much like the Midwest does now. Heck, thanks to 'Dubya Texas is what most people think of all the US between the coasts.

No self-respecting southerner would ever include Texas in the South.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to promoting Minnesota, which I truly believe is the best state in the union. I just think A. it's weird that promoting Minnesota means rejecting the Midwest, and B. the term "North" is already taken anyway.

As a transplant, I actually think one of the neatest things about Minnesota is how well it does most stuff while being unflashy, and, well, Midwestern. I love the idea that we're the place where middle America built its great, progressive city.

EDIT: And it's not like Minnesota doesn't have an unusually well-known and basically accurate cultural identity -- hockey, Scandinavians, efficiency, cold. (I mean, we're the only place in the entire middle of the country with an identifiable accent!) It's that people are self-conscious about embracing that image because they think it's too provincial. But I'd rather brag about what we've got than try to sell some made-up identity on the country.

I think you're absolutely right, and I know that is part of the push behind the "North" brand -- to embrace who we are and own it.

Perhaps it's your perspective but I'm impressed how quickly you came to that conclusion, while so many life-long residents couldn't. It also probably says something about us -- that we're in denial to what's so obvious to others outside of our region.

It's really to do with "Midwest" not really meaning anything. It's a generic term that represents something different to just about everybody.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/what ... e-midwest/

Further, this map illustrates why many of us see ourselves as part of a different region than other "Midwestern" states.



http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fa ... -arms.html

MSP has actually gained more jobs in its core than Seattle (percentage-wise), and has done a better job of keeping job growth inside the core.

Oh Christ, if we're in "Yankeedom," I'm going to have to see myself out. Guess I'm off to Omaha, y'all.

(More seriously, my brother made this interactive chart thing a while back, which does suggest some confusion nationally about which region we're in. Which is the Midwest, as 93% of Minnesotans know.)

I call BS on that Tufts map. I don't know what Toronto has to do with Kansas, for instance...

Yeah, that map is nonsense - no Texan would ever identify as part of "Greater Appalachia", nor would any southern Missourian. I also think that MN, WI, and MI have a very distinct identity from the Northeast, and while there are good historical reasons to group New Orleans with Quebec and New Brunswick ("Cajun" after all is a creole variant of "Acadian") I don't think that connection holds any meaning today beyond recognition of a semi-shared language (though most Quebecois would say that variant of "French" spoken by "Cajuns" has nothing to do with French).

Perhaps Minneapolis officials and locals should start worrying more about keeping corporations and talent here than if whether or not we should be considered something other than Midwestern. There are companies like Amazon recruiting local talent left and right and locals are worried about what we should be referred to as. Ten years from now most of our corporate headquarters, jobs, and talent will be gone and these idiots will be wondering what happened.

being it's not officials but private people who are pushing this I don't really see where your argument has warrant.

Yeah, that map is nonsense - no Texan would ever identify as part of "Greater Appalachia", nor would any southern Missourian. I also think that MN, WI, and MI have a very distinct identity from the Northeast, and while there are good historical reasons to group New Orleans with Quebec and New Brunswick ("Cajun" after all is a creole variant of "Acadian") I don't think that connection holds any meaning today beyond recognition of a semi-shared language (though most Quebecois would say that variant of "French" spoken by "Cajuns" has nothing to do with French).

The map isn't intended to show how people identify themselves, though. It's intended to show cultural similarities.

Obviously it's a very simple and imperfect map, but southern Missouri is probably one of the better examples. The Ozarks area is probably more culturally similar to West Virginia than Iowa.

As Mulad noted, though, the Canadian labels are especially simplified and probably weren't worth including.