Yesterday and today I was in the Cleveland area on business for my job.  My company has an office near Twinsburg.  My co-worker and I took the office manager and another worker out to lunch.  Over Italian food, one lady started talking about the differences between Northern and Southern Ohio.  This person was raised in the Cleveland area and has always lived there.  She really seemed to dislike Southern Ohioans and the "so-called" politics of Southern Ohio. 

 

She said how rural Southern Ohio is compared to Northern Ohio and talked about how the South ruined the last presidential election.  She made some other comments I don't care to go into. 

 

Now, I usually stay out of politics or religious discussion.  Personally, I don't follow politics much and don't know anything about Ohio's past (and don't really care to). BUT.....I got a kick out of her “philosophy.”  I never realized that Ohio is divided politically and socially on various viewpoints.  I thought Ohio people just hated Michigan, but according to this lady people in the Northern Ohio cities dislike the Southern Ohio city folks. 

 

Do you agree with this notion?  Is there validity to what I heard?  I just thought it would be interesting to throw out this topic to you.... I hope to hear from someone in Cleveland and someone in Cincinnati or elsewhere that will disagree or agree with this theory.

 

Funny - I told this lady that if she hated "Southerners" that she wouldn't like me much since I am from Louisiana.  I mean, you can't much farther south than that!!!

 

 

It goes much deeper than that.  Check out this thread about the "Five Ohios":

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=614.0

It's not a clean North-South issue.  To some Clevelanders, Southern Ohio starts at US 30 (find US 30 on an Ohio road map and you'll see the joke).  Basiclly there are at least 5 regions to Ohio (NE, SE, SW, NW, and Central) and each one is different from the other.  And to some extent there is resentment about the other parts of the state from each region.

 

It's similar and different than Louisiana.  You can argue that Louisiana has 4/5 different regions (New Orleans, BR, Lafayette-Lake Charles [Acadiana], Shreveport [and maybe Alexandria-Nagodish]), though in Louisiana New Orleans dominated the state, where as in Ohio, outside of rural SE Ohio, the other regions have balanced each other out.

Northern vs. southern Ohio would be stating it a little too simply, but yes, there are some basic political differences.  In particular, northern Ohio is more Democratic, especially northeast Ohio.  But there's not really a deep fundamental divide, and it's not especially accurate to label any broad region in Ohio as Republican.  I guess large rural swaths could be so labeled, especially in western Ohio, but it's not that meaningful since they don't have much population.

 

I really don't think it usually comes to disdain for one another, although it's certainly believable given the secessionist talk that one sometimes hears out of NE Ohio.  But apart from the occasional statewide election, the people of the two main population centers (NE and SW) rarely give each other any thought, it seems to me.  The dislike for southern Ohio (or more realistically, conservative Ohio, which is not any kind of defined geographical region) is out of frustration with its supposed dominance over state government at the present.  I'm sure if the situation were reversed, everyone would be singing a different tune.  The NE people wouldn't worry about the southern people, and the southern (again, conservative, wherever they are) people would be the ones whining.

 

By the way, this lady deriding southern Ohio for being rural is stupid, and not just because it's an arrogant thing that some people say to try to be sophisticated.  Practically EVERYWHERE outside of the metropolitan areas is rural!  It'd be just the same to stand in Cincinnati and say that northern Ohio is rural.

A look at the Ohio county map of the 2004 election really is an eye opener:

 

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/index.html

 

Looking at that you see plenty of red, some of it heavily so, in the northern half. I think dividing the state into 5 areas helps better explain the state as a whole. I think a generalization that can be made is that this is not a north vs south thing, but an urban vs rural thing. Northwest Ohio is the most rural and there is no coincidence in its being the most red part of the state, not the south as many would assume. You will notice that for the most part the exception to the rule are college towns. Look at Athens county, for example. Clark county is "red", but Yellow Springs does its part in making it very pink (almost white) and 51%/49%. Springfield probably contributes a great deal of that too. Rural Ohio has to get over its anti-inellectualism and its religious emotionalism regarding politics, specifically gay issue and cerationism/ID. How to address that, I'm not sure. Any ideas? I guess we could hand out literature in the town squares and engage people, but that's a lot of ground to cover. As far as what that lady said about southern Ohio, my dad's side of the family is from there and yes, it can be that bad.

Clark county is "red", but Yellow Springs does its part in making it very pink (almost white) and 51%/49%. Springfield probably contributes a great deal of that too.

Yellow Springs is in Greene County, which I believe was about 60/40 for Bush.  Liberal as it is, YS doesn't have the population to make a significant impact.

I really don't think it usually comes to disdain for one another, although it's certainly believable given the secessionist talk that one sometimes hears out of NE Ohio.  But apart from the occasional statewide election, the people of the two main population centers (NE and SW) rarely give each other any thought, it seems to me.  The dislike for southern Ohio (or more realistically, conservative Ohio, which is not any kind of defined geographical region) is out of frustration with its supposed dominance over state government at the present.  I'm sure if the situation were reversed, everyone would be singing a different tune.  The NE people wouldn't worry about the southern people, and the southern (again, conservative, wherever they are) people would be the ones whining.

 

By the way, this lady deriding southern Ohio for being rural is stupid, and not just because it's an arrogant thing that some people say to try to be sophisticated.  Practically EVERYWHERE outside of the metropolitan areas is rural!  It'd be just the same to stand in Cincinnati and say that northern Ohio is rural.

 

Bingo, Bingo, and Bingo.

Clark county is "red", but Yellow Springs does its part in making it very pink (almost white) and 51%/49%. Springfield probably contributes a great deal of that too.

Yellow Springs is in Greene County, which I believe was about 60/40 for Bush.  Liberal as it is, YS doesn't have the population to make a significant impact.

 

So it looks like Springfield alone accounts for the pinkness of Clark county and Yellow Springs is a liberal oasis (a lovely one at that).

And South Vienna is a yellow city while Grove City is a terra cotta city.

I really don't think it usually comes to disdain for one another, although it's certainly believable given the secessionist talk that one sometimes hears out of NE Ohio.  But apart from the occasional statewide election, the people of the two main population centers (NE and SW) rarely give each other any thought, it seems to me.  The dislike for southern Ohio (or more realistically, conservative Ohio, which is not any kind of defined geographical region) is out of frustration with its supposed dominance over state government at the present.  I'm sure if the situation were reversed, everyone would be singing a different tune.  The NE people wouldn't worry about the southern people, and the southern (again, conservative, wherever they are) people would be the ones whining.

 

By the way, this lady deriding southern Ohio for being rural is stupid, and not just because it's an arrogant thing that some people say to try to be sophisticated.  Practically EVERYWHERE outside of the metropolitan areas is rural!  It'd be just the same to stand in Cincinnati and say that northern Ohio is rural.

 

Bingo, Bingo, and Bingo.

 

Yes, PigBoy, you hit the nail on the head... Ohio seems to be so different when compared to other regions. When I lived in the south, a 4 hour drive was nothing (and it is really nothing to me today). Because of this thought, if there was a large city within that driving distance, say for instance Birmingham, then there were frequent trips to this city throughout the year. The other city on the other side of the spectrum would be Memphis. Memphis residents can probably navigate themselves throughout Birmingham as if it were an hour away. Same goes for Birmingham residents. In Ohio, it is completely different. Both Clevelander's and Cincinnatian's have their own thing going. Although, for Columbus, I can't say the same. I meet or have some kind of acquaintance with Columbus natives all of the time.

 

I was so grounded in my way of thinking as far as a 4 hour distance between cities and it not being far, that I had all of these cities in mind that I would visit frequently, like Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Detroit, etc... Since my return to Cincinnati I have nestled right in with the locals and their way of thinking as far as visiting other cities that really aren't that far away at all. At least not like I'd like to.

Couple of notes:

 

The majority of Northern Ohio's population is liberal, and resides in the Cleveland, Toledo, and Youngstown areas.

 

The Lake Erie coast is mostly a liberal rust belt, and the Ohio River is a mostly a conservative rust belt.

 

I don't know about that.  I'd venture to say moderate, if I had to pick.  But then again, the definition of liberal can be taken in so many contexts that any "side" can win that arguement.

 

Northern Ohio has its Republican areas, but not many people live there.

 

I'd hardly call 40%ish of the populace of northern Ohio "not many people."

 

There actually are a lot of people in Ohio who have never even seen Lake Erie!

 

Ditto with a lot of people in Ohio that have never seen the Ohio River.  My roommates (who is from Dayton, like me) has never seen Lake Erie.  Probably half of my good friends have never seen Lake Erie and they are mostly from Ohio.  So it really isn't that large of a deal, as they never had a reason to see it in the first place.  I'm sure the same goes for the Ohio River and people who've never seen it.

 

In general, there seems to be a superiority complex among northerners who speak pretty flat English (Toledo-Cleveland) versus southerners who speak in southern dialects.

 

Generally, it goes both ways, as northern Ohioans do not have "pretty flat English" and infact have the "Fargo"-esque accent, in which many Central and Southern Ohioans make fun of as well.  Though I do agree with Some northerners view Appalachian culture as "inferior" or "backwards."

 

 

 

But generally, you are correct.

When I moved from Springfield to Cincinnati, my first impression was that I had moved to a suburb of Kentucky because it was so different from the Ohio I had grown up in.

I later heard from a central Kentuckian that their view of northern KY was similar to my view of Cinti.

From this, I surmised that attitudes/moods are more regional than state-al

In general, there seems to be a superiority complex among northerners who speak pretty flat English (Toledo-Cleveland) versus southerners who speak in southern dialects.

 

Generally, it goes both ways, as northern Ohioans do not have "pretty flat English" and infact have the "Fargo"-esque accent, in which many Central and Southern Ohioans make fun of as well.  Though I do agree with Some northerners view Appalachian culture as "inferior" or "backwards."

 

not so, northwestern ohioans do have very flat english. in fact, in order to "lose" their local accents, national tv news broadcasters learn what is called tiffin english, which is known as the least accented and most easily accepted tv dialect. i'd agree northeast ohioans have more of what you called a fargo-esque dialect and what i would call a mix of eastern, appalachian & backwardsazz canadian. for example, i wish i had a dime for evrytime i came home and was greeted with stuff like, "ay, hows it goin?" heh. as for some northerners finding appalachians inferior, prob true at times, yet it is also true that no northerner is harder on that group than they are on themselves.

 

i like the idea of five ohios better than north-south myself. it seems more clear an fair. i also agree underneath it all this is really an urban vs rural thing, with mixed results in the burbs & smaller towns. i guess we could keep diving up the state infinitely so its kind of a black hole of a discussion. same for any other state. the much more important and impressive fact nationally is that ohio itself as a whole is such a representative snapshot representation of the rest of america. the heart of it all indeed.

 

 

 

Great insight from everyone! I wasn't looking for answers and I'm certainly not playing sides.  I may live in "southern" Ohio but I have no political favorites yet.  Call me a liberal-republican-democrat, I guess.  I have no or all opinions. 

 

And I've driven to rural parts in Southern, Ohio and now Northern, Ohio.  The Ohio turnpike itself is mostly rural (I-80/I-90) and we drove that coming back from Cleveland to make a stop in Lima.  So I know there are "rural" parts all over the five regions of Ohio mixed in with larger, urban cities. 

 

I simply found the topic interesting and thought it was worth generating discussion in this forum.  So i did. And all of you did.  So thanks. 

 

 

not so, northwestern ohioans do have very flat english. in fact, in order to "lose" their local accents, national tv news broadcasters learn what is called tiffin english, which is known as the least accented and most easily accepted tv dialect.

 

Generally, I guess it depends on what part of Northwest Ohio you are talking about.  I'm sure Lima, Findlay, and Tiffin have more "flat English" (if such exists) but I know many Toledoans along with people in the Erie Isles area that have the "Fargo-esque" accent as well.  So perhaps it's do to the ring of cities within, say, a 5-10 mile radius-ring around Lake Erie?

I was born in Cleveland, grew up in Michigan, and have lived all over the United States. I know Cleveland, Toledo, and Columbus very well, but have only viewed Cincinnati and Dayton from I-75. Before I joined this forum, I knew next to nothing about those cities, and never associated them with my home state.

 

How provincial we can be!

How provincial we can be!

 

Eh, that's just the Michigander in ya!  :-)

Nothern Ohioans don't view Appalachians as "inferior" or "backwards", as you think C-Dawg. Cleveland and Youngstown absorbed massive amounts of West Virginians during the last rounds of population growth that occured here, and here they still reside. Appalachian dialects still flourish in Cleveland and Youngstown,(maybe Toledo?) though maybe over the last few decades they've fused somewhat with our "flat" talk. NEO is also not "liberal". The main reason this area strongly supports the Democratic Party is labor, plain and simple. Most people in the area supported the ban on gay marriage, as Cleveland and NEO is kinda socially conservative, though more moderately so than other parts of the state.

 

  I do agree that we as a whole are very provincial, whether it be region vs.region, city vs.city, suburb vs.city, north vs. south, etc. That's why i'm shocked that most of the Cuyahoga mayors finally agree not to poach business from each other, launching regionalism on an economic platform rather than through government or education. I still think NEO should breakaway from Ohio, though. Whether that thinking is elitism or provincialism, i think i'll always be for it.

 

  I still think it is interesting that the Southern part of the state thinks we here in Cleveland speak "Fargo-esque"!  I DO think we speak differently....in fact I think Cleveland proper and innner burbs tend to sound different than the outlying areas.  I even had a few people from C-bus that said my frineds and I sound Jersey'ish.  And NO, not all people from Jersey have THAT accent....central Jersey to me sounds much like people here.  I guess if we sound fargo-esque..then so would ChiCAgo, Detroit, Toledo, and Buffalo as well?  I don't know, I guess people from about Mansfield on down sound different to me.  The only people I can pick out anytime I hear them speak though, are YUNS from Pittsburgh!!!  :-D

I guess if we sound fargo-esque..then so would ChiCAgo, Detroit, Toledo, and Buffalo as well?

 

Bingo.  It's a Great Lakes thing.

yeah, and the Fargo-esque accent isn't really the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent, either....Fargo-esque is more Minnesota and (sort of) Wisconsin.

 

 

I honestly can't tell the difference.  It's essentially different variations of the "nasal" thing, for me.  Much like the southern accent, in which I honestly cannot tell if a person is from Tennesee from Texas from Georgia from rural Pennsylvania/Ohio/Indiana/Illinois/Missouri.

 

The one accent I CAN tell though is Boston and Brooklyn.

^ you haven't heard my dayton spouse do her hilarious neo accent: "strongsville itt, how may i help you?" trust me its funny & unique, i never realized.

  I guess if you have more of a Southern accent, then we up here sound a lot alike......just as you down there...do to us.  Boston yes...I can tell....but Brooklyn?  Brooklyn borders the southern part of Cleveland right off of I-480...I can't seem to tell the difference.......oh....THAT Brooklyn!  Actually, I have been seeing a girl from Queens...she sounds the same as the Brooklynites to me....

  You are right about the nasaly thing up here though (not as bad as Fargo-esque though).  My cousins from Pittspuke...I mean burgh used to make me say words and laugh..as I did them...one good example was the word car....in Pitt it is cawr...here in Cleve it is cAhr....funny how 100 miles can make a big difference... Knibb High football rules! I'm out(Billy Madison)

  I guess if you have more of a Southern accent, then we up here sound a lot alike......just as you down there...do to us. 

 

So Columbus is Chattanooga now?!?

I've come to agree that there is a "Cleveland" accent (although it's hardly widespread- its mostly just a working class thing), but it is not in any way related to the Upper Midwest "Fargo" accent.  Cleveland's accent is similar to Chicago or Michigan.  The "Fargo" accent is closer to Canadian.

My wife, who is originally from upstate New York thinks Ohioans (Cincinnati is what she is familiar with) talks through their nose.

NEO is also not "liberal". The main reason this area strongly supports the Democratic Party is labor, plain and simple. Most people in the area supported the ban on gay marriage, as Cleveland and NEO is kinda socially conservative, though more moderately so than other parts of the state.

 

So Columbus may very well be the most "liberal" city in Ohio! I like living in the most liberal city here (and don't try to argue otherwise!). :) As for the accents, yes, I've heard Clevelanders and while they sound "Fargo-esque" it's no where near as strong an accent as in Wisconsin or Minnesota. Fargo is in North Dakota, but I wonder if it's unique to Fargo since it's right on the border with MN? Anyone know if this accent is common in that state?

I probally told this story before, but since this thread has drifted from political divisions to regional accents, I'll tell it again.

 

First day of class in the fall of '99 I had with this Geographer professor @ OSU (and who had been there since 1965), I come up to say hi, babling about something.  He goes, in his his English accent, "you have a New York accent."

I stand, looking stun.  (at that point) I had never visited NYC, much less lived there.  Having lived in Geauga & Morrow Counties for all my life, I couldn't understand how I could be classified as being a New Yorker.

 

Looking back, the best explaination I could come up with is that I inherited a Philadelphia accent from my mother.  :?

Speaking of accents; my mother is from Marion, Indiana (if you draw a line, it is directly across from or parallel to Celina/Kenton/Marion/Dover/etc. here in Ohio.

 

I can definitely tell that my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma in Indiana have a different (more southern-sounding) accent than I do (me being born and raised in north central Ohio).  My mom says she can't tell the difference (but that's probably because she is from there).

 

Anyhow, I'm a big fan of regional words and phrases.  While at my grandma's house a couple of years ago, she asked if I wanted a mango cut up in my salad.  I was very puzzled and didn't know how to answer (because I like mangoes--the fruit, that is--but I didn't want one in my salad)!  So I asked her, and she showed me what a "mango" was............it was a green pepper!  I'm assuming that mango must be the Indiana word for green pepper!

 

Does anybody else call it a mango????

The farmers of Butler County--infact the agricultural society/fair board still have a mango class for the veggie contest.

A look at the Ohio county map of the 2004 election really is an eye opener:

 

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/index.html

 

Looking at that you see plenty of red, some of it heavily so, in the northern half. I think dividing the state into 5 areas helps better explain the state as a whole. I think a generalization that can be made is that this is not a north vs south thing, but an urban vs rural thing. Northwest Ohio is the most rural and there is no coincidence in its being the most red part of the state, not the south as many would assume. You will notice that for the most part the exception to the rule are college towns. Look at Athens county, for example. Clark county is "red", but Yellow Springs does its part in making it very pink (almost white) and 51%/49%. Springfield probably contributes a great deal of that too. Rural Ohio has to get over its anti-inellectualism and its religious emotionalism regarding politics, specifically gay issue and cerationism/ID. How to address that, I'm not sure. Any ideas? I guess we could hand out literature in the town squares and engage people, but that's a lot of ground to cover. As far as what that lady said about southern Ohio, my dad's side of the family is from there and yes, it can be that bad.

 

this web site does a better job of showing the electoin results in relation to population...

 

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

 

 

 

When I moved from Springfield to Cincinnati, my first impression was that I had moved to a suburb of Kentucky because it was so different from the Ohio I had grown up in.

I later heard from a central Kentuckian that their view of northern KY was similar to my view of Cinti.

From this, I surmised that attitudes/moods are more regional than state-al

 

you hit the nail on the head...sw ohio also can get some indaina influance aswell

  I love this forum!  It even got me high!!!  By that I mean my building height grew!  lol  (maybe that was a Northeast Ohio thing.....lol)

So Columbus may very well be the most "liberal" city in Ohio!

 

How does that follow from anything else that's been posted in this thread, or from 2004 county-by-county election statistics? The Columbus area is more Republican than the Cleveland area, by a long shot. Let's face it, the only reason the '04 election was even close was because of NEO and Toledo.

^The city of Columbus, not the sprawling burbs.

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland):

67% Kerry, 33% Bush

 

Franklin County (Columbus):

55% Kerry, 45% Bush

 

Hamilton County (Cincinnati):

53% Bush, 47% Kerry

 

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/)

 

I couldn't find results from the city limits themselves, but you'd find the city of Cleveland swinging even more heavily toward Kerry than the county.

 

Also, it's not accurate to say that Cleveland's Democraticism (a word?) is entirely or even primarily a result of labor (though labor is certainly still a factor). That might have been accurate about 50 years ago. However, labor is no longer nearly the force it once was in NEO, as the area's manufacturing base continues to erode. Cuyahoga County's (and Cleveland's) high number of Democrats is more due to its sizeable populations of blacks, Jews, Latinos, gays, Catholics and people of moderate or low incomes, all of whom tend to vote Democratic for various social and economic reasons.

Cleveland is still one of the most unionized cities in the country. To say that labor unions have no influence in who runs and wins in elections in this county is pretty off base. I live in Parma. No blacks, Jews, Latinos, or gays. My town is probably the most solidly democratic in the entire county. We all know Parma isn't the most tolerant of cities, and yet it will never shift Republican. Old people drive the vote in this city....you don't think they've forgotten everything they used to stand for, do you?

Who said they have "no" influence.  Misquoting people is pretty off base.

Thanks X. Let me quote myself:

 

labor is certainly still a factor

Labor is still a factor, but teh strength of labor has dimished some.  However, it the strong voting pattern suggests that the Cleveland overall (multiple issues) is the most liberal part of the state.  Not every urban area is liberal though - Hamilton county's results suggest that Cincinnati is a more conservative city.

 

 

Labor is still a factor, but teh strength of labor has dimished some.  However, it the strong voting pattern suggests that the Cleveland overall (multiple issues) is the most liberal part of the state.  Not every urban area is liberal though - Hamilton county's results suggest that Cincinnati is a more conservative city.

 

City, no. Metropolitan area/county, sure.  But is it more conservative than Cleveland?  By paper, yes.  In reality, who knows, as social liberals can be found in both parties and fiscal conservatives can also be found in both parties.  I generally find central Columbus to be Ohio's most "liberal" city (socially; not talking small towns).

Not every urban area is liberal though - Hamilton county's results suggest that Cincinnati is a more conservative city.

 

 

 

Are you speaking in terms Politics? And if so, do you mind posting results by county and then by city?

 

And you are referring by culture, what points would you make to back up this statement?

^ But then, Columbus's population probably already "fits the mold of middle class America" more than any of the other big cities in the state. So how much is that openness really put to the test?

Are you speaking in terms Politics?

Yes. 

Labor is still a factor, but teh strength of labor has dimished some.  However, it the strong voting pattern suggests that the Cleveland overall (multiple issues) is the most liberal part of the state.  Not every urban area is liberal though - Hamilton county's results suggest that Cincinnati is a more conservative city.

 

 

 

Hamilton County suggest that Hamilton county voted Bush in by a small percentage (under 5%).

 

Hamilton County does not suggest Cincinnati is more conservative based on the current presidency:

 

Both of our current Mayors were democrat and both had liberal standpoints, but it was Mallory that leaned a little more to the left.

 

Take a look at this voting map by ward. You'll notice wards like Mt. Adams, Hyde Park, and Walnut Hills all voted for Mallory.

 

Check out this interactive map breakdown by ward:

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...90005/-1/CINCI

 

And out of our 9 council members, there are only two Republicans (& even Ghiz seems to swing left, while I can't say the same for Thomas). With the majority being democrat and the others are either Charter, or Independent.

 

 

Same thing goes for the presidential election

 

"Most uncounted ballots come from regions and precincts where Kerry was strongest. In Hamilton County, 4,515 ballots or 51.64 percent of the uncounted county total, came from Cincinnati, where Kerry won 67.98 percent to Bush’s 31.54 percent. In Cuyahoga County, 4,708 ballots or 44 percent of the county total came from Cleveland, where Kerry won all 65 precincts. In Summit County, 2,650 ballots or 48.72 percent of the county total came from Akron, which Kerry won 68.75 percent to Bush’s 28.00 percent."

 

I was speaking collectively over the years.  I don't doubt that the city proper would have a Democratic mayor. it just seems to me that Cincy-Dayton (SW in general) is red, that's all.