Hi. I am an young, amateur "web historian" who seems to have an apparently quite rare obsession with Ohio. I have some really good, laid-back, and loving family who lives in Northwest Ohio that I only get to see once a year. Unfortunately, I actually live in South Carolina, because I feel obliged to live there and that's where my "support network" is (even though I really wish it wasn't). It's always been my dream to LIVE in the absolutely free and beautiful Ohio life, because that's the only life I've ever lived that's given me pretty much complete happiness.

 

When most people think of SC, they think mostly of the country, but this was not my experience with SC at all. I grew up in a fairly suburban portion of it. I'll be straight-up honest with you, and this is gonna sound kind of far-fetched or mean to some of you, but most of the people who live in my area of SC mostly think of Ohio as this fairly primitive place with nothing to do or see and where success in life is virtually impossible. So therefore, I'm surrounded by these stuck-up egotists, and the most frustrating thing about it is that a lot of these egotists are my family that live here. See, they could never understand why I need the Ohio life, and frankly, maybe I won't either, but I just feel like I do. Something about SC just doesn't feel right to me, and OH just feels like it fits me exactly.

 

It's always been a dream of mine to actually live in Ohio where everything seems to be so much easier for me. It's a much more laid-back environment, and in my town I don't even have to drive to get to a lot of the places I want to go, and there isn't much traffic at all, so crossing roads is no problem at all.

 

Ohio is my happy place, and it has been ever since I first went there. I don't know why, but I see so much beauty in it. I'm absolutely fascinated with Ohio. I literally couldn't think of a better place for me to be. (Before you ask, yes, I've been in Ohio during the winter, and I know about the snow and have experienced it. That didn't change my mind.) Here's a typical conversation with someone from South Carolina about moving to Ohio.

 

Person B: "Oh, it's always been my dream to move to Colorado!"

Me: "Well, personally, my dream place to live is Ohio! Everything is so nice and laid back there and there's so much to do and see."

Person B: *looks at me like I have something wrong with me* "Ohio??? As in that place full of just farmland, that I have to drive all the way through just to get to New York (or wherever) ???"

Me: :-(

 

But... I find the farmland to be so beautiful. I'm not a person who'd live on a farm, but every time I drive through Ohio through all the farms and farmland and small towns and downtown areas, it's like driving through some kind of fantasy land. I still don't know why I see so much beauty and uniqueness in it, but really nothing could ever replace those experiences.

 

I'm actually writing a book about the town at which I stay. I'll be running around going to museums, interviewing people, reading books, and researching on the web to compile all the information about the town possible into this nonfiction book I'm writing.

 

I've heard of people going to Ohio and begging to leave as soon as possible, when I'm literally begging to be able to stay for longer! Forever would be even better. I've never gone to a place where I had so much freedom to do basically whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and have a whole county and more to explore at my own free will on my bike (and I might also rent a car this summer there, who knows, so then possibly more than that even!).

 

So I want to ask you, community, why is it that I see so much beauty and everybody else here just thinks it's boring or like any other place? I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way about Ohio as I do, since you are enthusiastic enough about the state to come to this forum. What is the beauty of Ohio? Why is it the best place for me to be? Why am I the only person in existence here in my state at least who actually thinks of Ohio as the ideal living location, or anything even remotely close to "cool"? How can I better explain it to people? How would you?

I've never thought about South Carolina as a state of opporutnity aside from a lot of Ohioans liking Myrtle Beach. I don't see why your personal network thinks people are more likely to "make it" there.

So, first...welcome.  This forum is a strong resource.

 

My initial thoughts:

 

-If you find the forum topic here where someone asks to list your five favorite states, i actually listed South Carolina.  Mostly because of Charleston and the food and its laid back personality.  The rest of the state may as well be the deep south, thats not a good thing.  Funny that they turn up their nose to Ohio...funny how weather, which is completely out of the control of a human being, can fan egos.

 

-When you live here, you learn not to care about what others think.  People will rag on Ohio until the end of time.  Oh well, if you dont like it, then beat it.  I would say the heavy majority is highly uninformed.  Yes there is farmland in ohio, but this is far from Kansas or Nebraska.  Cleveland is the Forest City, we have just about every time of landscape here from farm, big city, mountains, trees, islands, etc.  My first question to people who make dumb comments like that is "whens the last time youve been?".  The response is typically never.  Thats often an embarassing moment for the other person.

 

-My hypothesis on the "begging to leave forever" crowd is its mostly baby boomers and gen Xers.  I think baby boomers from this area will blame the state or region if life didnt quite turn out the way they wanted it.  Gen Xers are mostly a follower generation, so they will do what they think they have to do to reach prosperity.  one example is when i am in charlotte for work where my company is located....go to Ballantyne and its the most sterile, car culture, big house, strip mall place on the planet.  Gen Xer's/Baby boomers run that area..thats what they envision as prosperity.  Nice weather, big house, nice cars, easy access to all their amenities.  I literally fear for my life when i walk around because pedestrianism and running is so foreign. So i think those generations equate success with leaving Ohio.  The millenials dont know the history and downfall of our city and state as well.  They mostly just judge places on if they have a good time, if they can work and if there is good talent.  Which the 3 C's cities all have a lot of it.  Millennials believe Ohio and its cities are cool...they defend it, wear apparel proudly and dont understand what the big deal is.  Of course my hypotheses are not the rule, just what i believe i see and how crowds of people think.

 

To answer your queston directly...you dont have to work hard to find beauty of Ohio.  Culturally, there are phenomenal resources, history, engrained traditions, foods, persona that cannot be replicated anywhere.  Thats beautiful.  the big lake up north and the river to the south, beuatiful.  If you want to get into nature, no we dont have the Cascades or the Rockies, but you are a short drive from the foothills of the appalachians, beautiful.  Then there is the social/emotional aspect of Ohio.  You can raise a family here as well as anywhere else, get great educations, get more for your money and genuinely live amongst people who dont need the stuff pretentious people need to feel great in life.  There are things Ohio lacks, but i could go on about its beauty for hours.  You dont have to defend yourself to anyone.  Ohio has churned out more greatness than South Carolina will ever come close to

IMO, the beauty of Ohio is the diversity and the fact that there's something for everybody. The food here is really good. There's many large cities here and they're actually fairly culturally distinct or have their own flavor. You have great rural, urban and suburban areas. There's a wide variety of amazing architecture and landscapes. You can detect so many different accents here. There's tons of stuff to do; we have some of the best amusement parks, waterparks, zoos, museums, professional sports teams, etc. There's so many big cities in Ohio that even if you prefer to live in a rural area, you're still going to be only a few hours drive tops from a lot of great attractions/fun stuff to do.

 

If you talk to someone about "Ohio" it's going to conjure images in their head of cornfields and tractors. Ohio is actually quite densely populated. Similar images probably come to mind from mentioning most state names to others. I'd be guilty of that too, if someone spoke fondly of "Illinois" despite Chicago being in that state.

 

 

Dear Yeti,

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

I'll give you an unvarnished answer.

 

I was that person, the Ohio-hater like the people you mention. And I grew up here, and am a native.

 

I grew up in an extremely small town (now smaller than ever, at about 50,000 people) and I could not WAIT to get out of Ohio one day. Our city was a sh*thole in my mind, and we were immediately surrounded by hicks and farmland. Nobody knew anything of what was cool and hip and on trend, and anything that was a national fashion trend or food/drink trend took like a year to catch on here, and then, only in the big cities. The pace of small town life and the closeness of it choked me. I hated that everyone knew everyone else. My town was extremely right-leaning and very conservative, full of racists and bigots. I was a really different kid in a lot of ways, and I was ostracized in every way possible growing up - because I was poor, because I was a punker, because I was bisexual, because most of my friends were "arty" or gay, because I wanted to pursue the arts as a career and not be a lawyer or nurse or real estate agent or whatever. I was choking and I hated it. I grew up with Archie Bunker as a dad and a small-town Mom who really didn't know much of anything outside of being a Mom, both of them just with high school educations (my Dad didn't even graduate, he got expelled for punching out his gym coach).

 

I started to get it when I left there and went to college. I fell in love with my quaint little college town (Kent) and the people I met from all over the WORLD who lived in my dorm and with whom i took classes. I studied the arts and felt like there was actually a career to be had. I loved the classes I took, my weirdness was embraced and accepted and encouraged, and overall I had a great time for a pretty reasonable price.

 

I moved to CLE after graduation with the intent of leaving as soon as I had some more theater experience on my resume that wasn't confined to college. I still really wanted out and thought the big cities were the place to be for the career I wanted. While living in Cleveland as a post-college adult, I made a lot of great friends, was in a ton of shows and several indie films, and got to know my way around with day jobs all over Northeast Ohio. I also had life-saving and life-changing surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, which really changed my perspective on a lot of things. I became a writer when I could no longer act, and surgery gave me my life back.

 

I enjoyed my life, but I was still looking to leave. I found the hokey-ness and small town vibe (as compared to NY, CHI or LA) something I just didn't like. I wanted to MOVE and SHAKE and didn't feel like we had it going on here. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't.

 

I really didn't get it until I left and moved to LA in the late 90s. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I found the weather to be boring. Ok yes at first it's nice but then it's just the same thing, over and over and over. No mood. No character. There is nothing like snuggling in with some chili and cornbread or pizza and a movie when it's cold outside, sitting under blankets with someone you love and tucking in to bed early, or burning some candles for a warmer atmosphere. Christmas when it's cold is just like no other. The Christmas I was out there just felt fake and weird and stupid. And speaking of fake, everyone was fake. Everyone was a liar and made of plastic and only talked to you if they thought you could do something for them. The entire structure of the city exists on pretense and surfaces and I find the inside to be ugly and full of posers who think they are far superior to everyone else in the country just because it's sunny there every day. SO. WHAT.

 

I longed for my Cleveland. I missed it. I missed how REAL everyone was. I missed the friends I had made. None of my friends in LA were actually doing any acting. They were taking class, spending money on headshots and hoping to get a call back for a non-speaking part in a yogurt commercial, but they weren't ACTING. I did more acting in a one-year period in CLE than some of my friends who had been out there for 10 years. And nobody is ever "enougH" out there. Never enough money, never a good enough car, never young enough or thin enough or pretty enough. The whole place is dysfunctional.

 

Long story short  (and I do mean long; I've written a novel about my journey there and back), I finally saw what others could not once I left. The beauty of the rolling hills of miles of farmland. The refreshing nature of conversations with people who simply want to sit next to a creek with a beer and watch kids play in the water or let their line sit off the edge of the boat in case a fish comes along. Who appreciate a good fire and some hot dogs after a day of hard play, well deserved after working all week long. I reconnected with old friends and made hundreds of new ones. Real ones. Quality ones. I found love here many times over, fell in complete and total love with our food scene, and began getting regular work as a writer here. My Mom lives in CLE now, she bought a house here, worked at Case Western for 20 years and then retired. I had my son here and am raising him to be a proud Clevelander, taking him to places that, as a native CLE kid, are his birthright - Sokolowski's, his first Cavs' game, for breakfast at Slyman's. We've ridden RTA to Winterfest and I take him to wonderful children's theater. I love this town and will defend it to anyone who asks, and have written many articles about its greatness.

 

I realized that what I really don't like are judgmental people, and that those can be found anywhere. But they were concentrated in the area I grew up in, and so it colored my view very negatively of that region, and, in turn, of the whole state.

 

My parents were not in love with Ohio and we were broke all the time growing up so I never saw any of the beauty and wonder of it. The only places we ever went were ham radio festivals and flea markets and it's hard to fall in love with places as a kid if all you see of it is other kids who are stuck at these crappy festivals and a bunch of junk that nobody really wants to buy. I'm trying to do better with my son and I hope I'm doing a good job.

 

This is a very, very long way to say, those who love Ohio are special. It's like you can see through glasses that others cannot. Everyone else has big thick glasses on and cannot focus on what's here, so they gloss over it. But when you have the right glasses, the special glasses that everyone else might not have, you see this place for how great it is, and you can see all the other people here who think the same.

 

I hope one day you are able to move here, as is your wish. If there's a way we can help with that, let us know.

^Interesting bio R&R; ditto welcome to Yeti.

^thats quite a story...thanks for sharing.

 

Another thing about those glasses. If you're not from here and you come here to visit...whether work or pleasure, your going to see a place much quieter than NY, SF, CHI and perhaps be turned off by that...it's not a 24/7 place.  But if you aren't from here and move here, you are in my opinion much more likely to wear those glasses.  I've not really seen people who have moved here and not loved it.  It's like that cheesy person that has a crush on you and you don't like him/her at first...then once you get to know him/her, realize it could be the love of your life

This is a couple of years old so I am not sharing it for clicks or anything, but by way of showing that my experiences have helped me become a published writer here, for which I am very grateful, and how having left my small town city has given me a lot of perspective. I love Cleveland a ton. And I could make a home in a lot of places in Ohio, if they were near one of the decent-sized cities. But I would never move back to my hometown. I am sharing mostly to show how a lot of people, including some people who grow up here, maybe don't get why Ohio is so uniquely great. It takes some life and perspective to bring that opinion, if it wasn't given to you as a child.

 

http://beltmag.com/growing-poor-80s-mansfield/

I've worked in restaurants and hotels in Cleveland for over a decade now; in that time I have seen so many people come to (and Ohio in general) Cleveland and be utterly amazed by how nice it is here.

 

Basically the two groups of people who hate on Cleveland are people who have never set foot here ,  and people who have never left the county.

 

I grew up in Oregon,  the land of expensive nature. Do you wanna go skiing? Cool it's going to run you a couple hundred bucks... That's why I have never skiied, not sure I wanna spend a weekend and a boatload of money on something I may not like at all.

 

Here you can go hiking in the national park, relax and reflect at any of the half dozen pretty nice sized waterfalls, or go paddling around lake Erie with a fraction of the time and money spent.

 

Also, it's pretty easy to visit other big cities... from Salem, OR to Seattle, it's 228 miles- 3.5 hours and San Fran is 10 hours nonstop. From Cleveland I can be to Pittsburgh, Columbus, Detroit,  Cincinnati, Ft Wayne,  Erie, or Buffalo in the same 3.5 hours. There's also the islands, which are a world in themselves that are always a fantastic way to waste a weekend. Same for cedar point.

 

The West coast is nice, but once you get used to seeing mountains on the horizon there's not a lot else.

 

I grew up in an extremely small town (now smaller than ever, at about 50,000 people)

 

okay, with all due respect, Mansfield is not that small, especially not extremely so. Now I grew up in a small town! lol

Well, compared to Cleveland, it feels like Mayberry. Technically, a small town is something like 20,000-100,000 people, no? So it's small.

 

TBH I spent almost as much time in Ashland as I did in Mansfield. And I believe that qualifies as an "extremely" small town. And weekends were spent in all the truly extremely small towns around there. Bellville, Mt. Vernon, etc., going to the aforementioned ham radio fest and flea markets. But I guess technically it's not miniscule.

Well, compared to Cleveland, it feels like Mayberry. Technically, a small town is something like 20,000-100,000 people, no? So it's small.

 

TBH I spent almost as much time in Ashland as I did in Mansfield. And I believe that qualifies as an "extremely" small town. And weekends were spent in all the truly extremely small towns around there. Bellville, Mt. Vernon, etc., going to the aforementioned ham radio fest and flea markets. But I guess technically it's not miniscule.

 

"Small town" in Ohio would typically be under 5,000.  Mansfield would qualify as a small city; Ashland and Mt. Vernon would probably be just a "town."  Bellville would be the only "small town."

Ok, semantics then of "town" vs. "city," I guess. I'm not the expert you all are on these things. I use those terms kind of interchangeably. I mean, Chicago is "my kind of town" according to the song and it's way too big to be a town I imagine. I just mean, not a lot of people, compared to more populous places.

 

Is there a place where things like this are defined? I'm serious.

Ohio doesn't even have "towns". It only has "Village" which is under 5k and "City" which is over 5k. Other states vary.

I have found most of the Midwest and South is pretty much the same. There are a handful of nice small towns in each state, otherwise if you live in the country your options in life are limited, and the politics are very conservative. Opportunity is in the metro areas, of which you can find nice things about each of them. From Savannah to Cleveland.

Ohio doesn't even have "towns". It only has "Village" which is under 5k and "City" which is over 5k. Other states vary.

 

Or you can be both! The City of the Village of Indian Hill! They clearly don't like the city status.