America and Americans / Europeans

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:00 PM -0500 2/22/02, David Bergdahl wrote:
>--On Friday, February 22, 2002 1:44 PM -0500 Drew Danielson
><andrew.danielson at CMU.EDU> wrote:
>
>>I have heard people in these parts describe Pittsburgh as the first
>>[easternmost] Midwestern city, as well as the last [westernmost] Eastern
>>city.  I cannot attest to the thought process behind either statement,
>>though the both make sense to me, culturally and geographically.
>
>I think the rationale is that it's a town with ethnic neighborhoods
>(Bloomfield = Italian, Polish Hill = Polish, the hill district = African
>American, Squirrel Hill = Jewish &c.) and therefore it's unlike relatively
>"whitebread" cities like Columbus, Indianapolis &c.

So by this logic Chicago isn't a Midwest city?  It's a lot
westernmore than Pittsburgh.