I flew in to Cleveland yesterday evening to visit my family and was struck by the differences between the Midwest and New York City. All of these differences of course have been around all the other times I've visited home since living in New York, but they seemed more crisply in focus this time. Must’ve been the weather.
First off, people in Cleveland really are kind of porky. I remember being surprised, as I think some other Clevelanders were, that the city was ranked the unhealthiest in the nation awhile back, probably because everyone thought the same thing, "Really? What about [fill-in name of hillbilly-infested city]?" But, no, it's pretty bad, and you notice it more once you've been in a sea of harried, comparatively more trim people.
There are also many flat, wide open spaces here, and those that aren't wide open seem to have been clogged by strip malls. I've noticed before how when I walk on sidewalks in Cleveland now I get a weird sort of apprehension because there will typically be no one else walking on the sidewalk as far as the eye can see. (Perhaps this is related to the above point about Clevelanders being so porky.) Whereas in New York, the sidewalks are streams of surly humanity and if you were ever to find yourself the only person on a sidewalk there, it would be because: a.) you are in a horror movie and unknowingly about to be eaten by a zombie, or b.) a neutron bomb went off, but apparently you were in the can at the time.
On the plus side for Cleveland, there is a lot of green, which is pleasing to see this time of year: verdant lawns, explosions of flowers (mostly dandelions, I’m afraid), budding trees, etc. It's all over the place whereas in New York such bounty is confined to the parks and sad little patches.