Middle Ground

I've spent my whole life in the heartland of America. I grew up listening to midwest bands like Styx, REO Speedwagon, Chicago, and Cheap Trick, and then while at grad school at Indiana U, became a big fan of local rocker John "Cougar" Mellencamp.

Midwest blood runs through my veins, and its songs are still earworms inside my head. For the life of me, I could never quite figure out why people ever became enamored of either coast. Unless you have gobs of money, the coasts are expensive, crowded, and decidedly unfriendly.

And so I was pleasantly surprised to read here that more and more folks are leaving their oh-so-trendy coastal digs for the simple life of the midwest.

Where land and houses are still cheap. Where the air is clean, a trip across town doesn't take three hours, and Mellencamp's "Little Pink Houses" is more than just a song but still a way of life.

I don't think the movement toward the middle is limited to just the geographically-defined Midwest, but also includes the Great Plains states, ranging from Texas all the way north. I don't think it will be long before west coasters "discover" Amarillo is but 17 hours from LA on I-40 and I-15, or a quick hop and a jump on Southwest via jet.

Compared to LA, Amarillo must seem like a fire sale bargain. My friends there bemoan their cracker-box homes that run over $750,000 for 1000 sq. ft. I laugh and tell them it takes me six hours to run the tractor over my lawn, and that I could easily put a few dozen of their suburban cubes on my land.

Just last Sunday we visited friends in Florida who, when they found out we are "only five hours from the Rockies," stood there with jaws wide open wishing they had the same proximity as do we. Never mind that there's not a whole lot of anything else between here and the Rockies.

With travel of all forms relatively easy and still, believe it or not, cheap, it really doesn't much matter where one lives these days. Technology allows us to work from anywhere (I'll actually be on the road several times this semester, but you'll never know it). Why not live where money stretches a lot farther?

And so we will likely continue to see growth in our nation's heartland. Cities like Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, and others will not exactly be bursting at the seams, but they will see spikes in their population. And the local cultures will be infused with new ideas along with these new people.

Life is good here in the middle. We can see both ways to the east and west, but at the same time appreciate the somewhat slower pace of life (and inflation).

Now let's not tell everyone, OK?

Dr "Middle of the Road" Gerlich