Outstate? (Minneapolis, Duluth, St. Cloud: cabins, title, station)

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by kazoopilot

I've heard several people from Mpls. use "the cities" or "Twin Cities" to talk about Minneapolis and St. Paul alone, to distinguish it from the suburbs.

St. Cloud is very close to the cities, so maybe that's why they use the term. They're part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul CSA.

When I lived in St. Cloud, everyone referred to the metro as "the cities" hardly ever did I hear "Twin Cities"

When I lived in Duluth, everyone referred to the metro as "the cities" hardly ever did I hear "Twin Cities"

ex) "What are you doing this weekend?"

--- "I'm going to the Cities to see my cousin"

[Radical_Car]

Originally Posted by bcgr

Such as? If our mayor said "we're a city in outstate Minnesota" most people would be confused or think maybe that the term refers to our being on the border of the state and not being centrally located.

Why don't you google outstate minnesota? Even if a lot or all are cities based websites, it's still used quite a bit. I see greater Minnesota used on free housing magazines u can grab at walmart in this area.

[northstar22]

I googled it. Pretty much every time it was from a Cities-based source. The only exception as a business in Alexandria and this thread (lol).

[uptown_urbanist]

Check the various local newspapers around the state. I did some sampling, and found plenty of examples. (I checked St. Cloud, Grand Rapids, and Bemidji) Often both "Greater" and "outstate" are used in the same article. Presumably the papers wouldn't be printing it if a sizeable portion of their readers considered to be a slur.

Besides, even if it IS only people from "the Cities" (which no one IN the Twin Cities uses to refer to where they live) using the term "outstate", which it's not, how can is that offensive? If it's just Twin Cities people using it, then they would be using it to refer to the rest of the state compared to where they live.

[uptown_urbanist]

I'd be curious to know if the level of offense varies by demographics; are those who take offense younger or older, on average, than those who don't? I'd also be interested to see how this breaks down by personal origin: are people newer to the area more sensitive to the term than those who grew up in "outstate" Minnesota? My hypothesis is that they are, although obviously that's just a guess. I'm sure some politician or group out there has done detailed research into the terminology to see how it plays in Pipestone or Pelican Rapids. For every person who sees it as insulting, there could well be someone else who sees it as a point of pride.

[Lily0fthevalley]

I've been thinking about the terms I've heard in daily life in NE MN for other regions in MN. If I'd never heard the term "outstate", I would say Minnesotans say:

The Range (Where I live)
The North Shore
The Cities
Southeast Minnesota
Southwest Minnesota
Northwest Minnesota

There are several books entitled "Up North" which are about Northeastern Minnesota. "Up North at the Cabin" by Marsha Chall is a beautifully illustrated children's book.

I don't know that I've heard any term used for central or central/western MN, other than "Fargo/Moorhead".

Have any of you heard any other daily use terms for regions in MN?

The etymology of "outstate" really is interesting - I do want to try to track the word back in time. My guess is that it's a term that was coined by a bureaucrat in St. Paul and used first in government documents, then spread to more general use. I've put in a request to the reference staff at MNHS - maybe we'll get an answer from the experts.

One short story: Two years or so ago I went down to visit a vendor in Burnsville (to be specific). The receptionist, just making conversation while I waited, asked me where I had driven from, and I replied "The Range". She said, "What Range?" "Oh my goodness," I said - "Are you from Minnesota?" "I've lived here all my life" she answered. I then told her that I had driven down from a town near Duluth.

It's my observation after occasionally reading a variety of threads on City-Data Forum for the past four months that the age of a poster is directly related to how personally they take and react to replies to their posts. My guess is that the younger a poster is the more personally they react. I don't take any replies personally - discussion is fun! Isn't that why we have a forum? And haven't we all learned something about Minnesota itself from this thread? (I guess you can tell that I'm an older person!)

[northstar22]

I'm not upset or offended at all.

I've heard "East Central" Minnesota refer to the area around the Cities. The St. Cloud area is "Central Minnesota," and Mankato and its surroundings is "South Central" Minnesota.

[DirtMagurt]

Originally Posted by Lily0fthevalley

One short story: Two years or so ago I went down to visit a vendor in Burnsville (to be specific). The receptionist, just making conversation while I waited, asked me where I had driven from, and I replied "The Range". She said, "What Range?" "Oh my goodness," I said - "Are you from Minnesota?" "I've lived here all my life" she answered. I then told her that I had driven down from a town near Duluth.

I think the disconnect between the two of you is that, where you live, people colloquially refer to the Iron Range as "the Range"...whereas if told me you were coming in from "the range" I'd think you were talking about a driving range at a golf course. The Iron Range isn't part of my day to day consciousness any more than southwest Wisconsin or north central Iowa...I don't mean that negatively in any way...it just probably wouldn't occur to a lot of people in the TCs what you meant by that.

That might illustrate why Minnesotans outside of the TC area could take offense at being referred to as "outstate", and I have to say that I can see why. It's a sort of provincial, vaguely condescending term implying that everything that isn't in the Twin Cities metro is just sort of "the rest of it". The part you drive through on your way to the cabin. An afterthought.

I doubt that people generally use the term to be intentionally disparaging or offensive, though I will admit I've heard it used that way many, many times. But it is unfortunate that it caught on, imho.

[uptown_urbanist]

Thanks for putting in a request to MHS. Presumably someone has some information.

For what it's worth, I don't use "the Range," although I would know what you were referring to if we met on the street; I'm not from that area (although have enjoyed visits), so I refer to it as the "Iron Range." Perhaps that marks me as an "outsider", just as someone saying "the cities" is probably not from the Twin Cities. I suppose the "Iron" is probably unnecessary.

[DaPerpKazoo]

Originally Posted by kazoopilot

Out here, The Cities isn't even on the radar. It's all about Sioux Falls, then Watertown, Brookings and Mitchell, South Dakota.

Funny, the only place on that list (including Marshall) that I could put on a map is Sioux Falls. Never even heard of Mitchell.

Same thing with Minneapolis - I could be in any city in North America. If you've seen one large city, you've seen them all. The outstate, not The Cities, is what makes Minnesota "Minnesota."

Sorry, but there is just as much of a difference between cities as there is between small towns. Saying that you could be in Minneapolis and might as well me in LA, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, New Orleans, or any other city that is dramatically different is just as insensitive, foolhardy, and just plain wrong as saying there's no difference between Marshall and some hick town in West Virginia.