<p>Your answer is Grinnell. Oberlin is a 40 minute drive from Cleveland, and closer than that obviously to the Cleveland suburbs.</p>
<p>Grinnell is in the middle of nowhere, literally corn fields. Oberlin could be characterized as a far suburb of a major city.</p>
<p>okay, thanks!</p>
<p>Umm, there are no major cities in Ohio. FYI.</p>
<p>^Depending on your definition of major city, you could count Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus. Toledo, Akron, and Dayton I’d call cities. </p>
<p>Ohio when I went (to Centerville) seemed to be one big metro area. I don’t recall many open stretches of farmland/plains like you’ll get in Kansas, Nebraska, and other midwestern states.</p>
<p>Um, informative, as usual, you are not informative at all. I know you like to think that any place that is not Massachusetts or New York is just cornfields and amber waves of grain, but yes, Ohio most certainly has major cities. And electric stoplights and everything! </p>
<p>Once you get older and travel outside your bubble, you’ll better understand that really, living in suburban Cleveland or Cincinnati or St. Louis or Minneapolis or whatever is really pretty much the same thing as living in suburban Boston or NY or Philadelphia. Til then, you’re not knowledgeable about the rest of the US so stop pretending you are.</p>
<p>^I’m going to have to disagree with your second point. Although the suburbs may be pretty similar, having access to NYC is significantly different than having access to St. Louis, for instance. Though I will say after NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and a few others (maybe Miami, Las Vegas, and Boston), the downtowns are all pretty much the same (aka boring and not fun to go to).</p>
<p>Of course it doesn’t really matter if one never goes to the city, but even going once every month or two is enough for the difference to be significant (like even if I saw just two Broadway shows a year that’s a good enough reason for me to live in a NYC suburb over a Kansas City one, most other things being equal)</p>
<p>Downtown Miami IS boring. You are thinking about the South Beach area of Miami Beach. Btw, Ohio has huge stretches of farm area. Cleveland , while no NYC or Chicago, has plenty of culture and isn’t some hicktown as some on CC would lead you to believe.</p>
<p>^I said the Ohio stretches of farmland are not like those found in Kansas or Nebraska. An easy way to confirm this is by looking at a satellite image of America at night. There is a pretty distinct vertical line of light versus dark that runs through central Kansas (probably a hundred or so miles west of Topeka, based on aligning it with a regular map). </p>
<p>This satellite image confirms my experiences driving across the country. </p>
<p>Also the point I was trying to make is that there are very few downtowns I would want to live in. Those downtowns are self-sustaining, and are accordingly great attractions for people living in the suburbs. It’s not really a knock on Cleveland the five hundred other downtowns that don’t make my cut. It’s more of a sign that those few liveable downtowns are just really great. And even downtown Chicago is iffy for me.</p>
<p>Yeah I was considering South Beach and all part of Miami’s downtown, although that’s probably not fair in retrospect. So I take that one back.</p>
<p>'^I said the Ohio stretches of farmland are not like those found in Kansas or Nebraska."</p>
<p>If you mean Ohio has more trees than those two states, I would agree with you. When you are in the middle of podunk however, it really doesn’t matter what it looks like from a satellite. It’s still podunk on the ground.</p>
<p>“And even downtown Chicago is iffy for me.”</p>
<p>If you mean the Loop as being downtown, all you have to do is go north or south of this area and there are hundreds of thousands of people living right there. Chicago is one of the most liveable and lively cities in this country. You really don’t know it well at all to say it’s “iffy.” I really wouldn’t want to live right in the middle of downtown Manhattan either. I’m sure you know what area I am talking about.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about Midtown Manhattan, then yeah I could live there. My uncle had an apartment there, and I always enjoyed visiting. </p>
<p>I don’t know Chicago well? It’s thirty minutes from my house and my grandparents have an apartment downtown (I consider downtown as basically the L shape connecting the John Hancock south to Grant Park then west to the Sears Tower). </p>
<p>I would rather live in Manhattan or San Francisco. I haven’t spent as much time in either of those two cities, but there just seems to be a lot more culture (not necessarily cultural attractions) there. Downtown Chicago seems cold to me. We are each entitled to our opinions though. </p>
<p>No I mean Ohio has more towns interspersed among its farmland than those other areas I mentioned. That’s why the non-metro areas (aka farmland) are brighter in Ohio the low-res Satellite photo.</p>
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<p>Young people in Chicago don’t live in that area. That’s older people who live near the Hancock building, on Lake Shore Drive / Streeterville / near the downtown Northwestern campus. Young people live in Lincoln Park, Old Town, Wicker Park, Bucktown, etc.</p>
<p>^that’s not what I (or most people) consider downtown though. I could see myself living in those other neighborhoods though.</p>