And then you go there, to the Heartland of Connecticut, and you discover you had it all wrong. OK, it's not a perfect analogy. But I was in Hartford the other day, wandering along the Riverwalk, and the sense of safety even in isolation, the nearby urban center hinted at by the partially visible highway, and the meticulous upkeep of the green space and pathways, reminded me of nothing so much as Omaha. (It surprised me, as a New Yorker, that people in Omaha - and Kansas City and Pierre - didn't seem to mind a bit that they lived in Omaha - or Kansas City or Pierre. It's the same with people in Hartford.)
Those punchline cities, the places with inordinately high crime rates and memories of former importance, have cultural institutions and unexpected architecture and the quiet dignity that comes from not having to try to keep up. In the small towns, there has been no rush to tear down every house to build a bigger, uglier one. They're slower, and quieter; they almost make you forget your dislike of small towns. They might as well be in Indiana.
Here, as in the actual Midwest, it takes longer to get from place to place than you'd think it would. This is partly because people occasionally drive across the road on tractors. But it's mostly because there's just more stuff here than you thought, and that stuff - bridges, restored old schoolhouses, tobacco drying sheds, fields and rivers, wide highways and little back roads - needs a lot of space. And then you sort of understand the early settlers, because filling all that space, and appreciating its beauty, doesn't leave you much time to come up with original names for your towns.
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