Samuel Arbesman, writing earlier this year for the Atlantic Cities:
While certain cities are positively viewed by all regions, each region has a better view of its own cities than those cities of other regions. The South likes southern cities, the West western cities, and so forth. The Midwest appears to be the most self-hating (or at least the least positive toward itself) of the Census regions.
We Midwesterners have always been humble to the point of self-deprecating. But I wouldn’t read to much into this—we also have a lot of pride in our hometowns, too. If anything, we’re just really good at identifying how our cities’ could be better.