[corrral]

In broad swaths of the midwest, the outside isn't especially attractive, if it's not outright ugly. Minimal elevation change anywhere in sight, little visible rock outside road cuts, very few—and all unimpressive—waterfalls, slow, muddy, gross streams and rivers. And the landscape may well be like that for hundreds of miles in any direction.

Then, on top of it, the weather's miserable 9 months out of the year. Oppressively hot & humid, or bitter cold. You're inside, you're in a pool/manmade-lake, or you're eagerly counting the minutes until you can get back to one of those places. Because of the first paragraph, incentive to brave the elements and go outside anyway, is practically zero.

IOW our natural environments and climates also discourage outdoor activity, pretty damn effectively.

[EDIT] Oh, and regarding this:

> Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost?

It's a combination of cost and population density, mainly. Food culture plays in, but it's a feedback-loop sort of situation, not the case that food culture's purely driving the problem. Restaurants that optimize to avoid ingredients that spoil fast can charge less. Healthy ingredients tend to spoil faster than unhealthy ones (not universally true, but broadly so, especially for fruits and veggies). Higher prices (relative to local competition) mean a smaller customer base, which increases the population density required to support a restaurant.

[nightski]

That sounds depressing! But it's not my experience at all in the Midwest. I love the seasons. Summer can get a little hot, but there is still a lot to do around here. Winter is very fun to from cross country skiing, to fat tire biking, bonfires, and snowmobiling. I go out regularly in anything as low as -30F to -40F as long as I am dressed properly. Then we get Fall/Spring which are very special.

Honestly I've been to SF a lot and I find California down right dreary and boring!

Many in our area are farmers and they are a lot tougher than your post suggests.

The truth is healthy food is insanely expensive. We spend over $1000+/mo for two people. I know families with kids that eat on less than half that by eating less healthy.

[corrral]

> Many in our area are farmers and they are a lot tougher than your post suggests.

Heh, I come very directly from extremely country stock, so I'd never disparage their hardiness.

... However, even the farmers are rocking fancy trucks and climate-controlled combines & tractors with GPS guidance, these days :-)

AFAIK you still have to step out of your air conditioning to shoo loose cattle back in their pens, or mend a fence, though.

[otter-rock]

Not every agricultural operation is diversified like that. I don't have a great source, but this one is kind of ok if you flip back and forth between the maps. They have a better map that only works on desktop, and they have the raw data too.

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Online_...

[jltsiren]

My Finnish perspective on cold. Our seasons are not as extreme as in the Midwest, but our culture has adapted to cold winters by necessity.

The winter clothes you wear when traveling from one indoor place to another are not appropriate for extended outdoor use, and the other way around. Many people need years or even decades to accept that they have to dress differently for the outdoors. Until that, they often think that cold temperatures are automatically unpleasant.

Freezing temperatures are rarely a problem as such. Wind and humidity can make them a problem. Inland forests tend to be more pleasant than open coastal areas in the winter.

Darkness makes everything much worse. Snow makes everything much prettier.

Finnish residential areas almost always have forests with walking trails nearby. I haven't been to the Midwest, but my impression is that American urban planning doesn't like leaving large undeveloped areas everyone is free to roam near developed areas. That often leaves the residents with nowhere to go by foot.

[corrral]

> Finnish residential areas almost always have forests with walking trails nearby. I haven't been to the Midwest, but my impression is that American urban planning doesn't like leaving large undeveloped areas everyone is free to roam near developed areas. That often leaves the residents with nowhere to go by foot.

That's the case where I am. 15 minute bike ride to reach the nearest park of any kind. There are no publicly-accessible forests within reasonable walking or biking distance (20+ minutes by car, largely on highways) and the ones that exist are few, tiny, and crowded because there's very little else around to do outside, as far as being-in-nature sorts of activities.

Most of our forests were destroyed decades ago by agriculture, and when we build housing developments we take all the plants off the land first, destroying any surviving trees and even stripping much of the topsoil (yes, seriously).

The nearest large region of sort-of-OK outdoor space we have is about 5 hours away by car. It's comparable to the worst parts of the Appalachian Mountains. You're looking at 12+ hours of driving to reach anything better than that.

Winter's definitely nicer than Summer, here. Uglier, but nicer. You can always wear more clothes. There's no beating the humidity, except to go indoors or get in water. Plus the mosquitos and ticks aren't out in Winter.

It's a little better if you own some rural land. At least you can go plink cans with a rifle or mess around on four-wheelers. Our forests have a way of developing nasty, thick, poison-and-thorn-filled underbrush that make them pretty miserable to be in if they're truly undeveloped, but if you manage to get some land with some trees on it and don't mind using some light-weight farm equipment to create and maintain some walking paths, that can be an alright time in Spring and Fall.

[m_mueller]

Wow, what a shame! I guess when there is too much land, politics don’t appreciate it anymore? But I think it should be reverseable - in Central Europe, forests got pretty much eliminated in pre-industrial age to get firewood. But since then there was a pretty significant reforestation. Well managed forests can be fairly profitable - you can get high quality food for furniture and housing, have family activities there etc. Around here, people of all political colors are big on hiking, doing some outdoor grilling or going to forest playgrounds. Plus, nowadays there is also a significant financial incentive in the form of CO2 certificates. Couldn’t that tip the scale towards reforestation?