Well, I think I should apologize, I meant that to be tongue-in-cheek, that's why I called it a stereotype. Actually, I'm from Central Illinois, my sister lives in Carbondale, and I have friends and extended family scattered all over downstate Illinois, Missouri, and Indiania. So I'm a card carrying midwesterner and proud to be so.
That said, there is a
lot of difference between between Chicago and most of the midwest¹. I notice the differences every time I go back to my hometown (Which is Springfield, by the way). Case in point, when I went home a few months ago, there were these white "Support our troops" signs
everywhere. According to my parents, some local print shop printed them off and distributed them. I've not seen one such sign in Chicago, but I've seen a lot of stuff like
this The "No War" buttons were as popular here as the American flag buttons were down there for a few months.
A few more things:
**NEWSFLASH** CHICAGO IS AS MIDWESTERN AS BREAD & BUTTER.
Since when has bread and butter been midwestern?

More to the point, what is "midwestern," exactly? Is Ann Arbor midwestern? I get a sense that there is a "midwestern" culture but now I wonder if that's just because I grew up believing in it, as I can't think of anything that you can really associate with it.
While you have your glitzy Michigan Avenue and Near North glamour,
Those places are for tourists and suburbanites. I spend very little time in ether of them. Next time you're in town, go out into the neighborhoods, I've not spent as much time as I'd like in St. Louis, my mother is a Cardinal fan so I've been to that concrete donut you pass off as a baseball stadium

and around town a bit with suburban family members, but not through the neighborhoods so I can't comment on it. I do know, however, average every day people in Chicago live significantly different lives and have a different outlook on things than average downstaters do. I can say that becuase I've spent a good deal time in both places. I prefer to live in the city for various reasons, most of them have to do with sprawl.
Chicago is still a blue-collar, beer-guzzling, baseball-loving city, not unlike St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit. In fact, there's probably more white trash in Chicago than in St. Louis simply because there are more people there. Get off your high horse, Chicago is not New York. You're really not that different from people in other major Midwest cities.
Since when has New York not been blue-collar, beer-guzzling and baseball-loving? I think Chicago and New York have a lot in common, and I think Jane Jacobs suggests why, increased population density and more outside contact breeds more diversity. Granted, it's on a much smaller scale in Chicago, but I think that has more to do with Chicago being less than half New York's size than it being midwestern.
At any rate, yeah, I have no misconceptions about people from Missouri or downstate. I think both the city and country have their charms, I wish the country weren't so ravaged by sprawl and Wal-Mart though, and I wish my father would learn how to conjugate the word "come".
¹ Note: I mean the City of Chicago, not the suburbs, but I've met a lot of suburbanites while downstate who act very pretentious, and I think are instrumental in giving the city a bad name among our neighbors.