It's weird how people don't realize that the flyover states also have big, metropolitan cities. When I moved to Kentucky a friend of mine honestly asked me if people wore shoes there.
> It's weird how people don't realize that the flyover states also have big, metropolitan cities.
Name one “big, metropolitan city” in something commonly portrayed as a “flyover state”.
Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas.
Or my own Louisville, which is smaller than those but still plenty big at 780,000 people.
Chicago
At least used in a political context, I've never seen “flyovee state” (which is mostly, in that context, a conservative stereotype of a liberal pejorative) used to refer to Illinois or the Midwest states to its east, only those to its west and the Western States not on the Pacific Coast.
Flyover states are what you fly over on the way from Boston/New York/DC to Seattle/LA/SF. It's anything not near the Atlantic or Pacific coast, where the stereotypical maps say "HERE BE REDNECKS."
Since this article is about Iowa, you must be talking abou Des Moines, which is very nice, but calling it a big metropolitan city would be a pretty big stretch.
Iowa has no big metropolitan cities. The largest is Des Moines and it's only a little larger than 200,000 people.