Read Stephanie Gautam’s essay in Rust Belt Chic, now posted over on her new (and very lovely) blog about boomeranging:

By the time I was 16, it became cool to ridicule the place that you came from.  I went to college near Cleveland at Denison in Granville, Ohio, and as I struggled to find my identity and claim my adulthood, I subsequently rejected the authenticity and toughness that comes with being a Clevelander.  Not Rust Belt Chic, but simply: chic.  I thus made it my mission to get out.

Read the rest here.