(07-20-2013 05:49 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 11:46 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  With that in mind, I really have come to believe that there are two distinctly different Americas culturally. Based on my experiences, I absolutely do buy into the whole red state vs. blue state divide ...

Yes, urban American and outer-suburban / small town / rural America. Here is a map that goes by county and by percentage of vote, with 70%+ Democratic full blue, 70%+ Republican full red, and counties in between shades of color in between.



This explains why the best single predictor of whether a state is "red" or "blue" is the share of population in the larger urbanized areas ... this is almost the same as a national population density map.

Now, there are, indeed, quite distinctive cultural regions, but they number far more than two ... Joel Garreu's work finds "Nine Nations" of North America, though one of them, Quebec, is located entirely in Canada. More recent coverage from that group suggested that in political terms there are five nations ~ the blue Pacific Coast and Northeast, the red Old Confederacy and Great Lakes / Mountains, and the swing Great Lakes / "Industrial" Midwest.

Too bad the map is not adjusted for population density - that would make it an even greater eye opener.

Garreau's work has been ripped off steadily for the last 30 years. Now his general findings are tucked in verbiage like creative class and the various creative class corridors/ and mega cities literature. Good work.

(07-20-2013 06:07 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  Too bad the map is not adjusted for population density - that would make it an even greater eye opener.

Actually, the same people have done that.



It looks quite weird to those not used to population adjusted county maps, but it makes the point even more striking that its not boundary lines between distinct parts of the country, which winner-take-all electoral college maps look like, but different balances of power between urban and outer-suburban areas. No part of the country is all red or all blue, but some parts are mostly red surrounding pockets of blue, and some parts are mostly blue separated by small ribbons of purple-red. The balance is closest here in the Great Lakes / Industrial Midwest, which is why we were inundated with non-stop Presidential ads last year here in Ohio.

But as Frank the Tank notes, the Buckeyes are not a red County or blue County thing in Ohio ~ central Ohio has the highest concentration of rabid Buckeye support, both blue Franklin County and red Licking County, and most of the rest of the state has strong Buckeye support (though with more of a bandwagon element to it), including "blue" Summit County, "red" Stark County, and "swing purple" Portage County, home to Kent State.

Quote: Garreau's work has been ripped off steadily for the last 30 years. Now his general findings are tucked in verbiage like creative class and the various creative class corridors/ and mega cities literature. Good work.

Yeah ~ I read Nine Nations a little while after it came out, and like to go to the source every once in a while: The Garreau Group: The Nine Nations of North America

Culturally there aren't just 2 Americas. There are more like 7 or 8.

(07-20-2013 08:09 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-20-2013 06:07 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  Too bad the map is not adjusted for population density - that would make it an even greater eye opener.

Actually, the same people have done that.



It looks quite weird to those not used to population adjusted county maps, but it makes the point even more striking that its not boundary lines between distinct parts of the country, which winner-take-all electoral college maps look like, but different balances of power between urban and outer-suburban areas. No part of the country is all red or all blue, but some parts are mostly red surrounding pockets of blue, and some parts are mostly blue separated by small ribbons of purple-red. The balance is closest here in the Great Lakes / Industrial Midwest, which is why we were inundated with non-stop Presidential ads last year here in Ohio.

But as Frank the Tank notes, the Buckeyes are not a red County or blue County thing in Ohio ~ central Ohio has the highest concentration of rabid Buckeye support, both blue Franklin County and red Licking County, and most of the rest of the state has strong Buckeye support (though with more of a bandwagon element to it), including "blue" Summit County, "red" Stark County, and "swing purple" Portage County, home to Kent State.

Quote: Garreau's work has been ripped off steadily for the last 30 years. Now his general findings are tucked in verbiage like creative class and the various creative class corridors/ and mega cities literature. Good work.

Yeah ~ I read Nine Nations a little while after it came out, and like to go to the source every once in a while: The Garreau Group: The Nine Nations of North America

If you guys liked The Nine Nations of North America, you'd probably also love American Nations, by Colin Woodard. Not a rip off of garreau at all, it is in fact a completely different approach, more historical. But it provides the same experience of the cultural fabric of the US and its variations from region to region and why it is the way it is.

Garreau thought of his work as cultural geography. Woodard's book, which is much more recent, explores how the values that were planted in the origins of a place persist to the present day. Fascinating stuff.

(07-20-2013 09:24 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-20-2013 08:09 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-20-2013 06:07 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  Too bad the map is not adjusted for population density - that would make it an even greater eye opener.

Actually, the same people have done that.



It looks quite weird to those not used to population adjusted county maps, but it makes the point even more striking that its not boundary lines between distinct parts of the country, which winner-take-all electoral college maps look like, but different balances of power between urban and outer-suburban areas. No part of the country is all red or all blue, but some parts are mostly red surrounding pockets of blue, and some parts are mostly blue separated by small ribbons of purple-red. The balance is closest here in the Great Lakes / Industrial Midwest, which is why we were inundated with non-stop Presidential ads last year here in Ohio.

But as Frank the Tank notes, the Buckeyes are not a red County or blue County thing in Ohio ~ central Ohio has the highest concentration of rabid Buckeye support, both blue Franklin County and red Licking County, and most of the rest of the state has strong Buckeye support (though with more of a bandwagon element to it), including "blue" Summit County, "red" Stark County, and "swing purple" Portage County, home to Kent State.

Quote: Garreau's work has been ripped off steadily for the last 30 years. Now his general findings are tucked in verbiage like creative class and the various creative class corridors/ and mega cities literature. Good work.

Yeah ~ I read Nine Nations a little while after it came out, and like to go to the source every once in a while: The Garreau Group: The Nine Nations of North America

If you guys liked The Nine Nations of North America, you'd probably also love American Nations, by Colin Woodard. Not a rip off of garreau at all, it is in fact a completely different approach, more historical. But it provides the same experience of the cultural fabric of the US and its variations from region to region and why it is the way it is.

Garreau thought of his work as cultural geography. Woodard's book, which is much more recent, explores how the values that were planted in the origins of a place persist to the present day. Fascinating stuff.

Woodard sounds a lot like Michener. Michener has a recurring theme that the land shapes the people.

Urban/suburban/rural is too simplistic. There's a big difference between the way Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston vote compared to Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Jacksonville and Cincinnati.

(07-20-2013 09:24 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  If you guys liked The Nine Nations of North America, you'd probably also love American Nations, by Colin Woodard. Not a rip off of garreau at all, it is in fact a completely different approach, more historical. But it provides the same experience of the cultural fabric of the US and its variations from region to region and why it is the way it is.

Garreau thought of his work as cultural geography. Woodard's book, which is much more recent, explores how the values that were planted in the origins of a place persist to the present day. Fascinating stuff.

Just sent it to my Kindle.

(07-20-2013 04:21 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 09:50 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 09:08 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 08:33 AM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  College football means nothing to NYC. The NFL is 100x stronger. The only college sports teams that move the needle in NYC are UConn & Syracuse BB.

In the 5 boroughs maybe. In NJ, Rutgers "moves the needle". If NJ were its own market it'd be the 4th largest DMA in the nation. Not a bad place to be starting to grow the interest in the brands of Rutgers Athletics and yes the Big Ten.

The two statements above are not in conflict. NYC and New Jersey see themselves as distinct, and that shows up in sports loyalties, especially college sports.

Lately, someone argued that West Virginia's numbers in the Pittsburgh DMA were driven by a couple of WV counties.

In this day and age, how soon will we see this data broken out much more locally? Most people aren't getting their TV over-the-air, so how much does it matter how far you are from one or another TV station transmitter?

Or am I overestimating college sports in the grand scheme of things--political borders don't have nearly the effect on pro sports fandom, and none at all on nonsports programming.

I have to question Brista's statement that only Syracuse bb and UConn bob move the needle in NYC. I'd love to see a link to some actual data on that. I would think that Penn State FB and Notre dame FB move the needle and that St. John's bob moves the needle. Heck, I'm guessing that even Duke bob moves the needle and that there are some B1G games that move the needle.

Melky, I'm not the one who said that. UConn-SMU was the one that said that.

(07-19-2013 12:46 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  FWIW, West Virignia has traditionally always voted Democrat. They only voted for Romney this past election because Obama was so anti-coal.

his stance on coal is only part of the reason they didn't vote for him.

(07-20-2013 05:49 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 11:46 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  With that in mind, I really have come to believe that there are two distinctly different Americas culturally. Based on my experiences, I absolutely do buy into the whole red state vs. blue state divide ...

Yes, urban American and outer-suburban / small town / rural America. Here is a map that goes by county and by percentage of vote, with 70%+ Democratic full blue, 70%+ Republican full red, and counties in between shades of color in between.

This explains why the best single predictor of whether a state is "red" or "blue" is the share of population in the larger urbanized areas ... this is almost the same as a national population density map.

Now, there are, indeed, quite distinctive cultural regions, but they number far more than two ... Joel Garreu's work finds "Nine Nations" of North America, though one of them, Quebec, is located entirely in Canada. More recent coverage from that group suggested that in political terms there are five nations ~ the blue Pacific Coast and Northeast, the red Old Confederacy and Great Lakes / Mountains, and the swing Great Lakes / "Industrial" Midwest.

The "Nine Nations" model is one of the best, although Colin Woodard's 11 regions are even better IMO... but... the truth of the matter is that Americans are more homogeneous than ever before.

All the things that divide us have always been there. However, increased movement between regions, increased communication technologies, and generations of interbreeding have made us more similar than at any point in our history.

There seems to be this great myth that at some point we were all a homogeneous entity. But this is clearly false. Pre-WW2, there were at least 7 distinct racial categories that dominated who you could be friends with: Black, Asian, Hispanic, Irish, Jewish, Southern European (mostly Italian/Greek), and White. You were only white if you were Germanic, French, Scottish, or (sometimes) Slavic. Today, there really is only a White/Black/Asian divide, and maybe Hispanic in the areas of recent Mexican immigration. But in most of the country, Hispanic has blended into either White or Black, and even Asian is starting to blend into White in some areas (at least in the Midwest).

In pre-WW2 Minnesota, it made a huge difference whether your grandparents were Norwegian, Finnish, or Swedish. Such divisions are impossible to even imagine today.

The biggest differences these days are mere political tribalism. But anyone who has ever lived overseas knows that Democrats and Republicans agree on 95% of things that divide political parties in other countries. But the media inserts a prybar into our differences in an attempt to make it seem more polarized, and more confrontational, than it actually is. Confrontations drive ratings, but create a false impression of reality.

Actually, one of the consequences of decreased racial, political, and geographic tribalism these days is the increased importance of college sports rivalries. These days, your college defines "who you are" more than your race or place of birth (in the past, just having a college degree defined *you* more than which school you graduated from).

I'm as big of a fan of regional geographies as you'll ever meet. But anyone who tries to claim that we are more divided that ever before is just lacking a frame of reference.

(07-21-2013 04:44 AM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 12:46 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  FWIW, West Virignia has traditionally always voted Democrat. They only voted for Romney this past election because Obama was so anti-coal.

his stance on coal is only part of the reason they didn't vote for him.

Coal is a major issue here.
People don't seem to realize that natural gas is going to kill coal no matter what Obama does.
Guns control is a huge issue in the state as well.
The state will trend GOP in the state senate as well as the house fairly soon.

(07-21-2013 04:44 AM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 12:46 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  FWIW, West Virignia has traditionally always voted Democrat. They only voted for Romney this past election because Obama was so anti-coal.

his stance on coal is only part of the reason they didn't vote for him.

Oh really? What other reason do you have in mind?

(07-21-2013 05:51 AM)lofi Wrote:  

(07-21-2013 04:44 AM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 12:46 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  FWIW, West Virignia has traditionally always voted Democrat. They only voted for Romney this past election because Obama was so anti-coal.

his stance on coal is only part of the reason they didn't vote for him.

Coal is a major issue here.
People don't seem to realize that natural gas is going to kill coal no matter what Obama does.

Nor, indeed, that "Drill Baby Drill" Obama, coming from Illinois, is much more pro-coal in action than most Democrats. People who get their news out of one partisan echo chamber will get an entirely different picture than those who get their news out of the other partisan echo chamber.

I've always thought that the cultural difference between the "Deep South" and Southern Appalachia was something that Garreau missed a bit, though its not a difference that will show up on electoral maps at present. (And that the Democrats dropped the ball big time in 2009, listening too much to activists instead of engineers and scientists and failing to pursue biocoal projects as part of the stimulus. You'll get five to ten times more jobs from a ton of biocoal than a ton of mineral coal, and the jobs don't go away when the seam runs out.)

And, to accidentally stumble back on topic, the cultural differences between Southern Appalachia and the Deep South are not a divide when it comes to worship at the altar of college football.