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Originally Posted by Rizzo
I agree that US 10 is sort of the threshold where the more urbanized areas drop off heading North. It's particularly defining driving 75 North at the split M-13 / Wilder Road
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thirteen Mile
I like the 10 divide on the way up to Traverse City / Sleeping Bear once you take the 10 split off from 75 and get past the outskirts of Midland you get that up north feel White Pines start to take over from deciduous trees and you get into into the noticeable elevation changes of the central highlands...
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Thanks for the feedback. The grey areas for me are Arenac, Clare, and Gladwin Counties. Are these "Mid-Michigan" or "Northern Michigan"? Googling around, I found that:
- Clare County is typically considered to be part of Northern Michigan.
- Gladwin County is sometimes considered to be a part of Central Michigan, and at other times is included in Northern Michigan.
- Arenac County can be considered a part of either Northern Michigan or Central Michigan.
(Google also says that Midland is Northern Michigan, which I don't agree with - it's in the name - Mid-Land!)
It does seem to get less "Northern" as you move east, closer to the Saginaw Bay, even without changing Latitude. Since there is a Central Michigan (Tri-Cities / Saginaw Bay) Development thread, I think the compromise is: treat Clare and Gladwin as parts of Northern Michigan, and treat Arenac as part of Central Michigan. The resulting map (along county lines, with US Route 10 in pink), looks like this -
This effectively adds five counties to the "Northern Michigan" label, removing them from the West Michigan or Central Michigan designation - Mason, Lake, Osceola, Clare, and Gladwin. It allows Ludington to be part of Northern Michigan, as it should, and roughly respects the US Route 10 rule, all while giving Central Michigan (including places like Midland, Mt. Pleasant, Saginaw, and Bay City) its due space.
I promise I'm not losing to much sleep over this. I just like keeping things organized, and this exercise proves that there's more than way way to do it
By the way, did anyone else know that in 2015, the SS Badger was officially designated as part of US Route 10? It connects Ludington, MI to Manitowoc, WI. US 10 was also one of the original "long-haul" highways, at one time spanning from Detroit to Seattle, before much of it was sliced up and reapportioned to various interstate highway routes.