The Midwest: one region or two?

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

^
That would be a pretty good map. Too bad it doesn't align with any state boundaries. Though Nevada comes close. Probably you could lump Nevada in with the Southwest. Or at least southern Nevada.

State boundaries are a stupid way to determine regions, they are way too big (usually) and too arbitrary.

[pj3000]

"Northeast Highlands" doesn't make much sense to me.

Nor does the Great Lakes grouping if the map is supposed to be displaying shared "cultural characteristics".

Originally Posted by sopas ej

What do you guys think about this map? It's from Fla-Shop.com, and it shows shared cultural characteristics:

[JManc]

^ I would have 'northeast highlands' go further into New England and have southern NE a separate category. Very little differences between Upstate NY and northern New England.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Ohio is definitely a transition state. It is categorized with Midwest but the state either directly borders, or is in close proximity to, several other well defined regions: the northeast, mid-Atlantic, Appalachia, the South, Canada. Within a five hour drive of Ohio you can be in Chicago, Nashville, North Carolina, New Jersey, St. Louis, Toronto, Virginia, Washington DC, etc.

That's the problem with lumping certain states into geographic areas. Cleveland has more in common with Buffalo than it does Cincinnati. Same with Texas, El Paso might as well be New Mexico. Houston is southern, Dallas is plainsish and Austin/ SATX are just "Texas".

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

What do you guys think about this map? It's from Fla-Shop.com, and it shows shared cultural characteristics:


Me being in SoCal, I agree with the "Pacific Northwest" actually starting (or ending) south of the Oregon border on coastal California, because that part of California has a completely different vibe from the rest of the state, but I don't know about how they mapped out the rest of California.

Looks like I live on the PNW/PSW border, unless that slight arch goes above the lake.

Source

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JManc

^ I would have 'northeast highlands' go further into New England and have southern NE a separate category. Very little differences between Upstate NY and northern New England.

Yeah, I don't see any reason why eastern Upstate would be separate from northern New England. Also don't see why CT wouldn't be grouped in with NY and NJ.

[Docere]

"Great Plains" isn't the right description for the Midwest west of the Mississippi River. Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas are Plains states. Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri aren't.

The Plains continue into the west: Colorado, Montana and Wyoming are mountain-plains state.

The Census subdivisions split the Midwest more or less along the lines of Mississippi River and it seems like the right way to do the split.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

What do you guys think about this map? It's from Fla-Shop.com, and it shows shared cultural characteristics:


Me being in SoCal, I agree with the "Pacific Northwest" actually starting (or ending) south of the Oregon border on coastal California, because that part of California has a completely different vibe from the rest of the state, but I don't know about how they mapped out the rest of California.

I would put Las Vegas squarely in the Southwest, and I think the "Pacific Southwest" area should extend a little farther inland into SoCal. I mean, I get it--a place like Palm Springs isn't "Pacific," but it is an outpost of metropolitan LA.

[Docere]

About 2-1 who voted say two regions.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

"Great Plains" isn't the right description for the Midwest west of the Mississippi River. Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas are Plains states. Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri aren't.

The Plains continue into the west: Colorado, Montana and Wyoming are mountain-plains state.

Yeah, "great plains" is a very specific, and frequently misunderstood and mis-used geographical term.

It really only applies to the westernmost "shortgrass" prairie (lighter green) that is a subset of the much larger "great prairie" of North America (all of the shades of green on the map below).





You'll notice that I've referred to the western part of the the Midwest as "the great prairie" throughout this thread, as I feel it's a much more accurate term, and because virtually no one actually lives out in the "great plains" zone.

Even if not all of the cities of the great prairie half of the Midwest are literally in the prairie, like st. Louis or Minneapolis, it's still a very solid description as it dominates most of the landscape out there. Similarly, Columbus and Indy aren't "great lakes cities", but "great lakes" is still a good term for the eaten portion of the Midwest as the lakes are the dominant geographical feature there.

Originally Posted by Docere

The Census subdivisions split the Midwest more or less along the lines of Mississippi River and it seems like the right way to do the split.

Agreed.

The CB definition of "Midwest", that's then broken down into the "east north central" ( or "great lakes" for those who dislike generic names), and "west north central" (or "Great Prairie"), is pretty — good enough.

The Mississippi might not be the most perfect demarcation between the two realms, but it's nice and clean and mostly lines up with state borders, so......


The only folks really not fully on board with that are in Ohio, and, well, screw 'em.

You can't please all the people all the time.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by craigs

I would put Las Vegas squarely in the Southwest, and I think the "Pacific Southwest" area should extend a little farther inland into SoCal. I mean, I get it--a place like Palm Springs isn't "Pacific," but it is an outpost of metropolitan LA.

Mmm hmm. Palm Springs doesn't feel at all like, say, Arizona. The vibe is totally different.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, "great plains" is a very specific, and frequently misunderstood and mis-used geographical term.

It really only applies to the westernmost "shortgrass" prairie (lighter green) that is a subset of the much larger "great prairie" of North America (all of the shades of green on the map below).



You'll notice that I've referred to the western part of the the Midwest as "the great prairie" throughout this thread, as I feel it's a much more accurate term, and because virtually no one actually lives out in the "great plains" zone.

Yeah the population density really drops off around the 98th meridian.

[Docere]

From the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains:

This leaves the eastern boundary of the Great Plains, which is not a sharply defined line but an almost imperceptible transition zone from the more humid South and Midwest. The difficulty in identifying the eastern entry onto the Plains was described by Robert Pirsig as he rode his motorcycle west from Minnesota into North Dakota. "There is no one place or sharp line where the Central Plains [i.e., the Midwest] end and the Great Plains begin," observed Pirsig. "It's a gradual change like this that catches you unawares, as if you were sailing out from a choppy coastal harbor, noticed that the waves had taken on a deep swell, and turned back to see that you were out of sight of land." The key landscape evidence for Pirsig was that there were fewer trees on the Great Plains and those that were there had been introduced. The "greenness" encountered farther east had also paled, the streets of the towns were wider, the buildings more run-down. Pirsig concluded that there was less concern with "tidily conserving space" on the wide-open Great Plains.

To compensate for this geographical nebulousness, Plains scholars have sought to define the eastern margin by an arbitrary line, generally the 98th meridian, less frequently the 100th meridian. Perhaps a better definition of the eastern boundary would use a combination of physical, historical, and geopolitical factors. Our boundary follows the eastern border of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, including these entire units in the region. These states were organized and settled later than the adjoining states to the east, and their institutions and iconographies give them a coherence that should not be divided.

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclop...stern,entire%20units%20in%20the%20region.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, I don't see any reason why eastern Upstate would be separate from northern New England. Also don't see why CT wouldn't be grouped in with NY and NJ.

At the very least, western CT which is pretty much greater NYC.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

What do you guys think about this map? It's from Fla-Shop.com, and it shows shared cultural characteristics:


Me being in SoCal, I agree with the "Pacific Northwest" actually starting (or ending) south of the Oregon border on coastal California, because that part of California has a completely different vibe from the rest of the state, but I don't know about how they mapped out the rest of California.

This is a pretty good map. I agree with Delaware being linked with the northern Virginia suburbs up to southwest Connecticut. There is a difference between Wilmington and anything north/east of New Haven, and Wilmington and anything south/west of Fredericksburg.

My one change would be to either include coastal South Carolina with Tidewater, or split that South into Eastern South and Western South. There's a difference between Columbia and Charleston, SC, and Paducah, KY, or Little Rock.

Maybe I would just merge the Great Basin with the Interior Northwest or something, as well. Great Basin basically is just Nevada separated from everything else.

[pdxtex]

Its 1319 miles from Pittsburgh to Rapid City. It feels more like two regions to me. The woodsy east and the beginning of the west. All of the emigrant trails going west started either in Missouri or western Iowa. Nebraska and SD have the largest bison herds on the continent. You can call Omaha a midwestern City but at its heart thats where ranch country starts.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

This is a pretty good map. I agree with Delaware being linked with the northern Virginia suburbs up to southwest Connecticut. There is a difference between Wilmington and anything north/east of New Haven, and Wilmington and anything south/west of Fredericksburg.

Yeah, if we want to be nitpicky, we could divide the NE corridor into three segments - north, center and south. Basically everything from Wilimington to Hartford or New Haven is core NE corridor, and north and south of there, there are subtle cultural shifts. Boston and DC are clearly NE corridor anchors but a bit off from the norms around NYC and Philly.

But we can do this with any geography. Memphis and Savannah are both legacy deep south cities, yet quite different. LA and SF don't feel that similar, etc.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

What do you guys think about this map? It's from Fla-Shop.com, and it shows shared cultural characteristics:


Me being in SoCal, I agree with the "Pacific Northwest" actually starting (or ending) south of the Oregon border on coastal California, because that part of California has a completely different vibe from the rest of the state, but I don't know about how they mapped out the rest of CaFlifornia.

With these types of discussions, it all depends on how granular you want to get. The level of granularity isn't consistent in that map when it comes to NYS and New England. Yes, NE is a distinct cultural and geographic entity, but so are CA, TX, and FL, and those states are (rightfully) broken up.

Interesting how "Northeast Megalopolis" includes NoVA but no part of New England save for Fairfield County, CT. Really anything along the Acela corridor is "Northeast Megapolis." I'd also include all of CT because Hartford probably wields influence over every place that isn't influenced more by NYC, New Haven, or Providence. Maybe the northwestern portion aligns more with western MA and the Hudson Valley. Upstate NY north of I-90 (Adirondacks) should be grouped with Vermont.

I'd be interested in hearing from those more familiar with the region (better yet, people who live and/or are from there, like JManc) if the Syracuse-Rome-Utica corridor is the only part of Upstate NY that truly is culturally Upstate NY, and not part of a broader region that mostly covers neighboring states? For example, Buffalo is commonly accepted as part of the Great Lakes region. What about Rochester? Is it really a Great Lakes city? The urban core is situated 5-6 miles inland.

[Docere]

Looking back at the 2008 election results, it's remarkable to see how well Obama did well throughout the Midwest. He seemed to have a strong regional appeal.

[Docere]

Meanwhile in Canada the Great Lakes and the Great Plains have nothing to do with each other.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

Meanwhile in Canada the Great Lakes and the Great Plains have nothing to do with each other.

Stupid Canadian shield......