Do you agree with the Census Bureau's region classifications?

[Docere]

If you're going to divide the US into 4 mega-regions, I think the Census Bureau does a good job sorting the states based on geography and culture.

Plus they're used for statistical purposes, and allow for continuity.

[mhays]

For their specific purposes, sure. They don't really mean much otherwise.

[iheartthed]

Having four regions seems arbitrary but if that's what they decided to do then I guess it makes sense.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Docere

If you're going to divide the US into 4 mega-regions, I think the Census Bureau does a good job sorting the states based on geography and culture.

Plus they're used for statistical purposes, and allow for continuity.

If they are going to do regions they should have more than 4

Likewise, I still think its foolish to count MSA's and CSA's based on county lines because western counties are so gigantic.

Blythe California, a small farm town on the colorado river 3 hours from LA is part of LA"s MSA its completely stupid.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Obadno

If they are going to do regions they should have more than 4

They also have divisions of these regions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK569304/figure/appii.fig1/

[Toasty Joe]

Originally Posted by Docere

They also have divisions of these regions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK569304/figure/appii.fig1/

I'd put Delaware, Maryland, and maybe even Connecticut in the Mid Atlantic.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

IMO, not really... East South Central consisting of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee doesn't make much sense to me culturally.

[mhays]

If your job was to divide the country into four parts, was there a better way to do that, probably 100+ years ago iirc? The mission was only that. It had nothing to do with defining subcultural regions.

[Docere]

[deleted]

[Capsicum]

Is there much of a history of Hawaii and Alaska being an extension of the "west" conceptually and culturally (aside from geographically)?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Toasty Joe

I'd put Delaware, Maryland, and maybe even Connecticut in the Mid Atlantic.

Connecticut culturally, historically and geographically is New England even if some of the western suburbs are NYC adjacent. Delaware and Maryland are odd because they blur the lines between the South and the northeast but they strike me more as Mid Atlantic as well.

[Docere]

It's funny how "Mid-Atlantic" is more commonly used in DMV than in the official census region (NY/NJ/PA). In the NYC region, there's a Northeast or maybe Tri-State regional identity but not a "Mid-Atlantic" one. Maybe there is Mid-Atlantic identity in Philly?

But in some ways it makes sense.

Because the DMV area is transitional between north and south.

I would include West Virginia in this DMV-centered Mid-Atlantic too, as much as "BosWash" partisans in suburban Maryland or NOVA want to assign it to the "backward" South. WV has much in common with Western Pennsylvania too

Few dispute Virginia's southern identity but it kind of makes sense to link Maryland and Virginia, Virginia with West Virginia and Maryland with Delaware.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Docere

It's funny how "Mid-Atlantic" is more commonly used in DMV than in the official census region (NY/NJ/PA). In the NYC region, there's a Northeast or maybe Tri-State regional identity but not a "Mid-Atlantic" one. Maybe there is Mid-Atlantic identity in Philly?

But in some ways it makes sense.

Because the DMV area is transitional between north and south.

I would include West Virginia in this DMV-centered Mid-Atlantic too, as much as "BosWash" partisans in suburban Maryland or NOVA want to assign it to the "backward" South. WV has much in common with Western Pennsylvania too

Few dispute Virginia's southern identity but it kind of makes sense to link Maryland and Virginia, Virginia with West Virginia and Maryland with Delaware.

Mid-Atlantic is strong in Delaware, because the northern part of the state feels northern, and the southern part of the state feels southern.

I think the other reason the name is stronger in the Delaware/Baltimore/DC area, and Philadelphia to the north, is because Pennsylvania and New York both have larger areas (for the Northeast US) that are not near the Atlantic Ocean. I don't think about Syracuse, Buffalo, or Pittsburgh when I think of Mid-Atlantic. Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the Longfellow Mountains of Maine are also interior, but the New England common culture and connectivity is stronger.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Maybe there is Mid-Atlantic identity in Philly?

I'm not really sure what a Mid-Atlantic "identity" really is.

I think it's kinda like... you have New England, then you have NYC, and then you have the Mid-Atlantic. Philly, southern NJ, Baltimore/MD, Delaware, DC.

Connection, yes. Not sure if there's a really strong identity though.

Originally Posted by Docere

I would include West Virginia in this DMV-centered Mid-Atlantic too, as much as "BosWash" partisans in suburban Maryland or NOVA want to assign it to the "backward" South. WV has much in common with Western Pennsylvania too

Few dispute Virginia's southern identity but it kind of makes sense to link Maryland and Virginia, Virginia with West Virginia and Maryland with Delaware.

WV is really a rather diverse state in terms of regional identity. Eastern WV is much more aligned with the DC/MD/VA area, southern WV is "real" West Virginia... very Appalachian and to an extent, Midwestern. Northern WV is pure Rustbelt... much like Western PA, Eastern OH, and even Western NY.

And none of it is really the South. Places like Princeton, Beckley, Bluefield identify much more closely with places like Pittsburgh, Lexington, Cincinnati, even DC area, than they do with more traditionally thought of southern locales.

[Steely Dan]

The CB's 4 main macro regions work well enough for most purposes, with the same exception of the MD, DE, WV region others have pointed out. The two former seem to now be fully subsumed into "bos-wash" and WV is just an odd duck all around.

[Docere]

I admittedly used to struggle with the Great Lakes Midwest and Great Plains Midwest being all one big region.

But the corn belt crosses through the heart of the region. And Chicago, the regional epicenter, is at the western edge of the rust belt but very much linked to farm belt settlement as well.

[Steely Dan]

^ yep, Chicago is the Great Connecter, where the Great Lakes meet and shake hands with the Great Prairie (since plowed into the Great Cornbelt), with the only fully navigable water route connecting the massive GL basin to the even more massive Mississippi basin.

If you want to take an Amtrak train from the east of the nation to the west of the nation, the only way to avoid switching trains in Chicago is to go as far south as New Orleans!

Chicago's spot was such a natural connection point that it's also a major hub for 3 of the 4 biggest US airlines.

Some people in the eastern Midwest often disagree with western Midwest states being included in the region. And some people in the western Midwest disagree with eastern Midwest states being included in the region.

But from Chicago's perspective, it all makes perfect sense.

[Docere]

Yes, while in Canada you have more than 1000 miles of Canadian Shield separating Southern Ontario (Great Lakes) and the Prairies (Great Plains). One is clearly East and one is clearly West. Windsor and Winnipeg both share "midwestern" characteristics , but they're completely different regions in the Canadian context. There's no "I states" linking them, no Chicago-type meeting point.

[iheartthed]

The eastern Midwest was the last of the current configuration of "Midwest" to be grouped in. The term was coined to describe the region around Kansas and Nebraska, then the adoption of it spread east. Midwest wasn't even used as an identifier for the region by the Census bureau until the 1980s (it was called "North Central" prior to that).

I can see how Chicago is tied to both the eastern and western Midwest, but I don't think Chicago's function is so much of a hub of a big region so much as a transition point between two distinct regions. There's very little overlap between the eastern and western Midwest other than them being lumped into the Midwest. The eastern Midwest is more urban, has a much larger population, and a far higher population density than the western Midwest.

[Docere]

The concept of the Midwest predates the census bureau changing the name of the North Central region though. President Gerald Ford identified as a Midwesterner. The term "Middle West" has fallen out of use though.

Then we went up to that area that I come from, the Middle West, and in Illinois we had again some tremendous inspirational leadership.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-arrival-spruce-pine-north-carolina