American Nations Today (2013) | Hacker News Reader

American Nations Today (2013)

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22 pointscolinprince19 comments

Los Angeles is listed as part of "El Norte" which on their map is mostly all Mexico. That is absolute hyperbole. Though Los Angeles (GDP $800-billion) along with the rest of Southern California have a huge immigrant population the GDP of the area as a whole is well over $1-trillion. The cultures in Southern California and L.A. are remarkably diverse.

To associate Southern California with nothing but Latino and Mexican culture itself is a mighty broad brush stroke. The San Fernando Valley is way different Than Malibu. Hollywood is a polar opposite of Orange county. San Diego ($202-billion GDP) compared to Beverly Hills is laughable. The culture in Long Beach as compared to West L.A. is like comparing Mars to Moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP

I think you're overstating how much the author associates socal with only Latino and Mexican culture:

"Before I describe the nations, I should underscore that my observations refer to the dominant culture, not the individual inhabitants, of each region. In every town, city, and state you’ll likely find a full range of political opinions and social preferences. Even in the reddest of red counties and bluest of blue ones, twenty to forty percent of voters cast ballots for the “wrong” team. It isn’t that residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but has to deal with nonetheless."

Thank you for the reminder. If culture framework is defined as traditions, value systems, myths and symbols that are common within a given society. (I cheated and looked it up) Then I double down on my opinion. ;-)

An interesting exercise I just did was to go to Google Maps and pick various locales in L.A, San Diego etc, and virtually "drive down the streets" and see if the cultural difference. The symbols and systems are definitely not consistent: YMMV :-)

Hollywood Blvd & Vine; Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills; Van Nuys Blvd & Sepulveda (lot of pot shops) ; Gaslamp District San Diego, Huntington Beach, CA, Santa Monica, 4th street; Long Beach Harbor; Juarez, Mexico.

Obviously there are numerous problems with this, but I'll just point out a couple. First, what is up with "Midlands"? Do we really see much commonality among Clayton NM, Aberdeen SD, Joliet IL, East Steubenville WV, and Baltimore MD? [For non-USAsians, these cities are nowhere near each other and are in no respect similar.] This looks like gerrymandering: something about these counties would have destroyed the narrative had they been included in adjacent Yankeedom, New Netherland, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, El Norte, or Far West, so they weren't, because reasons. Unconvincing.

With respect to the other focus of TFA, violence, we see more of the same "ignore-all-nations-except-for-Northern-Europe-Japan-and-New-Zealand" crap that is typical in trendy "comparisons" of USA to "the rest of the world". The difference between USA and the short list of nations this sort of "analysis" deigns to consider is that USA is a nation of colonial origin. [EDIT: whoops... NZ is too.] Look at all other nations that were colonized, in Latin America and Africa. They all struggle with violence to an equal or greater extent than USA. Ahistoric pap like TFA perpetuates political bias more than it promotes understanding.

> USAsians

This is the most confusing new demonym I've seen in a while. As an Asian-American, it took me a moment to figure out why this would be knowledge only Asian-Americans would be expected to have.

Edit: It's not referring to Asian-Americans, by the way. It's apparently? (guessing from context) a new? way of referring to Americans, for some reason. I'm not really sure what's going on.

The area labeled as Yankeedom in reality has a lot more variation than presented. There is a huge difference in attitudes between the coastal elites and the inland, more rural populations. You can see this somewhat in the repeated mention of New Hampshire as an outlier - it's a small enough state, with few enough urbanesque areas that they don't reliably dominate.

Sure. New England (what most would call "classic" Yankeedom) has a culture and attitudes that are derived from English puritanism, while the cultures of (say) Wisconsin and Minnesota come from continental Europe (Scandinavia and Germany, e.g.).

Even at the urban level, the cultures of (say) Chicago and (say) Boston are wildly different.

You can say this about any region on this map. I've lived in three of the regions on this map and each of them have smaller regions with different attitudes and ideas. It's a high level general thing explained in a few hundred words, I'm sure there will be small inconsistencies.

There is a circle around Boston (that include Manchester and Nahsua, NH) that is very different than a lot of the rest of New England.

I moved from Boston to Nashua, NH (a 90k+ person city less than 50 minutes from Boston) and was right at home; yet there are rural parts of New Hampshire I would feel entirely out of place like it is a different country. But at the same time, I feel there is a sense of unity in most of New England. A shared heritage and creativeness ("Yankee Ingenuity") that binds the region together.

Sometimes I think about moving to the West Coast (usually around the fourth foot of snow in the Winter) but I do like it here.

"Of late, Far Westerners have focused their anger on the federal government, rather than their corporate masters."

The whole Far West part is a bunch of bunk and actually ignores quite a bit of history and settlement waves, but this line is the dumbest thing I've read in a while. Our corporate masters? I get the feeling the folks in "The Left Coast" have to deal with corporate masters a whole lot more than anyone in "The Far West". The thought that anti-federal feelings are anything new is just foolish, heck there have been historical articles posted on HN that point to the exact opposite.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying they have disliked both from the beginning, but anti-govt sentiment predominates now. Which seems true as far as it goes.

What I'm saying is that I have never heard this corporate master garbage. I know of a dislike for some farm companies but that is about the same degree other people complain about cell and cable companies. Anti-government sentiment was predominate in the old days, its nothing new.

Your own ignorance of history is on you alone. If you wish to relieve it you could research railroad settlement of the American West, specifically land grant subsidies thereof and abuse by the railroads of their power over settlers.

The railroads screwed with everyone including the Left Coast, how is this unique to the section? Hell, some of the stuff they pulled on the east coast was pretty bad.

"It isn’t that residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but has to deal with nonetheless."

It certainly paints a more nuanced picture than grouping people by state. In this case the unit is a county.

For some reason they've split Metro Atlanta in two, which makes absolutely no sense. I move half a mile down the road, I'm in Greater Appalachia instead of the Deep South.

People in Metro Atlanta don't identify with Appalachia more than they do with "The South", and the northern half of Metro Atlanta definitely didn't side with the Union in the Civil War (which is what the blurb about Greater Appalachia says).

Obviously non-geographic borders are going to be a bit arbitrary, but splitting a major population center like this is particularly bad.

Any idea how this was actually mapped? It looks like census tracts.

It appears to be broken down by counties, I assume. At least, those are the divisions in the New England states.

Fascinating. As a Canadian, I certainly appreciate the commonalities between areas north and south of the border. (Of course, I am unsure whether I agree, but it is food for thought. Quebec, e.g., labelled as part of New France, may be liberal in some areas but is decidedly us-or-them in others, straining to wholly intolerant of those who even appear to be anything other than "pure laine" (pure wool).)

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