Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later

Yes, that definitely captures some of the major culture boundaries more accurately. For example, no one would conflate the culture of California with the culture of Cascadia despite a few superficial similarities (like eco awareness).

My takeaway from the "Nine Nations" map is that it was created by people that have never actually lived or spent significant time all over the regions of the US, never mind North America, to have a frame of reference for the actual cultural differences. Some of the supposed cultural similarities are apparently based on popular caricatures of the rest of the US I see in places like urban New England. You can carve up North America on major cultural boundaries but it looks a lot more like the Facebook map.

Yes, as distressing as it may be to me personally to live in "Greater Texas" (I thought we left the Big 12?), the "Nine" definitely screws up by splitting Texas into three pieces, the largest of which has a "capital" in Los Angeles. Had Garreau ever been to Texas when he wrote the book? I've lived there, and the conformity of certain assumptions and habits across the state and across cultural and income groups is sometimes actually a bit unsettling.

It really irritates me, almost unreasonably so, that I cannot view a larger version of that map. And I've been searching for it since the first time it was posted. Take this post [1] for example, where it says "Click on the map to learn more". Clicking on the map refreshes the page. It also has a link that says "To make sense of the patterns I'm seeing, I've marked and labeled the clusters, and added some notes about the properties they have in common." When you click the link... still the same page.

What good is this Facebook Graph visualization without being able to see anything more than a low-res thumbnail?

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-split-up-the-us-2010-2...

As an Ohioian who has relocated to Maine I would say that culturally New England (at least Portland and most of the other parts I've been to) is very VERY different culturally IMO. Much more liberal and, IMO, progressive than Ohio in general.

Is there a way to replicate this work trivially? It would be interesting to redo it periodically and watch it change.

I completely agree except I feel that the "topia" suffix implies it's some sort of paradise. Given the controversy around environmental damage, something more ominous like "gasland" might be better.

Already the case with Alberta, which is a major driving force in the Canadian economy, on track to surpass Quebec as the second largest provincial economy.

Feels like a bit of a slight to lump it into an "Empty Quarter."

I thought it was a pun on the Saudi Arabia Empty Quarter which had the richest oil fields in the world. For example Ghawar field used to pump quite a bit of oil, although mostly water now. May have heard of Sheyba field, another important field.

I like Thesiger's travelogues about the empty quarter.

Mel Baker commented on the article and pointed out ...

>> If you read the original work he refers to the empty quarter because of population density

I do get your point on the "Extractotopia" name for the region, but personally would be more inclined to view it as ExtractoDystopia, ( google earth - fort mcmurray then you decide)

Of course after the oil and mining companies are done with it, the name "The Empty Quarter" could once again be the most applicable

Edit: spelling

"Dixie" generally refers to states south of the Mason-Dixon survey line where slavery was legal. This map's concept of Dixie includes some areas above that line and excludes some areas inside it, like most of Texas and Missouri. "The Foundry" seems like a euphemism for the more commonly used term "Rust Belt." It's an area that traditionally has had lots of heavy industry, but has largely been in economic decline in the last 20-30 years.

The book itself would probably be the best source for detailed descriptions of the different regions. It has to be available as an e-book too. Worth buying if you'd like to learn more about general cultural regions and boundaries in the US, or pirating if you don't have the funds. Just remember that even 3 decades ago it had some inaccuracies, many of which are pointed out in this thread. But it is a good primer, not very long, and a light, entertaining read, in my opinion.

Lived in the Denver metro area and it definitely couldn't be considered to have that much in common with most of the rest of "The Empty Quarter", besides a cultural preference for rugged individualism and limited government interference in personal affairs.

Denver has an impressive light rail system, and Denver / Boulder are responsible for Colorado being one of two states first in legalizing Marijuana and the first in allowing public sales (though Washington state shouldn't be far behind once regulations are finalized). Polyamory doesn't have much public acceptance but is fairly common in the area. Programs and policies concerning homelessness are very progressive compared to most anywhere else in the US.

Denver/Boulder metro area, and to a lesser extent other communities along the Colorado Front Range, have much more in common culturally with SLC than Grand Junction, CO (the state's western capital) or any of the rest of the supposed "Empty Quarter". Peter Warden's Mormonia (if including Denver), being completely surrounded by the Nomadic West, is a more accurate division, though the name is a little inaccurate and not especially representative (at least half of SLC isn't mormon, and neither is most of the Colorado Front Range, though Colorado Springs is very evangelical).

If Joel Garreau still thinks Denver/Boulder and SLC are "Empty Quarter", and at least not aberrations, he doesn't understand the culture very well. It's almost as bad as placing most of NYC within "The Foundry".

I have. I loved it. I mean no book is perfect, but it is well written and researched. What makes it most interesting is when you consider the state of the world when it was written (1981) and how much of it is still relevant today.

My dad loved it in the '80s, and I read it some time in the late 80s when I was in my tweens. I probably didn't understand a lot, and I've forgotten a lot, but that map is good, and I do use it a short hand a lot in my thinking to this day.

Though I do think that some peopleº treat it as more than a short hand - and like all stereotypes it can cause more harm than good when actually believed.

º I recently heard a barista talking passionately about "Freeing Cascadiaºº"

ººNot literally one of the 9 nations, but a related idea

It's an interesting work and well worth reading, although it's more than a bit broad-brush in its discriminants. Ferligoj, Batagelj and Doreian did an analysis a few years ago using relational-constraint clustering of counties with Census data and found that the "Nine Nations" thesis actually conforms quite well to clustering by race, age, land usage and economic data.

I read it, back in the day. In fact, I think I still have a copy.

I thought it made a lot of sense. I mean, you can take anything too far, and any place has a spectrum of people in it. Even so, as the author said, events happen differently in different parts of the country, and the difference is something you can describe.

Yes, I've read it.

It's possible to quibble with how some of the cultural areas are delimited. I would've drawn the lines differently - I think the divisions in Colin Woodard's more recent "American Nations" are more accurate (although also imperfect). The main takeaway is that the USA is incredibly culturally diverse, which is why it's so difficult to get things done on the federal level and why it'd probably be better served by even less centralization in government policy.

I found this book valuable, but for me it was preaching to the choir - it's pretty compatible with my own politics, and meshes with my own experience living in each of California, New York, and Texas.

I read the book when it came out and found it thought-provoking enough to remember it 33 years later. If you're only familiar with part of North America, it's a good look at how different various regions are. It's probably too dated now for me to recommend it.

I found Garreau's other book "Edge City" to have more impact on my views in the long run, and I'd recommend it.

I read it a few years back. It provides pretty detailed and interesting explanations for naming certain cultural regions and drawing divisions the way they are. But even in '81, and especially now, there are a lot more aberrations than Garreau sees fit to point out. Myself, and others, have highlighted some of these unacknowledged aberrations elsewhere in the thread. Some aberrations might be large enough to even designate new "Nations". But for someone living outside the US, or anyone else unfamiliar with the general cultural differences and boundaries within the US, the book would still be worth reading and learning from even today, even if it paints in broad strokes.

Personally i would hardly consider Tampa and Orlando as Dixie. Slightly conservative? certainly. Though not Southern and more an odd mish-mash of liberal and conservative, mostly pro-development, but with an odd pro-environmental strain in the Tampa area. Gainesville, FL is an odd duck miniature city-state: half-Southern, half-hippie values, similar to Athens, GA.

I think Brooklyn was considered Foundry but Manhattan is its own city-state. Same with DC.

"Mex-America" is a weird one (and why is the capital in the U.S.?) too. If Minnesota and Michigan are different nations, then Mexico (which is much more tribally, ethnically, and socioeconomically heterogeneous) cannot reasonably be cast as one bloc. Oaxaca, Mexico DF, the Yucatan, and Juarez are all very different places (just to get started).

Totally agree, I would like to extend your comment with my personal point of view about New Spain. This nation, in the past decade, has known how to get adventage of the IT industry, with a growing population of Engineers mostly "immigrants" from Mexamerica and Metromex (I´m one of those immigrants, I came to New Spain from Mexamerica for better oportunities as a Software developer).

Cities as Aguascalientes, Guadalajara and Queretaro are creating a big IT industry, with superior salaries and better work enviroments which are attracting developers from all around Mexico. International companies from the US, India and Mexico are investing a lot of resources there. Mexamerica is kind of falling apart, with some exceptions as Monterrey and Ensenada, let´s see if Mexamerica finally wakes up and starts doing something about it.

The population and population density in those areas are incredibly low.

At least on the Canada side, the only two major cities in that area are Edmonton and Calgary, with a combined population of less than 2 million.

Probably from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub'_al_Khali

Very few people live there: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/grump-v1/gru...

I think this phenomenon happens all over. Cities -- and regions within cities -- can have their own peculiar culture, while the culture of rural areas varies on much longer distance scales.

Because of this, I suggest that the idea that North American is best thought of in terms of regions might be an unhelpful one.

OTOH, the evidence from Facebook apparently suggests otherwise:

http://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the-us/