American Nations Today (2013)
tufts.edu
American Nations Today (2013)
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Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#2Los 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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#3The 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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#4[deleted]
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#5The 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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#6The 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.
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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#7The 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.
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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#8For 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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#9"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.
Re: American Nations Today (2013)
#10Los 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 Mexica…
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."