American Nations - Colin Woodward

[Brandon]

From the Defining Upstate New York thread, but felt it could use more discussion on its own...

Me, I usually use a "everything north of the Catskills" definition for Upstate.  If you follow the line of thought from Colin Woodard's book American Nations, Upstate is those areas that were colonized by Yankeedom and is thus essentially Greater New England (this is also claimed for much of Suffolk County, which is not Upstate), sharing cultural similarities and political and social attitudes with New England, portions of the Midwest, and across the international border into Atlantic Canada.  (Compare that with Downstate, where except for Suffolk County much of it belongs to what Colin Woodard calls "New Netherland", with its own separate cultural traditions and attitudes.)  Within that definition, I'd define at least three basic regions - Eastern New York, consisting of the upper Hudson Valley, plus most of the North Country and the Albany area, and which retain ties with New England (Plattsburgh, especially, shares the same media market as Vermont); Western New York, which I'd define as the Finger Lakes region and points west and which share more in common with the Golden Horseshoe (which sounds better than the GTA in my opinion) and Southern Ontario in general; and Central New York, which has the Thousand Islands region in the north, including Fort Drum, and the Southern Tier in the south (and, by extension, the Northern Tier in Pennsylvania) as border areas and thus has the I-81 corridor within the region.  Basic, yes, but it works for me.

I read his book, and for the most part agree with the regions.  However, I would posit that there are two different Yankeedoms, an East Yankeedom and a West Yankeedom, separated somewhere in the middle of New York, with Buffalo in West Yankeedom, and Albany in East Yankeedom.

[Desert Man]

California can be divided into 4 or 5 "regions" or semi-states if you will. Northern CA for SF Bay area and Sacramento, Central valley from Stockton to Fresno to Bakersfield, Southern CA where the LA metro and San Diego areas are located, the "Inland Empire" for Riverside and San Bernardino, and the coast from Monterey/Salinas to Santa Barbara to Ventura with Oxnard. Actually, the "State of Jefferson" north of Yuba City/Marysville is home to 1 million out of 40 million Californians centered on Chico, Redding and Eureka.

[empirestate]

California can be divided into 4 or 5 "regions" or semi-states if you will. Northern CA for SF Bay area and Sacramento, Central valley from Stockton to Fresno to Bakersfield, Southern CA where the LA metro and San Diego areas are located, the "Inland Empire" for Riverside and San Bernardino, and the coast from Monterey/Salinas to Santa Barbara to Ventura with Oxnard. Actually, the "State of Jefferson" north of Yuba City/Marysville is home to 1 million out of 40 million Californians centered on Chico, Redding and Eureka.

Do those regions fall along Woodard's "national" divisions, or some other similar ethnographic lines?

Within that definition, I'd define at least three basic regions - Eastern New York, consisting of the upper Hudson Valley, plus most of the North Country and the Albany area, and which retain ties with New England (Plattsburgh, especially, shares the same media market as Vermont); Western New York, which I'd define as the Finger Lakes region and points west and which share more in common with the Golden Horseshoe (which sounds better than the GTA in my opinion) and Southern Ontario in general; and Central New York, which has the Thousand Islands region in the north, including Fort Drum, and the Southern Tier in the south (and, by extension, the Northern Tier in Pennsylvania) as border areas and thus has the I-81 corridor within the region.  Basic, yes, but it works for me.

I read his book, and for the most part agree with the regions.  However, I would posit that there are two different Yankeedoms, an East Yankeedom and a West Yankeedom, separated somewhere in the middle of New York, with Buffalo in West Yankeedom, and Albany in East Yankeedom.

Sounds like you guys are on the same page there. Could that boundary be at or near I-81 (also notable as the apparent "pop/soda" boundary)?


iPhone

[Brandon]

^^ That's my thoughts on it, is that the linguistic boundary is the boundary between the two Yankeedoms.  They're each a bit different from the other.  I would also suggest, that in addition to the Left Coast being a Yankeedom decendant, that there's two more.

1. Hawaii.  A mixture of Yankeedom (missionaries) and other cultures: native, Japanese, and Portuguese.

2. The Mormon Corridor.  These folks came from Yankeedom, passed through the Midlands and a bit of Greater Appalachia without much change, and then settled in Utah with their values based off older Yankeedom values.

[Rothman]

2. The Mormon Corridor.  These folks came from Yankeedom, passed through the Midlands and a bit of Greater Appalachia without much change, and then settled in Utah with their values based off older Yankeedom values.

Heh.  Have you heard someone from Panguich or Hurricane talk?  It's a wannabe Southern drawl.

Also, the Intermountain West is where the Mormons lost their liberalism so they could integrate with the United States once more.  Hence, their abolitionism went out the window and racially prejudiced policy regarding the Priesthood came in.

[Desert Man]

Parts of Southern CA (Kern county, Mojave desert, Inland Empire, Santa Maria valley and Imperial county/valley) have locals who sound sorta southern. They may be 2nd-3rd gen. "Okies" whose families (my maternal grandpa's Cherokee Indian family) came from Oklahoma (how the "Okies" got their name from), the Great Plains and Southeastern US to CA in the 1930s, when the dust bowl megadrought and great depression devastated their rural farm-based economies. They too settled down in the industrial L.A. area (port of Long Beach and San Fernando valley) and San Diego, esp. the WW2 factory boom, also in the SF Bay area (port of Oakland) and Sacramento/San Joaquin county (Stockton).

edit: 10 most redneck cities/towns/villes in California - an example of poor white rural culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ZpwLnSezA

[bing101]

Parts of Southern CA (Kern county, Mojave desert, Inland Empire, Santa Maria valley and Imperial county/valley) have locals who sound sorta southern. They may be 2nd-3rd gen. "Okies" whose families (my maternal grandpa's Cherokee Indian family) came from Oklahoma (how the "Okies" got their name from), the Great Plains and Southeastern US to CA in the 1930s, when the dust bowl megadrought and great depression devastated their rural farm-based economies. They too settled down in the industrial L.A. area (port of Long Beach and San Fernando valley) and San Diego, esp. the WW2 factory boom, also in the SF Bay area (port of Oakland) and Sacramento/San Joaquin county (Stockton).

edit: 10 most redneck cities/towns/villes in California - an example of poor white rural culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ZpwLnSezA

https://priceonomics.com/the-most-and-least-segregated-cities-in-america/

And its with studies like this one in particular like least segregated cities in the USA.
Wow I say Sacramento in particular want to dispute that status of Redneck city of California though. Well I can see that areas like Solano County could be in two regions though like Vallejo and Benicia in the Bay Area, Vacaville and Dixon in the Sacramento Valley though due to close proximity to UC Davis.

[Desert Man]

In the Palm Springs area, locals identify 10 ways of regionalism: 1. North America. 2. the USA, 3. California, now here comes the other entities: 4. the Desert Southwest (more than LA does), 5. the Western US, 6. west coast (we're 100 miles inland from the Pacific), and finally, 7. Inland Empire (however, we're sometimes separate from Riverside-San Bernardino), 8. Southland (LA identifies more with this), 9. El Norte/ Southern border (Latino/Hispanic/Mexican-American majority region in the border). and 10. Sunbelt. Now what about part of EARTH for the universal/cosmic/geographical mind.

[hotdogPi]

In the Palm Springs area, locals identify 10 ways of regionalism: 1. North America. 2. the USA, 3. California, now here comes the other entities: 4. the Desert Southwest (more than LA does), 5. the Western US, 6. west coast (we're 100 miles inland from the Pacific), and finally, 7. Inland Empire (however, we're sometimes separate from Riverside-San Bernardino), 8. Southland (LA identifies more with this), 9. El Norte/ Southern border (Latino/Hispanic/Mexican-American majority region in the border). and 10. Sunbelt. Now what about part of EARTH for the universal/cosmic/geographical mind.

For my region:
1. North America
2. United States
3. Northeast
4. East Coast
5. New England
6. Massachusetts
7. Greater Boston
8. Merrimack Valley
9. Greater Lawrence

[Desert Man]

The cultural differences between coastal and inland CA: the dividing line is I-5 and it's known as "Redneck Row" from the OR-CA stateline down to portions of LA city-county. Also known as "Latino/Hispanic Alley" with the highest percentage Latino/Hispanic communities. And finally, "New Appalachia" with the highest state rates of poverty in the region, as well along CA (formerly US) 99 and the Deserts. Towns 50 or 60 to 100 miles from LA, San Diego, SF and Sacramento differ from the state's coasts or urban centers socio-politically and socio-economically, most notably Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Santa Maria, Salinas and Riverside. 

[english si]

In the Palm Springs area, locals identify 10 ways of regionalism: 1. North America. 2. the USA, 3. California, now here comes the other entities: 4. the Desert Southwest (more than LA does), 5. the Western US, 6. west coast (we're 100 miles inland from the Pacific), and finally, 7. Inland Empire (however, we're sometimes separate from Riverside-San Bernardino), 8. Southland (LA identifies more with this), 9. El Norte/ Southern border (Latino/Hispanic/Mexican-American majority region in the border). and 10. Sunbelt. Now what about part of EARTH for the universal/cosmic/geographical mind.

For my region:
1. North America
2. United States
3. Northeast
4. East Coast
5. New England
6. Massachusetts
7. Greater Boston
8. Merrimack Valley
9. Greater Lawrence

Stuff like this is basically fractal - you basically have to go "this is the lowest level of zoom we will do", be it States, Counties, or smaller stuff.

In fact, there's even academia to support the notion that such dividing lines are both fractal and fictional (in that they aren't really a line where one side is one thing and another is another): http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/nsdivide/index.html

[Desert Man]

The Coachella Valley within Riverside County (eastern) in the Inland Empire (southern) is divided into 3 little parts: West Valley for Palm Springs, Cathedral City and way north of I-10, Desert Hot Springs; the Mid Valley for Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and millionaire-laden Indian Wells; and East Valley or Valle del Este for Indio and Coachella, the area's two largest and oldest (and maybe poorest) cities and dissimilar La Quinta. I have to say Cathedral City has more people than Coachella (I mean year-round) and Desert Hot Springs has more poverty than Coachella too. There are just 9 incorporated cities, plus 7 unincorporated parts of 5 cities of Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indio and Desert Hot Springs which has the city name shares their zip code (i.e. West Indio and East Indio 92201). Also 16 unincorporated areas within 30 miles of Palm Desert (the area's geographical center), 10 Indian reservations (all are of the Cahuilla tribe) though includes 4 non-recognized groups of the Cahuilla people, and 8 communities actually State or Nat'l Parks or Monuments. And finally, the 90-99,000 people in my hometown Indio vs. 333 people stretching from Coachella city limits to Desert Center 45 miles along I-10.

[Desert Man]

And to add 3 unincorporated areas larger than tiny affluent Indian Wells (pop: 4,3-500) - former town name of Indio (pop: 99-101,000) - the only one of 10 cities to grow above 1,000 vs. the rest stagnate or 6 of them (esp. Blythe, due to the downsize number of inmates and layoffs at the Chuckwalla Valley state prison) shrank in the past year. Already, home values for Bermuda Dunes on average above $600k including Sun City Palm Desert (not in the city), but north of I-10 is Thousand Palms where TV and radio towers for the area's market is located. Sun City Shadow Hills is within Indio city limits.

And Mecca down by the Salton Sea is among the state's top 5 most racially and diverse communities - various in the winter (lots of non-Hispanic seasonal residents in RVs), summer (over a majority Latino, 45% of other races or ethnic groups) and 2 harvest seasons of April-May and Oct.-Nov. (when it is up to 95% Latino, when farm laborers from Mexico come to pick the fields). The 3 unincorporated areas in the Coachella valley is known as "Down Valley" from the perspective of Palm Springs - itself smaller than 4 cities of Cathedral City, Coachella, La Quinta and Palm Desert (esp. the winter season).