
Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later - iamjdg
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/nine-nations-of-north-america-30-years-later
======
toddsiegel
Similar to the 7 States of Facebook which surfaced a few years ago.

[http://gigaom.com/2010/02/08/the-7-somewhat-united-states-
of...](http://gigaom.com/2010/02/08/the-7-somewhat-united-states-of-facebook/)

Culturally some of these boundaries seem more accurate.

~~~
freehunter
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...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-split-up-the-
us-2010-2/stayathomia-1)

~~~
BrandonMarc
Did you see Peter Warden's post? He's the creator of that map.

[http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-
to-s...](http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-split-up-
the-us.html)

~~~
freehunter
Yup. And clicking the image there goes to fanpageanalytics.com, which seems to
be a parked domain? There's only one page and it's completely irrelevant to
anything.

His blog says he was almost sued by Facebook, but for making a site to crawl
Facebook's graph. Obviously he's not being sued by Facebook for creating the
image because the image is everywhere, but only as a ridiculously tiny
version.

~~~
thix0tr0pic
large enough? [http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/infographic-
the-...](http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/infographic-the-united-
states-of-facebook/)

Unfortunately it appears as if the original image was just stretched to a
larger size, but if that's the case the resolution you're looking for just may
not be available.

------
s_q_b
Very cool idea. Although the recent oil and natural gas booms are fast
transforming "The Empty Quarter" into "Extractopia" where oil, gas, logging,
and mineral extraction, which are already the main industries, are going to
become an increasingly important driver of overall North American economic
growth.

~~~
Tiktaalik
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."

~~~
electromagnetic
The effect is spanning too. As Alberta has sucked up the trades for the
associated housing booms, pay has jumped in Saskatchewan, and now is jumping
in Manitoba.

Ontario hasn't really seen it yet, but they've started advertising for skilled
and unskilled trades here too.

As someone trying to start a business it's actually a great time. 5 years ago
work was getting poached by fly-by-nighters who did shoddy work for cheap
prices, but now it seems they've cleared out and headed west.

~~~
Danieru
Interesting that the other provinces are only now seeing the effects. I would
have thought 2006 was the peak skills drain. My first year economics professor
at been working in the provincial economic advisor office at the time. He said
about $60 Billion was being put into Oil Sands at the time.

This may not seem like much but it works out to 30k per man, woman, and child
in Alberta. Most of whom are not welders...

It meant every job was paying above minimum wage. McDonalds was paying $1
above min wage. I've heard stories of 14 year olds running gas stations all by
themselves, despite the illegality of it.

2006-2007 was pretty insane in Calgary. Fort Mac would have been Hell.

------
taneliv
I am not from Americas, and had never heard of the concept of Nine Nations. If
you're equally lost with some of the terms ("Dixie"? "The Foundry"?) or the
overall theory, this sheds some light on it:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations)
(but unfortunately does not provide links for some of the regions). Anyone
know of a better online exposition?

~~~
keithly
"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.

------
huherto
I loved this one. I feel is really helping me understand the USA.
[http://books.google.com/books/about/American_Nations.html?id...](http://books.google.com/books/about/American_Nations.html?id=Sb40EosBr90C)

------
raldi
A nicer name for the "empty quarter" would be Marlboro Country.

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jqm
I find this just dumb.

Of course you can make arbitrary divisions but that doesn't mean they are
relevant. Not that the US can't be divided, but these lines aren't it.

The central-southern part of Florida has little in common with Kentucky
nowadays. Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake are large metropolitan
areas with cultures very different from rural Alaska.

~~~
lilsunnybee
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".

------
roberthahn
Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?

~~~
nmcfarl
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

~~~
pnathan
Cascadia the idea appears to be growing in the Seattle region.

Can't say I entirely disagree: the PNW does have a definite bent to its
culture (I've lived in PNW^H^H^HCascadia for about a year now - loving it so
far).

------
crag
It's true about Florida. Drive up the east coast, once you drive though Palm
Beach county (heading north) and into Martin county, you'd swear you were in
Georgia. It's a sudden change. Even environmental. Since zone 10 (topical)
ends somewhere near on the border of Palm Beach and in Martin counties.

Edit: Correction. Zone 10/9 are expanding. Which makes sense considering
global warming. See
[http://www.garden.bsewall.com/topics/hardiness/maps.htm](http://www.garden.bsewall.com/topics/hardiness/maps.htm)

~~~
lilsunnybee
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.

~~~
crag
Yeah the west coast of Florida has always been a little hard to predict.
Another good example is Sarasota - which is 1/3 southern, 1/3 hippe and a 1/3
retired.

But in the east, generally, once you are in Martin and up - it's southern.
That's doesn't mean there aren't nice towns up the coast - Stuart, Verio, Coco
Beach. Daytona, etc etc.

------
bostonpete
I'd carve off an additional nation stretching from Boston to D.C. Putting NYC
in a declining industrial nation with Detroit as its capital seems puzzling
even for 30 years ago...

~~~
michaelochurch
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).

~~~
bostonpete
> Manhattan is its own city-state. Same with DC.

Yes, I see now that's described on this page:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations)

That makes sense then I guess. I initially questioned lumping Newfoundland and
Prince Edward Island in with New England, but from what I know of those areas,
it's probably not a bad choice -- they fit with southern NE as well as most of
Maine does.

------
pacofvf
As Mexican I can give you an update about the Five Nations of Mexico:

[http://www.csuchico.edu/~sbrady/357fivenationsofmexico.pdf](http://www.csuchico.edu/~sbrady/357fivenationsofmexico.pdf)
(1987)

> "More than three decades after publication, two things amaze me: how little
> the boundaries have changed and how much chatter this idea is getting
> recently. "

This is also true for the Mexican Nations, although the Mexican nations
started a new experiment called "Democracy" in the 2000, they chose a tri-
party system. Also boundaries have changed , Mexamerica have expanded north of
the border defined 30 years ago, but also lose territory to it's southern
neighbor, New Spain. In a way the Mexamerican nation is moving to the North.
Thanks to NAFTA, Mexamerica economy became richer and interlaced. Mexamerica
became politically powerful in the mid-2000's just to see lose its leverage
because of the great recession and the drug war, being politically neutralized
in 2012 elections. Although things are returning to normality Mexamerica saw
many of the bloodiest battles in the Drug war. Once the richest of the
Nations, its economic supremacy it's being contested by Metromex and New
Spain.

New Spain saw great progress, it diversified its crops thanks to NAFTA. It
created a new industrial corridor comprising the cities of León,
Aguascalientes, Irapuato, Celaya, Salamanca which many were part of Mexamerica
but now are tied economically and culturally to New Spain and now are home to
Nissan, Texas Instruments, General Motors, and many other's factories. IT
companies like Intel, IBM, Freescale, HP, Oracle, Hitachi, etc. built its
regional headquarters at Guadalajara. By not relying in the demand of
Metromex, it gained the political power it always wanted in the Federation
congress.

Metromex saw it's political power now reduced to a distant memory. The middle
class not ceased to grow and now is one of the biggest markets for many
industries worldwide. It transformed its economy from an industry oriented to
a service oriented. It bulldozed its factories to make space for skyscrapers
and transformed it's colony to the west, Toluca, to it's new industrial hub.
It reached the 8th place on the 2008 PwC Richest Cities ranking. In a few
years it will become a true cosmopolitan megalopolis stretching to Queretaro
to the north, Puebla to the east, Cuernavaca to the south and Toluca to the
west.

Club Mex received new territorial additions, Punta Mita from New Spain, Los
Cabos from Mexamerica, the whole south pacific and Caribbean coast from South
Mexico. Although it hasn't gained the political power it deserves, Club Mex
grew to became 30% of the Federation GDP. Club Mex future is the most
uncertain, climate change and the pressure from the organized crime pose a
great threat to many of its inhabitants which many are immigrants from the
First world and South America.

South Mexico is still stuck in the past, the massive immigration in the 80's
and 90's to the United States had left many towns deserted, while many others
only inhabited with old people and children. Its economy was destroyed by the
NAFTA, unable to compete to North-American farmers it has tried to become the
new Club Mex with mixed results, one of the most notable success is Chiapas.

~~~
elboru
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.

------
dugmartin
The map splits Illinois pretty well. I was born and raised in northern
Illinois until I was 10, moved to southern Illinois and then lived and worked
in Chicago after grad school. It is a very different state depending on where
you live. I just went back to my 25th high school reunion and after living
away for 20 years I was surprised at the southern "accents" some of my friends
had.

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cesarbs
Why "Empty Quarter"? What's the reason behind that name?

~~~
icegreentea
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.

~~~
soperj
That's not true. Edmonton and Calgary have each been over a million for a
while now. Alberta has also been the fastest growing province for probably a
decade now.

~~~
lilsunnybee
Also Denver/Boulder and SLC on the US side are not exactly low population
density.

------
tdaltonc
"American Nations: a History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures" is a more
historically rigorous look at this idea. I highly recommend the book.

------
michaelochurch
Ecotopia (or Cascadia) has split irrevocably. Silicon Valley is not part of
it. Far Northern California (which is Oregon-like in climate and culture)
might be, but that's sparsely inhabited.

Silicon Valley (an emerging city state with severe, criminal levels of
_private_ sector corruption in addition to public incompetence, both forces
producing a housing crisis) is paper-belt in denial. It will never admit so,
but the negative aspects of California (mostly due not to locals, but to an
area systematically attracting the worst of the East-- greedy businessmen who
aren't capable enough to play with the big boys in NYC, so they move west)
have moved north. The trash that the elite used to dump on Los Angeles is now
being dumped on San Francisco, as failed McKinseys become VCs and founders.

It's definitely _not_ Mex-America, either.

~~~
ggchappell
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/](http://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the-us/)

