DIVIDING UP THE UNITED STATES

For some time, I have been superficially fascinated with the concept of dividing up the United States into smaller, more rationally defined entities.  Hoosierdaddy's comment on a previous post regarding divvying up the Red States and Blue States rekindled my interest in the subject.  So here are some various models for doing this, and some of them are quite amazing!

Here is one based upon the analysis of over 210 million public Facebook profiles regarding connnection networks.  The full article can be found here, but the graphic is very informative.

 

 

 

Here is one based on regions

 

 

 

 

Here is a map based on dialect

 



Here is one of the United States of Canada and Jesusland

 

 

Here's what a Russian professor predicts

 

 

 

An economic commentary map

 

 

And possibly the one that makes the most sense - Electoral Votes - but I do not see an easy geographical resolution to this one

 

 

And here is what I think that we should go with - The Nine Nations of North America

 

Garreau's proposal as explained at Wikipedia

 



The Nine Nations

Approximate map of the Nine Nations of North America with each of their capitals

• New England — an expanded version including not only Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut (although omitting the Connecticut suburbs of New York City), but also the Canadian Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Capital: Boston.
• The Foundry — the by-then-declining industrial areas of the northeastern United States and Great Lakes region stretching from New York City to Milwaukee, and including Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Toledo, Philadelphia, and Southern Ontario centering on Toronto. Capital: Detroit.
• Dixie — the former Confederate States of America (today the southeastern United States) centered on Atlanta, and including most of eastern Texas. Garreau's "Dixie" also includes Kentucky (which had both a Union and a nominal Confederate government); southern and southeastern portions of Missouri, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana; and the "Little Dixie" region of southeastern Oklahoma. Finally, the region also includes most of Florida, as far south as the cities of Fort Myers and Naples. Capital: Atlanta.
• The Breadbasket — most of the Great Plains states and part of the Prairie provinces: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas, almost all of Oklahoma, parts of Missouri, western Wisconsin, eastern Colorado, the eastern edge of New Mexico, parts of Illinois and Indiana, and North Texas. Also included are some of Northern Ontario and southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Capital: Kansas City.
• The Islands — The South Florida metropolitan area, the Everglades and Florida Keys, and the Caribbean. Capital: Miami.
• Mexamerica — the southern and Central Valley portions of California as well as southern Arizona, the portion of Texas bordering on the Rio Grande, most of New Mexico, northern Mexico, and the Baja California peninsula. Capital: Los Angeles.
• Ecotopia — the Pacific Northwest coast west of the Cascade Range and the Coast Mountains, as well as several Alaskan Pacific Coast Ranges, stretching from Alaska down through coastal British Columbia, Washington state, Oregon, and into California just north of Santa Barbara. Capital: San Francisco.
• The Empty Quarter — most of Alaska, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Colorado from Denver west, as well as the eastern portions of Oregon, California, Washington, all of Alberta and Northern Canada (including what is now Nunavut), northern Arizona, parts of New Mexico (mainly the area controlled by the Navajo Nation), and British Columbia east of the Coast Ranges. Capital: Denver.
• Quebec — the primarily French-speaking province of Canada, which held referenda on secession in 1980 and 1995, the latter of which the "separatists" lost narrowly. Capital: Quebec City.