The probably sucks for those who live in Greater Appalachia.

Every time I come across this guy, I try to convince myself that I live in El Norte. But when I actually zoom in and look at the county level, nope. Stupid Greater Appalachia.

Here's county-level data nationwide. So I suppose the critique of the article that I missed is actually the most obvious: Maybe those eleventy separate nations aren't the most perfect way to describe mortality across the US.

"Greater Appalachia" looks like some kind of bullshit category that he found fit his theory. "Overfitting" as the kids say in the statistics classes.

My guess is that if you sorted counties by life expectancy, the red/blue gap in life expectancy is even more dramatic, but much more muddled by poverty and race. But then you don't get to promote your subs-state theory.

The idea that Raton, NM and the top of the Texas Panhandle are more similar to parts of Maryland than they are to the other parts of NM/CO and the rest of the panhandle of Texas is kind of rich.

Raton is the Annapolis of the Southwest.

Ok, fine, I'll revert 6 so that 7 makes sense.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Still! It blows my mind that the richest counties in the Republican areas are doing worse than the poorest counties in the Democratic areas.

Although the county level data in 3 really doesn't appear to support that claim.

I got distracted by the relief map at the top of the article, trying to find the Black Hills.

They're in South Dakota.

You can see the Missouri that forms the eastern border of Nebraska. Where it turns toward the north, that smaller river heading straight west is the Niobrara. It runs about 40 miles on the Nebraska side of the border with South Dakota.

If you squint you can see signs to Wall Drug in there somewhere.

The Platte is the other river you can see flowing into the Missouri. Where it drops south and its smaller tributary to the north (the Loop) also drops south, there's a very nice bit of corn-growing land.

Wall Drug is the only drug store visible from space.

Just looking at the graph rather than having read the article, New Netherland (that's me, right?) has startlingly low inequality by national standards. I wouldn't have expected that particularly, and don't really have a theory to explain it.

It's because of all Eric Adams does for you.

What the relief map makes clear to me is that after the Sioux were pushed out of their original homeland around Lake Superior, and later pushed out of the Black Hills and into the Powder River Country to their west, is that they were really pushed to the very edge of the plains, and that, by the time of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, there just wasn't much farther west that they could go, short of adopting a mountaineering lifestyle.

The places they got pushed to in South Dakota are probably worse than the mountains.

18: There are very few (all relatively populous) counties in New Netherland, and the "inequality" is shown is life expectancy, not income. Looking a the other map, Bronx and Essex NJ are the lowest in life expectancy in NN and both are over 80. I think you r question/expectation is why do even those counties have relatively high life expectancy.

I'm a believer in the "upland south" (which I think is a better name than "greater Appalachia") as an important region. Basically the places where slavery was legal but the number of slaves was low. Much of it settled by poor people moving west from Virginia. The core is WV, KY, TN, AR, and OK (minus the Delta parts of TN and AR which are Deep South) plus some parts of adjacent states (northern AL, southern MO, western NC, southern IN).

20: Have we talked here before about whether the original homeland of the Sioux was the Ohio River Valley?

22: In part this is part of the general trend of life expectancy being higher among Latines relative to income?

For the Bronx, maybe also the unusual feature of people living in a poor county having a pedestrian-friendly built environment?

Yeah, Colin's been on about this for a long time now. He's got a better feel for New England and the rest of the northeast than anywhere else (guess why!) but he's touchy about it if you put it to him that way.

I don't know how he and his work relate to Joel Garreau and Nine Nations of North America except maybe +2.

The presence of a Siouian-language speaking tribe in southeastern North Carolina is what set me off on this recent interest/binge wiki reading.

Its interesting to me how New England never seems to get grouped with Appalachian even though there are mountains all over the place.

27: I was contemplating how someone could possibly have enough time to marinate in all the counties in the US enough to make make precise statements about the folkways of Amarillo versus western Oklahoma.

We have definitely discussed him before.

29: Appalachian mountains, even.

The same mountains as in Scotland, geologically speaking.

And Morocco.

29: No coal though, and a very different ethnic and religious mix.

28: Right, the distribution is interesting with a large gap in the middle, and the Beaver Wars could explain that gap. There's a lot that's unknown about pre-Beaver War Ohio River Valley.

Post-Beaver War Ohio River Valley has it's questions too.

I like colonial settlement pattern explanations as much as the next guy, but the gerrymandering we see here would make an Alabama Republican blush. Midlands has a long thin stretch up to Canada, separating Minnesota from the Dakotas, including what's probably a Native community at the north end. That southwestern salient of the Midlands is just as sus, I think.

Are we really going to act like it's the Puritan heritage of Minnesota that's the truly significant thing, not Scandinavian/German?

There's an interesting blue streak near but not on the eastern boundary of Greater Appalachia. Is this Interstate 81? Might transportation be kind of important to healthcare? Maybe even more important that the difference between Puritans and Quakers?

(Note to our Brits: theorists of this stuff can tell you that the Yankeeland derives from East Anglia, Midland from Mercia, Tidewater from Wessex, Appalachia from Northumberland (and Scotland). One can probably also talk about Angles, Saxon, Jutes, and Danes from centuries later. It's a mythology with deep rabbit holes.)

Have we talked here before about whether the original homeland of the Sioux was the Ohio River Valley?

I'm sure we've discussed it before. Scholarly opinion is mixed; I think it's pretty plausible myself. (Assuming we're talking about Siouan-speakers in general rather than the Sioux specifically, who had probably been in Minnesota for a long time before they moved out onto the Plains.)

The larger 'American Nations' model/thesis/whatever is so laughably bad that it's hard to take any of this seriously as an analysis or explanation of anything, even though the results highlighted in the OP are obviously interesting.

For instance: New France is not a thing! There are no relevant socio-economic similarities between 'Quebec outside of Montreal' and 'Gulf Coast Louisiana.' None. The dominant language in Quebec outside of Montreal is French, with English a veeeeery distant 2nd. In Louisiana, it's English, with Spanish in 2nd. (There might actually be a higher proportion of first-language Spanish speakers in New Orleans than first-language English speakers in Quebec outside of Montreal.) Quebec outside of Montreal is basically 100% white and 100% Catholic(ish). New Orleans is 30% white and 53% Black, and is 35% Catholic. Louisiana's murder rate is 22.9 per 100,000, 4x the US average. Quebec's murder rate is 1.26 per 100,000, which is significantly lower than the Canadian average.

Or, to move beyond the absurdity of New France: The idea that Ontario is grouped with Oklahoma but not with Nova Scotia is also laughable. Boston isn't with New York but is with Cape Breton. This is just not the work of a serious person.

Maybe if Canada isn't included, the model makes some kind of sense. But given the complete nonsense of the Canadian bits, it's really hard to see how the rest of it makes any more analytical sense.

(This isn't a knock on the OP! The life expectancy stuff is really interesting. It's just that the guy's framework is embarrassing.)

I feel like "Death Cult" is negative language that will polarize America. Maybe "Death Fraternity" would remind us of the pro-social benefits of embracing avoidable death.

She was looking kind of dumb
With her finger and her thumb
Spelling out 'NMM' on her forehead

Why can't the other senators change the rules so that Tuberville can't block all military promotions? It can't be that hard.

They don't feel like it.

... or, keeping my rant against this thing closer to the 'these nations explain life expectancy' claim:
Quebec has the highest life expectancy in Canada, at 82.34 (2020 data). Louisiana has the 3rd lowest life expectancy in the US, at 73.1 (2020 data).

I'm not going to argue that Canada is the same, but I didn't see it in the article. Which I didn't read, but I did search for "Canada. "

I get that using "New France" to refer to something that doesn't include Montreal is very counterintuative if you forget how rarely Americans remember Canada is a thing.

I was hoping the author's affiliation, Salve Regina University, meant a connection with Canada, but it turns out not to be in Saskatchewan.

Detroit was in Quebec when Hillary Clinton's Canadian ancestors moved there. New France is fucking multitudes.

I can't think of any influences on the southern half of Florida besides the Spanish Caribbean.

Miami could also be "New France" then.

46: There's no mention of Canada in the article, but the author's larger 'American Nations' project includes Canada. Maybe this article doesn't mention it because he's tired of Canadians making fun of him?

Map here:
https://www.nationhoodlab.org/a-balkanized-federation/

Detroit was in Quebec when Hillary Clinton's Canadian ancestors moved there. New France is fucking multitudes.

As dramatized in Le Hussard sur Detroit.

50 I was thinking that this guy's theory explains why the NBA team in Boston is called 'the Calvinists.'

I'm most offended, I must admit, that he puts Fort Worth and Dallas in the same category.

53 Driving Pontiacs, no doubt.

52: I didn't read that link either, but I looked at the pictures. You're probably right.

Salve Regina

I never would have guessed that "yass queen" has been around so long the Catholics even have a song about it.

I feel like "Death Cult" is negative language that will polarize America.

Death Cult for Cutie

There's a kernel of insight to this guy's schema but the overall categorization is a bit silly for reasons others have noted. Most of the regional patterns do mostly hold up but the specific boundaries are overly precise and his names for them overemphasize the colonial history to the detriment of other factors.

I just noticed that his "Midlands" region appears to include Chicago, which, yeah, no.

his names for them overemphasize the colonial history to the detriment of other factors.

I am always very suspicious of this kind of "Albion's Potting Shed" approach to culture, especially when it starts going on about how of course those people are violent because they're descended from the legendarily fierce people of the Scottish Borders, and, well, that's where I live, and so pretty much everyone else here is also (of course) descended from the legendarily fierce people of the Scottish Borders apart from the occasional Ukrainian or Indian, and everyone's... really nice.

I've also been reading about this guy's characterizations every few years for possibly two decades now. What useful guidance does it give us, ultimately?

(I wish he'd make his data available so I could contrast variability with number of counties in each region.)

If anyone's in the mood for a rabbit hole, the wikipedia entry on Pontiac's War is pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_War

"Guyasuta" is the name of the local Boy Scout camp.

Bouquet has a street with a Five Guys.

Based on street names, the most successful British general was Fifth, followed by Forbes.

Woodard's website links to a paper analyzing street names based on his "nations".

61: Yes, it has a tendency to slide into a weird kind of cultural determinism that can end up being pretty ahistorical.

I've also been reading about this guy's characterizations every few years for possibly two decades now. What useful guidance does it give us, ultimately?

I think it can be a helpful reminder that North American regions really are pretty different from each other in various ways, and that there are some historical as well as geographical/economic reasons for that. So, for example, as some people noted upthread, New England and Appalachia are quite different despite being physically similar and part of a continuous geological feature. Beyond that its utility diminishes pretty rapidly.

69 The guest speaker at today's Kiwanis lunch was from the local tourism promotion board. They're in the midst of a major planning overhaul -- it's all going to be about sustainable tourism from here on.

Anyway, she was talking about their survey results, and there was an audible gasp when she told us that out of state potential visitors don't distinguish between Missoula and Bozeman when considering various attributes.

I'd like to think that if you did a man-on-the-street Jay Leno style question session, people here could coherently compare Houston and New Orleans, or Boston and New York City. I'm probably wrong about that, though.

I'd like to think that if you did a man-on-the-street Jay Leno style question session, people here could coherently compare Houston and New Orleans, or Boston and New York City. I'm probably wrong about that, though.

And this is unfair or unexpected? The smallest of those latter cities has 5x the population of either Montana city, and they're all far more culturally prominent.

Boston and New York City

Both have pizza places named for them*.

*Joke for those familiar with Canadian restaurants.

72 Either place you go to to watch the New Netherlands Knickerbockers take on the Boston Calvinists is called a Garden.

71 -- Well, this isn't man-on-the-street, but surveys of people planning to come (or return!) to Montana on vacation. Anyway, our tourism people have their work cut out for them.

Oh, I see. I wonder how they got their sample, though.

At least our tourism people only have to get folks to drive up from, like, Connecticut for the weekend. Montana seems like a much bigger sell.

72: Some of Tim's relatives thought Boston pizza was an American chain that he was must be familiar with.

72: so damned confusing the first time I went to Edmonton. Great fries tho.

I thought about going to Montana for a guided hike in the Beartooths (Bearteeth?), but I realized I wasn't going to be in shape in time.

Baretooth.

Bears Tooth.

I'd like to think that if you did a man-on-the-street Jay Leno style question session, people here could coherently compare Houston and New Orleans, or Boston and New York City.

HOUSTON: Has barbecue and the Space Center; has apparently nothing else
NEW ORLEANS: has jazz and gumbo; prone to flooding
BOSTON: has chowder and the Artillery Company; funds terrorism
NEW YORK: has nice museums and the Strand; smells of wee

Unleash the Analytic Hierarchy Process!

Anyway I think we can appreciate this guy for coming up with whole hypothetical countries rather than yet more irritating marketing personas (yuppies, dinkies, simpkins, soccer moms, Worcester Woman, teals, etc etc). Just transposing it into geography is an improvement.

Lachies, fond of milk. Tidies, big on laundry.

Commended to your attention.
https://static.rusi.org/Stormbreak-Special-Report-web-final_0.pdf

86 printed it out earlier to read on the treadmill. This is also good: https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/perseverance-and-adaptation-ukraines-counteroffensive-at-three-months/

This woman's story is a direct result of the border reivers.

Or maybe Cromwell.

Whoa hey we are not taking the blame for someone called "Dalanie DiSabato", get back to us when it's an Eliot or a Nixon or an Armstrong.

The culture, not the genes. Approximately half of everyone here is Italian.

I mean, it's not that any DiSabatos were called "Dalanie" back in the old county.

Meanwhile in our entirely functional health system, where use of bubbly concrete is causing buildings to fall down all over the place:

The government announced in May that it was adding five Raac-affected sites to its hospital building programme, promising they would be rebuilt by 2030. Two other hospitals containing the materials were already part of the programme. One of those added to the roster in May, Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire, confirmed that since 2020 it had had to confine treatment of some heavier people to the ground floor owing to concerns about the state of the building. "Conditions for managing patients over 19 stones continue to remain in place at Hinchingbrooke Hospital. This is due to the cumulative weight of patients, staff and equipment being more of a risk in some of our first floor clinical areas," the trust said.

https://www.ft.com/content/0b03eb60-d229-4310-8bfe-b5c12dce40a5

Wait. How is the heaviest thing in the hospital the patients?

I guess it isn't, but still.

Not all the patients. Just the ones carrying 19 stones.

And if they are carrying 19 stones making them walk up stairs is probably bad practice anyway.

When my dad was sick, I kept walking past the room labeled "Bariatric Sitz". That was a big bowl.

And if they are carrying 19 stones making them walk up stairs is probably bad practice anyway.

One must imagine Sisyphus hospitalised in Cambridgeshire.

Lol

This is wild, an Afghan who fought for the Union https://x.com/josephazam/status/1699097716046049743?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

You weigh nineteen stone and whaddya get?
A slightly reinforced ground-floor ward bed
Don't you call me up to heaven to take a look
I'm not allowed upstairs at the Hinchingbrooke

Everyone around my mom's nursing home looked to be under 180 pounds. I wonder how the staff would manage with someone heavier?

103: back injuries, as I understand it.

I still remember the nursing aide who was afraid of all dogs, even my sister's dog which weighed 8 pounds and had no teeth left.

...because they were all stuck in the other nursing aide.

103: never underestimate the lifting power of a tiny nurse, in my experience. Also, pulleys and hoists.