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I do think the Great Lakes megalopolis needs to be a thing. Struggling though it is, it has an identity (rust belt?) which is very much it’s own. As always it bleeds over into some places and blurs northeast and Midwest (WNY being a great example). Syracuse to Milwaukee is the slam dunk, could go all the way from, say, Watertown or even Plattsburgh, all the way to Minneapolis and perhaps as far south as Cinci and/or STL? STL is a real stretch, but I think the canal system plus Great Lakes stretched that far with immediate influence. Combining the entire Midwest and northeast is a bridge too far, but carving this region out makes a lot of sense to me.
Minneapolis? Minneapolis is 150 miles from the nearest Great Lake (Superior) and has never had any kind of relationship with Superior. It's existence is owed to the Mississippi River, always has and always will.
I do think the Great Lakes megalopolis needs to be a thing. Struggling though it is, it has an identity (rust belt?) which is very much it’s own. As always it bleeds over into some places and blurs northeast and Midwest (WNY being a great example). Syracuse to Milwaukee is the slam dunk, could go all the way from, say, Watertown or even Plattsburgh, all the way to Minneapolis and perhaps as far south as Cinci and/or STL? STL is a real stretch, but I think the canal system plus Great Lakes stretched that far with immediate influence. Combining the entire Midwest and northeast is a bridge too far, but carving this region out makes a lot of sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Around
Minneapolis? Minneapolis is 150 miles from the nearest Great Lake (Superior) and has never had any kind of relationship with Superior. It's existence is owed to the Mississippi River, always has and always will.
Honestly, looking at maps, I do not believe a Great Lakes megapolis actually exists. At least not yet.
In addition to Ben Around's point about Minneapolis, there is a whole lot of distance, most of it rural farmland between these cities. They are not really that interconnected like the Boston-Washington corridor. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Honestly, looking at maps, I do not believe a Great Lakes megapolis actually exists. At least not yet.
In addition to Ben Around's point about Minneapolis, there is a whole lot of distance, most of it rural farmland between these cities. They are not really that interconnected like the Boston-Washington corridor. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Yeah, I don't think there is a great lakes megalopolis in the way there is a bosh-wash megalopolis. Some of the proposed definitions stretch that stretch from Minneapolis to St Louis to Louisville to Syracuse or even Montreal Quebec City seem overly broad.
But there are some cultural and economic similarities between Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester. Milwaukee and Chicago are pretty well connected. Then you have Detroit/Windsor/Toledo which arguably has a connection to Chicago/South Bend via a vague Lansing/Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo triangle. You have a third Toronto/Hamilton/Buffalo anchor in the east. You also have a pretty large Cleveland/Akron/Canton cluster which arguably connects to Pittsburgh via Youngstown. So you have 3 or 4 of the largest urban clusters in NA that are fairly interlinked.
Where the concept breaks down is when you get away from the lakes. Why not include Columbus and Indianapolis and then if you include them why not Dayton/Cincinnati and the you start getting a region that losses any coherence. Why not throw in STL and Louisville.
In the NE megalopolis you don't have that problem since the region is wedged between the ocean and the mountains. Although there is arguably some debate about where to cut it off on the southern point. Do you include Richmond or even Norfolk?
So I tend to agree the GL region exists. Although I'm less sure about a GL megalopolis.
New England
North East (Atlantic Coast) (formerly New Netherlands)
Interior North East
North/ Rust Belt
SEC Country
Florida (non Panhandle)
Texas
Fly over states - Interior Plain States
Northern California
Southern California + Vegas
Southwest
Pacific Northwest
North California
New England
North East (Atlantic Coast) (formerly New Netherlands)
Interior North East
North/ Rust Belt
SEC Country
Florida (non Panhandle)
Texas
Fly over states - Interior Plain States
Northern California
Southern California + Vegas
Southwest
Pacific Northwest
North California
I guess VA & NC are not part of your USA, as neither are Northeast or SEC Country.
I guess VA & NC are not part of your USA, as neither are Northeast or SEC Country.
True..I'd put them in the Stuart Region (Virginia- The Carolinas- Maryland- Washington, DC) and I guess we can included parts of coastal Georgia (places like Savannah) even though that state was named after House Hanover (King George ) instead of House Stuart
New List:
New England
Metro North East (Atlantic Coast) (formerly the New Netherlands)
Interior North East
North/ Rust Belt
Stuart Region (The Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, D.C. + Coastal Georgia)
SEC Country
Florida (non Panhandle)
Texas
Fly over Country - Interior Plain States
Northern California
Southern California + Vegas
Southwest
Pacific Northwest
These three areas, especially Kentucky and West Virginia, are firmly Southern and Southern Appalachian, or at their own subregion, but they certainly are not northeastern and or midwestern. I am from Kentucky originally trust me there's nothing here that is culturally similar to the northeast at all, beyond general American things that all regions of the United States have in common, so that's a non-starter.
You aren't only factually wrong tring to put these three states in the north. You're absolutely insane on top of it. I do think, though, that Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia while Southern are their own subregion and each three more similar at a deep cultural level to each other than they are to anywhere else. I guess you could call the combined region "Old Virginia" as all were once part of the colony and then commonwealth of Virginia upon independence. So that might be a good term for that.
It's really the other way around -- the earlier settled parts of the midwest have similarities to the northeast because they were settled closer to the time . its incredible how many people get this backwards, because people should at least know basically which areas were settled and how. chalk it up to bad education.
I've been saying exactly this for a long time. Whatever similarities anywhere in Pennsylvania has with the Midwest were put in the Midwest by Pennsylvanians in the first place. Likewise with the Appalachian Mountains and the interior South, if anybody wants to drill down further. Pennsylvania has been a cultural donor since its inception. In fact, the only west-to-east or south-to-north cultural flow into Pennsylvania was black culture from the South during the Great Migration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaszilla
Ohio has many similarities with Pennsylvania and Upstate NY. The interior northeast isn't that different from the midwest.
Those similarities were put there by Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers in the first place.
Having been to Northern Maine, I would argue that this portion of the state doesn't feel like anything near the Atlantic Ocean or the New Hampshire border. It almost feels like an extension of New Brunswick. Maine is larger than the other 5 New England States combined, so I would disagree to some extent about New England being uniform. The populated towns near the ocean, sure. But Aroostook County is another ball of wax.
Be careful, or people on City Data will start arguing that Maine is actually a Canadian province because it "feels like" one.
I could go as far as saying the great lakes are the buffer between the northeast and Midwest
IMO if you need a dividing line between the north east and the Midwest it's somewhere between buffalo and Cleveland. What's interesting is that would put buffalo in the northeast but buffalo has more in common with Cleveland than it does cities in its own state like Albany or NYC.
I think there's a lot of overlap in new England, the north east, mid Atlantic and Midwest.
And good luck getting people to agree on what the south is lol
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