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Sometime between the end of the Civil War and WWII. This is when transportation, industrial, and population settlement patterns underwent drastic changes and paved the way for our megapolitan/metropolitan-driven economies today.
Some time ago, I came across a publication (pdf) that details the history of regional classifications of states by the Census Bureau. It's a really good read and it details how economic landscapes based on physical geography in the mid-19th century (when transportation was primarily waterborne) provided the basis for the regions as they exist today. Page 18 outlines an attempt to revisit the regional classification scheme after the 1950 Census which is quite informative. Among a few of the proposed changes was the reassignment of DC, MD, and DE to the Mid-Atlantic subregion of the Northeast. Eventually no revisions occurred because statisticians and other data users considered it too much of a hassle to switch from the system that had already been in use for several decades, but the revised classifications were justified according to the criteria established from the start.
I'll definitely read the publication, it looks interesting.
What did NOLA make before the Civil War? (I'm genuinely curious, for I didn't notice anything I'd call particularly industrial in the city itself when I was there, though you can find refineries and chemical plants all around it). Seems to me that Louisiana's industrial heritage is a largely 20th-century phenomenon.
Richmond was a center of tobacco warehousing and processing, true, and distilleries were and are big in and around Louisville, so I'll grant those.
Maryland (including DC) is a Southern state, but it is not a traditional southern state. It is officially classified as Southern by the Census, and was historically Southern using the Mason-Dixon line as an unofficial proxy. You will still find southern culture in the state, but it's more of a transition state. That is why Mid-Atlantic is commonly used.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Originally Posted by wanderer34
To be fair with the Baltimore posters, I can see a connection between Baltimore and Central PA to a degree, especially York and Harrisburg. They're smaller cities, but there's a connection. The mayor of Harrisburg is a Baltimore native, if that will help warm Bmore's posters hearts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Papenfuse).
As far as the Baltimore-Philadelphia comparisons, it's just not there. Even the last posts of the Susquehanna River emptying into the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River emptying into the Delaware Bay, Phila doesn't have an active seafood culinary culture the way Baltimore has it with crabs and Boston has it with lobsters. We never developed such a culture because we're not close enough to a bay or ocean the way Baltimore or Boston is.
Plus Baltimore is a port city while Philadelphia was all about the railroads. Yes, Baltimore had the Baltimore and Ohio, while we had two great railroads (the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads). The PRR was once the largest corporation in the world and the Reading had it's own greatness. The PRR is so great, the current Northeast Corridor between NYC and DC as well as the strech between Phila and Cleveland uses it's former ROW's. Can't say the same about the B&O except for the stretch between DC and Pittsburgh. MARC doesn't even use the rail stretch between Baltimore and Frederick (which is a shame since the MD gov't should consider reviving that route).
All in all, maybe we should close this thread because we proved everything how Bmore and Phila and how similar it is and how different it is, and there are a lot more differences than similarities. It's no shame for Bmore and DC being compared to one another because they're the Mid-Atlantic's twin cities and each city is inextricably and economically tied to one another whether they like it or not.
Every city has differences and it's own nuances of course. But there's a reason why Philly and then Wilmington are winning the poll regarding comparisons to Baltimore. The "cities" on the surface clearly have more similarities than differences, and especially to the average outsider who is not familiar with them close up like most of us East Coasters are.
Regarding comparisons to DC, both DC proper and Baltimore proper feel like different worlds, as do their inner beltways, but their outer suburbs have many similarities. You often will see the same home developers throughout the DC suburbs in MD and metro Baltimore. Local business can tend to set up shop throughout the metroplex, and the topography, climate, etc. are very much the same.
What did NOLA make before the Civil War? (I'm genuinely curious, for I didn't notice anything I'd call particularly industrial in the city itself when I was there, though you can find refineries and chemical plants all around it). Seems to me that Louisiana's industrial heritage is a largely 20th-century phenomenon.
Richmond was a center of tobacco warehousing and processing, true, and distilleries were and are big in and around Louisville, so I'll grant those.
Richmond was also a major center for arms production, ordnance and ironworking well before the Civil War. And one of the things that made it very difficult for Richmond business leaders to agree to join the south's "cause" was the lucrative contracts they had with the US gov't in Washington, and other commercial centers to the North.
As far as NOLA, you really can't separate its industrial significance from how important its port and maritime industries were...basically, the biggest source of wealth for the south at that time because of the cotton trade (50% of all US grown cotton at the time passed through the port) and enslaved persons. Ancillary to this, it was a manufacturing center for munitions, clothing and shipbuilding.
Of course, even though NOLA and Baltimore's populations weren't too far apart prior to the Civil War, Baltimore was obviously a very different type of port city with a variety of other industries going on.
Maryland (including DC) is a Southern state, but it is not a traditional southern state. It is officially classified as Southern by the Census, and was historically Southern using the Mason-Dixon line as an unofficial proxy. You will still find southern culture in the state, but it's more of a transition state. That is why Mid-Atlantic is commonly used.
What did NOLA make before the Civil War? (I'm genuinely curious, for I didn't notice anything I'd call particularly industrial in the city itself when I was there, though you can find refineries and chemical plants all around it). Seems to me that Louisiana's industrial heritage is a largely 20th-century phenomenon.
Richmond was a center of tobacco warehousing and processing, true, and distilleries were and are big in and around Louisville, so I'll grant those.
NOLA wasn't as industrial as the others historically and mainly had small-scale manufacturing serving local agricultural interests (e.g., ropes, barrells, clothing), etc. You're correct about large-scale industry coming later with O&G/petrochemicals mainly.
Maryland (including DC) is a Southern state, but it is not a traditional southern state. It is officially classified as Southern by the Census, and was historically Southern using the Mason-Dixon line as an unofficial proxy. You will still find southern culture in the state, but it's more of a transition state. That is why Mid-Atlantic is commonly used.
You can find southern culture in almost every state, especially the state you reside in.
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