Geography

In 1981, Washington Post journalist Joel Garreau attempted to understand the many subcultures of America by examining in detail the differences between different states. He came away unsatisfied, and the ultimate result of this dissatisfaction was an influential book, The Nine Nations of North America. In it, he ignored these often-arbitrary state boundaries and divided America into nine regional “nations” that he argued corresponded more with cultural, socio-economic and demographic realities.   read more »

For months, corporate hegemons, real estate brokers and their media acolytes have insisted that a return to “normalcy,” that is, to the office, was imminent.  read more »

Millennials have long been cast as the great progressive hope, or "New Progressive America: The Millennial Generation," as one study would have it.  read more »

As the food industry followed American consumers into better-for-you eating, and Silicon Valley turned dietary consumption – like everything else – into a digital pursuit, the nation’s breadbasket lost relevance to the coasts.  read more »

In recent history, the United States has arguably never been so divided — but not in the way you might think. Yes, the country has been split by the culture wars, with their polarising focus on race and gender. But behind the scenes, another conflict has been brewing; shaped by the economics of class, it has created two Americas increasingly in conflict.  read more »

A commenter asked about population trends in combined statistical areas (CSA) in response to my article “Demographic Implosion in the San Francisco Bay Area?, posted on May 18. This article deals with CSA population trends in the 88 CSAs with more than 500,000 population.  read more »

Idaho has recently been the fastest growing state in the country, with population growth of 2.1% last year. Of course it is easy to get high percentages on a small base, but the Idaho growth story is real. From 2018 to 2019, the most recent available data, Coeur d’Alene ranked 7th among all metro areas in population growth, Boise ranked 8th, and Idaho Falls ranked 18th.  read more »

The mad dash for states, cities and other local units of government to spend the Biden-administration largess has begun. Once the floodgates are opened in a few weeks and the trillions of dollars in “Covid relief,” infrastructure “investment” and other sources of new federal bounty actually start flowing to jurisdictions across the country, America will see a government-spending spree the likes of which this nation has never experienced – not even in the midst of the Great Depression.  read more »

Wherever profit leads us,
to every sea and shore
For love of gain the wide
world’s harbors we explore.
  — Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679)  read more »

Our national divide is usually cast in terms of ideology, race, climate, and gender. But it might be more accurate to see our national conflict as regional and riven by economic function. The schism is between two ways of making a living, one based in the incorporeal world of media and digital transactions, the other in the tangible world of making, growing, and using real things.  read more »