What's your place like?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Since some time ago I was told by someone I used to know that I don't know jack shit about Amurrkka and therefore I "don't understand Amurkka", I decided to embark on a grand voyage and delve deep into the national psyche of this strange place called USAnia... so I ended up reading these:[Poll #1861882]

Just a minor caveat. I haven't put "Other" in the poll. Sorry about that. Obviously the author of the latter book (the "Patchwork") didn't care to pay much attention to those types that remain outside of this list, maybe because the 12 types constitute the bulk of all the US counties and towns. Aaanyway, here we go with some short explanations...

1. Boom towns. The wealthiest settlements, so to speak. Before the crisis they were growing very fast, enjoying influx of immigrants and lots of minority groups. GWB didn't fare too well there, but McCain did even worse (he got 5% of their vote). These have about 60 million people living in them.

2. Campus & Careers. Young generations dwell there because these are college towns, inhabited by large groups of college students and postgraduates doing their first steps into their professional careers. Gore and Kerry had the double digit results there, and Obama took them by a landslide. Those are the liberal bastions. Population: approx. 13 million.

3. Emptying nests. With a population older than the average, mainly baby-boomers and retirees living on fixed incomes. Those regions are in general less diverse than the average region. On previous elections, Obama and McCain split the vote there. Population: 12 million or so.

4. Evangelical epicenters. Full of young people and of course Evangelical Christians. Large households, ordinary peeps, the "salt of the land", the Real America. Generally lower than average household income, though. But people don't seem to be too bothered by all this. It's the bastion of conservatism. 14 million folks.

5. Immigration nation. South-western states mainly, large Hispanic populations, low incomes, high poverty. Those are often swing states during elections, the results are always frighteningly close (depends for whom). Population 20 million.

6. Industrial metropolis. The big industrial cities, densely populated, younger, much more diverse than "normal". Another liberal bastion, with Gore, Kerry and Obama winning them by a landslide. 53 million people live there.

7. Military bastions. Towns and settlements near military bases, depending on the soldiers, vets and their families who live there. Medium income in general. GWB had a clear superiority there, but surprisingly, McCain didn't do so well. Population 8-9 million.

8. Minority central. Dominated by African Americans and/or Native Americans. Lower incomes and higher poverty rates than average. Also swing states, the Democrats winning the last few elections by just a couple of per cents there. Population 13 million.

9. Monied burbs. Higher than the average income, higher education than the nation's median levels. Also very tight election results, with a slight superiority of the Democrats (except for Obama winning there quite neatly on the last election). Population 69 million.

10. Mormon outposts. With less than 2 million inhabitants, that's the smallest group. Mainly located in the mountains in the West. Very rural, sparsely populated; large households, conservative by default. Probably the staunchest Republican supporters, both GWB and McCain demolishing the Democrats there.

11. Service working centers. Small- to middle-sized towns, often tourist centers, where lots of peeps live without employee benefits and scarcely make ends meet. Marginalized communities. When shit hits the fan economically, those feel the hit most severely. The conservatives usually wins those places, sometimes by double digits (although McCain had to sweat there a bit). Population 31 million.

12. Tractor countryside. Sparsely populated, rural, remote, almost completely white and conservative. Farming and agriculture are their only occupation. The GOP never has a problem winning those regions. Population 2.5 million.

So, 3, 2, 1... GO! Tell me about your place!

Comments

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Although not actually USAnian, or not a US resident, I think I can recognise some of these types in the place where I live. I.e., #1.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

More like a "Moneyed burb"...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The US has more in common with SA than just British despotism, native suppression, concentration camps, and mineral extraction.

[mutive.livejournal.com]

I don't really know that any represent where I currently live. I'm currently in the South, but in a part that's a moderate sized college town with a few large businesses which have set up shop there thanks to the low cost of living. (And cheap cost of labor.) Not much in the way of immigrants or minorities, but very, very liberal in the urban center. (Dropping to incredibly conservative just outside where it gets very rural fast.) No military, not many Mormons. It's kind of like a campus and careers crossed with a monied burb quickly dropping to a tractor countryside as soon as you head out a few miles...

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Sure, there's hardly a palce which is 100% any of the above dozen. There should be a slightly dominating side of your place though, even if by a small margin.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Probably...... #11 or #12.

I don't think there are books written that talk about real america.

For the most part, the only thing available are.... "America is the greatest country on earth" propaganda nonsense that doesn't begin to define nor describe the real inner workings of things.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I don't think there are books written that talk about real america.

Don't know about that. FOX regularly presents and promotes some books on their shows, like Ann Coulter's entire bibliography (http://www.squidoo.com/ann-coulter-biography-bestsellers) for example.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

My town would hardly qualify as "metropolis" by any standards, but it's the 2nd biggest city in my country (340 thousand, WOW!) It's got a boom town part, a campus part, a minority part, an industrial part, a couple of monied burbs, service working center type of areas, etc. I don't know what to say. My neighborhood perhaps? It's mostly an old 'hood consisting of old brick houses now being knocked down for the construction of newer residential buildings, located 100 m away from an agriculture university. Perhaps I should call it Campus, but not by a large margin over Services.

Then again, I'm aware that your poll wasn't designed for non-Americans, but the temptation was just too great. Besides, in order to see the poll results I'd have to fill the poll myself. :-)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It's got charts & maps too, yo!

Me likey!



Public Broadcasting has been running a GREAT GREAT series called "America Revealed" (http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/), and data visualization folks have been gushing over the maps the producers have created. Just as the GoPro camera and YouTube have enabled us regular viewers to see things from a perspective we've never seen before, aerial photography, satellite imagery, number-crunching computers and GPS trackers can help us understand data flows too complicated to easily imagine.The fantastic PBS miniseries America Revealed, which "explores the hidden patterns and rhythms that make America work," makes stunning use of data-viz techniques to stimulate the eye-candy part of your brain while teaching you something. Pictured below is what our Internet access looks like:




Or what unemployment looks like (each dot = job lost)


Blue lines showing the Manhattan travel routes of a pizza delivery guy, taken from the episode looking at how food moves across the country.




Here is a clip from that food episode (and I think some episodes are viewable online as well)

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fascinating show, and much in line with my "research". Bookmarking for further illegal download. ;-)

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Definitely campus & career, at least my part of town. It's the western part of Geneva, called Vernier, and is conveniently adjacent to Meyrin/CERN.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Genf is famous for hosting religious dissidents, except Servetus, of course. I had the opportunity to visit twice.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Good luck. I've lived here for 68 years, and I'm still mystified by it.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Where's that?

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Wow, so many people here living in university towns!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Don't you think that makes sense, given the LJ age demographics?

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

It's hard to classify where I live. There's a lot of monied burbs (subdivisions) around here, but there are also trailer parks and really poor spots. There's a university nearby and I see a lot of students. There are also a lot of religious people around here, but they really don't dominate society. Practically everyone has kids but not large families. It's a basically conservative area, though there are not a lot of farmers. It doesn't really fit any of these categories.

[elephantus45.livejournal.com]

Military Bastion, on post.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Where?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Calgary is a million resident boomtown made from oil money. Largest USA population in Canada. Also one of the largest cities in North America ; 726.5 km2 (280.5 sq mi).

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Also, home to a nice mall.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

I picked one but it's not really accurate. I live in a tractor countryside but our small town has money. There's a large middle class here, and the largest employer is the local factory, schools and the hospital/clinic. Plus, as Garrison Keillor has said, North Dakota is really one large city with great big blocks.

Everyone farms. Even the teachers.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

> one large city with great big blocks

Sounds like most cities around here, which were developed in commie times.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I live in none of those places. Honestly. I can't fairly put my location into any of those pigeon holes. It has elements of the Emptying Nests, but retirees here generally only spend the summer, the reside in Florida. It is definitely a tourist area, but it doesn't jibe with your description of the Service Working Centers, since we are nearly immune from economic turmoil. It is also narrowly Republican, but only narrowly. Our county has traditionally been a small wedge of red in an otherwise deep sea of blue. Also, instead of being marginal our average education, income and property values puts us more in line with the Moneyed Burbs. There is also a strong Tractor Countryside element, although instead of farming we focus on fishing and aquaculture.

So.... I need a Special Snowflake button in order to fill out your poll.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

For snowflakes, please call the Canadians.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I gotta go with other. I live in a suburb, but it's hardly moneyed. There are lots of minorities, but it's still predominantly white middle class.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I definitely live right smack in the middle of Monied Burbs about a mile away from the very stark dividing line of Minority Central. But then, that's Metro Detroit for you.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I flew into Detroit for a trade show back in the '90s. From the air it looked like the scene of an aerial bombardment.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

here's deer in the park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagaparken) beside my neighborhood. Deer. Semi-domesticated. It lets you approach it and touch it and feed it. Yeah.

Monied burb it is, then.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I had a great time visiting Stockholm. I especially appreciated the Vasa Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_Museum). The story of the ship that never made it to see reminded me of the Challenger disaster.

We have deer in our area, too, but they are fully feral. So are the bobcats and mountain lions.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

someone I used to know

Uh, I think I know who you're talking about. It was someone who presumed to speak on behalf of people, pretending to know what they knew and didn't knew. Yup.

As for your question, Vredehoek is more like the youngish/dynamic part of downtown.

[weswilson]

None of the above...

I live in Huntsville, Alabama. We're a NASA and Army Missile Command town, built on government monies and now rejecting them from a self-righteous pedestal of hypocrisy and inanity. We're primarily populated with 30-40 year old transplants from other towns, so there's this odd mix of beliefs, but they're mostly engineers so they'll eat at the shittiest chain restaurant before trying anything excellent and local. We used to be a reasonably balanced town, electing centrist democrats or "RINO"s, but lately we vote against the black man... It is Alabama, after all.

I'd label us "Eclectic Subcontractors in Denial".

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

What would be considered "excellent and local," pork rinds? It sounds like a military bastion to me.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Why is there no option for S&M central (NSFW) (http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=896&q=Folsom+Street+Fair&oq=Folsom+Street+Fair&gs_l=img.3...2230.7965.0.8196.20.19.1.0.0.1.405.1687.18j4-1.19.0.eqrwrth..0.0...1.BCIXS1RH3HQ)?

San Francisco could be considered both a boom town and a ghost town. It has campuses and careers, emptying nests, evangelical street screamers, immigrants and industry galore, famous open-air military museums, more minorities than the majority, affluent burbs, a Mormon temple, service work like nobody's business, and free range cattle roaming in the regional parks.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I would consider SanFran industrial metropolis. I would say that most places, especially large population places are mixed with several economies, from tourism to college to whatever. Anal lube is important industry in San Fran, but so is computer industry.

My city Calgary is large city with several economies, but oil stands out as the most important over all. When oil stocks plummet I can feel the machinery grinding everywhere.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Where to put Atlanta?

It has dominant minority, although not low income, per se.
It is a BoomTown, by the strictest definition you gave (my choice)
It also has many aspect of Campus&Careers
Industrial metropolis?

I assume to be considered an International City, one has to have all those things, plus an international inter-modal and airport system.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

What about your neighborhood, more specifically?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

3 parts 11, 2 parts 3, 1 part 12.

Shake vigorously.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I'm an expat right now, but I'd put my hometown as an 11. It used to bill itself as the RV capital of the world. Of course, with the economy the RV industry took a hard hit an unemployment went through the roof.

Thankfully things are picking up a bit but Indiana needs to accept that the days of the Rust Belt are over and we need to reinvent ourselves.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Between Camp Pendleton, Miramar, and Coronado, San Diego probably qualifies as a military bastion Military and former military make up a solid 15-20% of the total population.

That said we've also got UCSD (one of the top universities in the country) The NASSCO shipyard (strong union showing) and we're less than 30 miles from the mexican border (lots of immigrants).