Nine Nations of North America Rediscovered
February 9, 2010
Short honk: Joel Garreau wrote a darned interesting book, the Nine Nations of North America, in 1981. When I read a Russian intelligence analysis that the US would Balkanize, I realized that the Russian analysts had read Mr. Garreau’s book and applied its ideas to the present US political structure. The Russians tossed in some oregano in the form of budget deficits, unemployment, and the allegedly dysfunctional government. I did not agree with the Russian analysts, but I know the team did its homework.
When I read PeteSearch’s “How to Split Up the US”, I was struck by the congruence with Mr. Garreau’s quarter century old analysis. I also had the thought that the author of the PeteSearch article had not read Mr. Garreau’s book. I think there was an opportunity to move a Facebook user analysis into a more significant statement about behaviors of the Facebook community.
Nevertheless, I did find this passage interesting:
Looking at the network of US cities, it’s been remarkable to see how groups of them form clusters, with strong connections locally but few contacts outside the cluster.
Hopefully the hard data will be summarized and placed in the context of researchers who anticipated to some degree this type of binding.
Stephen E Arnold, February 9, 2010
No one paid me to be a pedant. I don’t know to whom to report this behavior. Perhaps the Corps of Engineers? Details are important to this group.
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