Are St. Louis and New Orleans the last "eastern" cities?

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by lio45

On a related note, I was looking at Texas real estate sorted by price for the whole state (only search criterion was that it had to be 100+ years old, I was just curious at what sort of middle-of-nowhere antebellum mansion I could find ) and you know what's amusing, I was looking at the list (not map) in order of price so they were always all over the state (and often in tiny towns whose names I didn't know so no idea what part of the state they were in) but I could immediately tell just by the picture whenever a house was in El Paso. Very distinctive style - plus the yard is desert and the sky is usually perfectly clear and intense blue.

Yeah, El Paso is very distinctive. None of the other Texas cities even remotely resemble El Paso. What's interesting is that the "El Paso accent" sounds to most of us just like that of Albuquerque, Phoenex, or most of California. No hint of southern.

I've always wondered what percentage of people in Texas, who live east or central, have ever been anywhere near El Paso. Conversely, what percentage of El Pasoans have ever been to east or central Texas. The regions seem very disconnected. The first time I traveled to El Paso, on business, I was surprised that it was a large, busy, crowded metro with freeways, traffic jams, wealthy neighborhoods on the mountain slopes, and a lot of poverty close to the river. I had never given it much thought, although I've lived in Texas most of my life with a few years here and there.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

Yeah, El Paso is very distinctive. None of the other Texas cities even remotely resemble El Paso. What's interesting is that the "El Paso accent" sounds to most of us just like that of Albuquerque, Phoenex, or most of California. No hint of southern.

I've always wondered what percentage of people in Texas, who live east or central, have ever been anywhere near El Paso. Conversely, what percentage of El Pasoans have ever been to east or central Texas. The regions seem very disconnected.

Very few based on my experience and most of those were just passing through traveling to or from CA. I've been there twice; first passing through on my way to AZ and a couple of months ago on my here.

[lio45]

Very low for sure. El Paso is closer to San Diego / Pacific Ocean than it is to Houston (let alone the Sabine River).

I stopped to visit, but like JManc said, I was on my way back east from Southern California, that's why I was in the area, it didn't draw me on its own merits. Worth a visit for sure though, I loved it. My car broke down outside the city (in the middle of nowhere) and the guy who stopped to give a hand - who had a bunch of tools and was super helpful - didn't speak any English, I was glad to be fluent in Spanish. I do not recall meeting a single non-Hispanic person during my couple days in El Paso!

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by lio45

El Paso

When I was a student at Ohio University in tiny Athens, OH, one of the punk rock bands in town made a connection with a band from El Paso, TX. For several years they and 2-3 other bands from OU drove all the way to El Paso to play house shows. No, not a tour - all the way to El Paso and back to play a basement party.

Athens, OH > El Paso, TX = 1,683 miles, or over 3,000 miles round-trip.

What's hilarious is that the business acumen of these bands was so poor that it didn't occur to any of them to ever play in Austin.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by lio45

So when you go to the other area (trans-Ohio) of Pittsburgh, it feels like a foreign land?

No, the Ohio River (actually, hydrologically speaking, the Allegheny River, since the Ohio River doesn't really exist but in name only like the Mississippi below the "Ohio River"... but that's another topic I've beaten to death) doesn't really divide Pittsburgh in the way I'm speaking of, but it is a significant barrier and certainly separates the metro. Greater Pittsburgh is very fractured because of 5 named rivers/valleys and 1 creek/valley (Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, Beaver, Youghiogheny, Chartiers)... people think there are only 3, but there are actually 6 significant river systems in the region.

But the Ohio River is not a state border in Pittsburgh... it's where the "Ohio River" starts and is entirely within Pennsylvania here. But yeah, there is a pretty steep cultural division (at least in national perception) between different sides of the Ohio once one gets into the Ohio Valley proper... Ohio vs. West Virginia or Kentucky, Indiana vs. Kentucky, Illinois vs. Kentucky... that's quite a difference in regional culture from a statewide perspective. It marks a true national transition area, North to South. Look at the comparison with opposite sides of the Mississippi: Missouri vs. Illinois, Illinois vs. Iowa, Wisconsin vs. Minnesota, Tennessee vs. Arkansas, Mississippi vs. Arkansas vs. Louisiana.

Get what I'm saying?

Originally Posted by lio45

The Mason-Dixon Line or the Potomac would be even bigger cultural dividing lines, right?

No, I don't think so... southern PA and Northern WV and northern Maryland are exactly the same. And Maryland and Virginia are pretty much the same on both sides of the Potomac.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I think it's more interesting to think in terms of certain ideas and cultural traits leaving trails across the landscape, instead of sharp dividing lines.

For example, the use of Spanish Colonial architecture links Florida to Louisiana to California. There's a certain style of Craftsman and gingerbread Victorian architecture that spread across the US in much the same path.

There is a "trunk" of Black music going from New Orleans to Memphis to St Louis to Chicago, and then branching out all over the country. Etc.

There is a noticeable amount of Spanish colonial style architecture in the Twin Cities too which seemed really out of place to me when I moved here. There is also a fairly similar shared vernacular of early 20th century architecture between the Twin Cities, Kansas City, Denver and LA - all have similar craftsman bungalows and prairie school apartment buildings built into streetcar suburbia style neighborhoods. The question there though is if that is a relic of an era when LA and Denver were outposts of the Midwest or the other way around?

Minneapolis has tons of stucco compared to the rest of the Midwest but that is apparently the legacy of Swedish craftsmen who came over knowing how to work with it rather than any connection to the southwest.

[Chef]

I've always thought that thinking of the country strictly in terms of east vs west is a conceit of those who live on the coasts or move between one or the other. A lot of our media and elites go back and forth between California and the northeast and think of the country in those terms and that carries over to the general population. But this denies the rest of the country agency and is basically lazy thinking. For example Minneapolis has been a magnet for Scandinavians, Hmong and east Africans. Where does that fit into the east vs west dynamic? It doesn't.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by lio45

I don't get how anyone can look at the maps above and think the Mississippi matters, let alone is THE dividing line between the two halves of the country.

History? Cultural perceptions? The fact that rivers are very commonly borders ?

I don't consider Arkansas or Tulsa to be on the "eastern" half of the USA

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

st. louis kinda seems like the ultimate junction city of north, east, south, and west.

it's a bit of shame about TWA getting bought out by American, STL is such a natural spot for a large hub airport.

St. Louis (or perhaps KC) is the ideal site for the national capitol, geographically. But we are stuck with Washington. Denver is a bit too far west, Chicago too far north. Kansas City has always struck me as the real boundary between "east" and "west", even more than St. Louis, even though SL has the Gateway Arch. When in SL, it gives me a more Eastern vibe, with some southern touches as well. KC is almost equally east and west in feel, almost like Omaha is. I have always thought of the Missouri River as the real boundary between east and west, until it drifts west into Montana in the north, and joins the Miss. near SL. John Steinbeck in "Travels With Charlie" talks about how Bismarck ND had eastern smells and feel, while Mandon across the Missouri smelled and looked western. When crossing the Missouri at Chamberlain SD, I noticed the same shift. SL and KC were at the boundary of the North and South in the first phase of the Civil War. SL was slave owning, facing free Illinois across the river and KC faced free Kansas across the Missouri (although slavery in western Missouri was not as common as in eastern Missouri). Both cities are near the boundary between North and South, East and West.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pj3000

But the Ohio River is not a state border in Pittsburgh... it's where the "Ohio River" starts and is entirely within Pennsylvania here. But yeah, there is a pretty steep cultural division (at least in national perception) between different sides of the Ohio once one gets into the Ohio Valley proper... Ohio vs. West Virginia or Kentucky, Indiana vs. Kentucky, Illinois vs. Kentucky... that's quite a difference in regional culture from a statewide perspective. It marks a true national transition area, North to South. Look at the comparison with opposite sides of the Mississippi: Missouri vs. Illinois, Illinois vs. Iowa, Wisconsin vs. Minnesota, Tennessee vs. Arkansas, Mississippi vs. Arkansas vs. Louisiana...

In the early 19th century, the Ohio River was the first major great "highway" which helped people to move westward in large numbers. Really, the only way to travel west until the Erie Canal was finished. It was settled by a mixture of people moving west from Virginia and Pennsylvania, who didn't pay much attention at all to what side of the river they settled on, which is why the whole valley is a transition zone.

There's nothing like this for the Mississippi really. Maybe if New France stuck around longer and people were migrating up from New Orleans instead. But it mostly helped to get goods out to global markets, not to get settlers to move westward. But some of the oldest of the Mississippi River towns do have a bit of an echo of the Ohio River built environment (places like Dubuque or Galena, IL).

[pdxtex]

I love these topics. I split the U.S. in two. The east is the old empire and the west is the frontier. Kansas City and Omaha are definitely where the east begins or ends depending on which direction you are headed.

[Docere]

Canada is easier, the MB/ON border / Lake of the Woods. Winnipeg is the first western city. Southern Ontario and the Prairie provinces are separated by around 1000 miles of thinly populated Canadian Shield.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

The east is the old empire and the west is the frontier.

But the "frontier" wasn't a static thing.

always moving west, the frontier was. [/yoda]

Roll the tape back far enough, and Pittsburgh was hardcore "frontier".





The more I think about this topic, the more lio's argument of water/population density makes sense to me.

Those are the two key overarching generalities of east/west in the US.

The east is wet, and thus has people "everywhere," while the west is dry, and the human population is MUCH more highly clustered with gigantic swaths of relative emptiness in between.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

St. Louis (or perhaps KC) is the ideal site for the national capitol, geographically. But we are stuck with Washington. Denver is a bit too far west, Chicago too far north. Kansas City has always struck me as the real boundary between "east" and "west", even more than St. Louis, even though SL has the Gateway Arch. When in SL, it gives me a more Eastern vibe, with some southern touches as well. KC is almost equally east and west in feel, almost like Omaha is. I have always thought of the Missouri River as the real boundary between east and west, until it drifts west into Montana in the north, and joins the Miss. near SL. John Steinbeck in "Travels With Charlie" talks about how Bismarck ND had eastern smells and feel, while Mandon across the Missouri smelled and looked western. When crossing the Missouri at Chamberlain SD, I noticed the same shift. SL and KC were at the boundary of the North and South in the first phase of the Civil War. SL was slave owning, facing free Illinois across the river and KC faced free Kansas across the Missouri (although slavery in western Missouri was not as common as in eastern Missouri). Both cities are near the boundary between North and South, East and West.

St. Louis would be the perfect capital. When the US got independent, north-south divide was the most important, but soon after it because east-west oriented.

It's right on the middle of this divided, by the country's most important river and they already have a very beautiful monument, more impressive than anyone in Washington.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Yuri

St. Louis would be the perfect capital. When the US got independent, north-south divide was the most important, but soon after it because east-west oriented.

It's right on the middle of this divided, by the country's most important river and they already have a very beautiful monument, more impressive than anyone in Washington.

To be more precise, Washington DC was the perfect capital in 1800, St. Louis was the perfect capital in the late 1970s, and Hartville, Missouri, is the perfect capital these days.

[MAC123]

Geographic Position alone does not make a city "the perfect capital"

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

To be more precise, Washington DC was the perfect capital in 1800, St. Louis was the perfect capital in the late 1970s, and Hartville, Missouri, is the perfect capital these days.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the capital should be in New York.

[Steely Dan]

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the capital should be in Chicago.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MAC123

Geographic Position alone does not make a city "the perfect capital"

Yuri said it, not me

I’m firmly in the camp that believes the best capital is the one where all the expensive capital infrastructure already is, which means DC for the USA, Ottawa for Canada, and Tallahassee >> Orlando, for Florida.

It’s even more true now with all the modern tech that allows people to do a ton of things remotely.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the capital should be in Chicago.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but if Americans are willing to relocate the capital to the area in northern New Hampshire where I have all my land, I’ll donate several acres for the new Capitol grounds.

Bonus - putting the capital there would be a great incentive to never be at war with Canada, since it’s so close to the border it can easily be shelled by artillery from Canadian territory (as Ukrainians have shown us)