The American West

After having visited Seattle I decided that I could discuss the the disparate regions of America that are called "the American West." I tried to come up with some characteristics of people in the West, or society/culture out here, because that seemed necessary. People out here are similar to other Americans, but without being in the clutches of traditions, like society on the east coast. There's a touch more of self reliance and shedding of family than you get back east. Also, considerations of space and distance are different for folks from the American West. Something I think is surprising is that when comparing progressives from the East and the West you get slightly opposing views from folks on the same side of the political spectrum.

The east coast cities and society as a whole is more conservative in dress. Venturing down to the grocery store in pajama bottoms? You better be in California and not New York; that doesn't fly back east. Weird observations like that show the rigidity of east coast life, where it's all a little more free and loosey-goosey out west.

Progressives from the east tend to be for a little more government control and spending, while being slightly more socially conservative (I'm still talking about liberals, here, so relatively speaking). Progressives from the west are slightly more libertarian in that they generally want less government intervention (though not as little as republican voters) but are more open minded when it comes to social mores.

Really, I just wanted to make a list of the regions I think make up the American West. I hadn't, until a few minutes ago, really delved into the cultural similarities and differences between the cultures. I wanted to save a full exploration of that for later.

Really, my regional list that I spent the flight from Seatts to Long Beach espousing sparked this post. It's more of a map talk, maybe, than a social studies class.

Historically St. Louis was seen as the start of the West, but now that seems outdated. Lincoln, Nebraska and Oklahoma City aren't western cities, so we have move the needle a little farther.

I started thinking about Denver. Denver, with it's NRA strong hold and lax pot laws really exemplifies the start of the West. Denver, for me, is as far east as the West extends.

I lump Denver in with Boulder and Billings, Montana, in the region I call the Mountain West. I've read various discussions of the American West, and almost all have the same name for this basic region.

My next region isn't included in any list I've seen. I lump Utah and Idaho, with their respective cities, into a region I call the Mormon West. This seems like a reasonable thing to me. Both those states have western American qualities while being more conservative due to the nature of the overwhelming religious attention.

With Seattle and Portland and the other cities in Washington and Oregon I put into the Northwest region. Sometimes called the Pacific Northwest, I think Northwest works just as well.

Stretching from Barstow in California all the way to El Paso in Texas I have, swallowing up the entirety of Arizona and New Mexico, the American Southwest. I think the Southwest is as ripe for its own post as any region.

Now, the last two regions are as distinct as western entities can be, and they live in the same state. With the idea that Crescent City and Eureka in California are closer to Vancouver than they are to Tijuana, it makes sense to include them in the Northwest.

Now, I've broken the rest of California up into Northern California, extending from Chico to Fresno and from the Bay Area to Reno; and Southern California from SLO to San Diego, from LA to Las Vegas.

I've decided to lump the major cities of Nevada into the California regions, which maybe is the lone original thing on this list (other than calling one area the Mormon West). That may be unfair to people from Nevada, but really, it just seems like Reno and Vegas are more about being outside California, and what that implies, rather than how original Nevada is.

So there we go. An airplane's ride worth of ideas:

1) Mountain West;
2) Mormon West;
3) Northwest;
4) Southwest;
5) Northern California;
6) Southern California.

It's got to be narcissistic to claim California as it's own region, twice, but that's how I see it. People who've never visited the state would claim that I'm a self-involved Californian. That's probably true, anyway, but the romantic view of California that people have outside the state, back east and in the south, is only an imagination, similar to our San Luis acquaintances' ideas about New York before we left for there.

Having lived in some of the places and traveled through many others, I feel I've gathered evidence, maybe not enough to make ultimate judgments, but enough to discuss things from experience and not just imagination.

Take what you want from this discussion.