How to split up the US

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How to split up the US

As I've been digging deeper into the data I've gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I've been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends. For example, a lot of people in LA have friends in San Francisco, so there's a line between them.

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.

...

Some of these clusters are intuitive, like the old south, but there's some surprises too, like Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas having closer ties to Texas than Georgia. To make sense of the patterns I'm seeing, I've marked and labeled the clusters, and added some notes about the properties they have in common.

Stayathomia

Stretching from New York to Minnesota, this belt's defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don't move far. In most cases outside the largest cities, the most common connections are with immediately neighboring cities, and even New York only has one really long-range link in its top 10. Apart from Los Angeles, all of its strong ties are comparatively local.

In contrast to further south, God tends to be low down the top 10 fan pages if she shows up at all, with a lot more sports and beer-related pages instead.

Dixie

Probably the least surprising of the groupings, the Old South is known for its strong and shared culture, and the pattern of ties I see backs that up. Like Stayathomia, Dixie towns tend to have links mostly to other nearby cities rather than spanning the country. Atlanta is definitely the hub of the network, showing up in the top 5 list of almost every town in the region. Southern Florida is an exception to the cluster, with a lot of connections to the East Coast, presumably sun-seeking refugees.

God is almost always in the top spot on the fan pages, and for some reason Ashley shows up as a popular name here, but almost nowhere else in the country.

Greater Texas

Orbiting around Dallas, the ties of the Gulf Coast towns and Oklahoma and Arkansas make them look more Texan than Southern. Unlike Stayathomia, there's a definite central city to this cluster, otherwise most towns just connect to their immediate neighbors.

God shows up, but always comes in below the Dallas Cowboys for Texas proper, and other local sports teams outside the state. I've noticed a few interesting name hotspots, like Alexandria, LA boasting Ahmed and Mohamed as #2 and #3 on their top 10 names, and Laredo with Juan, Jose, Carlos and Luis as its four most popular.

Mormonia

The only region that's completely surrounded by another cluster, Mormonia mostly consists of Utah towns that are highly connected to each other, with an offshoot in Eastern Idaho. It's worth separating from the rest of the West because of how interwoven the communities are, and how relatively unlikely they are to have friends outside the region.

It won't be any surprise to see that LDS-related pages like Thomas S. Monson, Gordon B. Hinckley and The Book of Mormon are at the top of the charts. I didn't expect to see Twilight showing up quite so much though, I have no idea what to make of that! Glenn Beck makes it into the top spot for Eastern Idaho.

Nomadic West

The defining feature of this area is how likely even small towns are to be strongly connected to distant cities, it looks like the inhabitants have done a lot of moving around the county. For example, Boise, ID, Bend, OR and Phoenix, AZ all have much wider connections than you'd expect for towns their size.

Starbucks is almost always the top fan page, maybe to help people stay awake on all those long car trips they must be making?

Socalistan

Sorry Bay Area folks, but LA is definitely the center of gravity for this cluster. Almost everywhere in California and Nevada has links to both LA and SF, but LA is usually first. Part of that may be due to the way the cities are split up, but in tribute to the 8 years I spent there, I christened it Socalistan. Californians outside the super-cities tend to be most connected to other Californians, making almost as tight a cluster as Greater Texas.

Keeping up with the stereotypes, God hardly makes an appearance on the fan pages, but sports aren't that popular either. Michael Jackson is a particular favorite, and San Francisco puts Barack Obama in the top spot.

Pacifica

The most boring of the clusters, the area around Seattle is disappointingly average. Tightly connected to each other, it doesn't look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest of the West, even though a lot of them claim to need a vacation!

So that's my tour through the patterns that leapt out at me from the Facebook data. This is all qualitative, not quantitive, so I'm looking forward to gathering some numbers to back them up. I'd love to work out the average distance of friends for each city, and then use that as a measure of insularity for instance.

http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-split-up-the-us.html

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

meh...there's no mention of Alaska on that piece.

[Ban Hammer 14,340]

meh...there's no mention of Alaska on that piece.

the plan is to install palin as overlord and it will be it's own country.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

the plan is to install palin as overlord and it will be it's own country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Vogler <---- That was a "hit" done by the US government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Independence_Party

"Alaskan Independence Party"

[Nasturtium 500]

Las Vegas could be in either Mormonia or Socalistan. I'm from there... tons of Mormons but also a lot of back and forth between Orange County and LV.

Now I'm in AR. I don't think we're connected to TX much. in NWA there is the obsession with the Ozarks and U of A, and then in Jonesboro there is Delta orientation.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Las Vegas could be in either Mormonia or Socalistan. I'm from there... tons of Mormons but also a lot of back and forth between Orange County and LV.

Now I'm in AR. I don't think we're connected to TX much. in NWA there is the obsession with the Ozarks and U of A, and then in Jonesboro there is Delta orientation.

Arkansas is becoming a retirement mecca from what Iv'e heard. Gated communities in the Ozarks with man made ponds full of fish. I was looking at a couple of those sites advertising manufactured homes there and the price was decent enough.

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Arkansas is becoming a retirement mecca from what Iv'e heard. Gated communities in the Ozarks with man made ponds full of fish. I was looking at a couple of those sites advertising manufactured homes there and the price was decent enough.

I haven't heard that and I hear a lot of "where should i retire?" conversations at work. Most people just want to move to wherever their grandkids are and the rest are fleeing to Costa Rica

[Darnell 8,479]

Arkansas is becoming a retirement mecca from what Iv'e heard. Gated communities in the Ozarks with man made ponds full of fish. I was looking at a couple of those sites advertising manufactured homes there and the price was decent enough.

If you truly like Arkansas - here's a tip..

Stay in Hot Springs for 2 months - follow the obituaries - buy up properties from the living relatives of the 'new settlers' then rent it out.

Most of the elderly elite have been settling in Hot Springs these last 15 years - I've been watching this trend, have 18 rental properties in town, 6 big spreads just outside of town - all picked up for less than 50 percent of the appraised value, after a death.

IMO, forget about a gated community with manufactured homes - here in Greater Texas - them is called 'Trailer Parks' and usually po white trash live there. YMMV, of course.

[Nasturtium 500]

Arkansas is becoming a retirement mecca from what Iv'e heard. Gated communities in the Ozarks with man made ponds full of fish. I was looking at a couple of those sites advertising manufactured homes there and the price was decent enough.

It was and then they overbuilt. We tried for nearly 2 years to sell our house and it didn't work... and we had just a regular 3bedroom, 1178sq ft house-- 99k. So that has crashed. Now you can find amazing deals though better than what you could before. Lots of foreclosures on the market for 50k or so. Doesn't help when you've paid for your house already though But yes, it's a great area.

[Nasturtium 500]

I haven't heard that and I hear a lot of "where should i retire?" conversations at work. Most people just want to move to wherever their grandkids are and the rest are fleeing to Costa Rica

It's western-oriented for whatever reason. Most of the influx were people from CA. We basically had 100,000+ influx from there over 5 years. NWA is the more... I don't really know now to phrase it (normal was what was in my mind lol). NWA is where the major businesses are based (like Walmart and Tyson) and there is the U of A and it's basically just a regular place. Jonesboro where we moved to is definitely small-town Southern. NWA has the best of both worlds IMO-- orchards and such but still has actual malls with important things like sephora.

[Nasturtium 500]

If you truly like Arkansas - here's a tip..

Stay in Hot Springs for 2 months - follow the obituaries - buy up properties from the living relatives of the 'new settlers' then rent it out.

Most of the elderly elite have been settling in Hot Springs these last 15 years - I've been watching this trend, have 18 rental properties in town, 6 big spreads just outside of town - all picked up for less than 50 percent of the appraised value, after a death.

IMO, forget about a gated community with manufactured homes - here in Greater Texas - them is called 'Trailer Parks' and usually po white trash live there. YMMV, of course.

I agree with this... HS is a really nice area but I have only been there once. I just did te touristy stuff of looking at all the art deco bath houses. I didn't see much beyond that, but I am sure there was stuff that was quite nice.

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It's western-oriented for whatever reason. Most of the influx were people from CA. We basically had 100,000+ influx from there over 5 years. NWA is the more... I don't really know now to phrase it (normal was what was in my mind lol). NWA is where the major businesses are based (like Walmart and Tyson) and there is the U of A and it's basically just a regular place. Jonesboro where we moved to is definitely small-town Southern. NWA has the best of both worlds IMO-- orchards and such but still has actual malls with important things like sephora.

Interesting (and a little crazy) that Californians are attracted to Arkansas.

Frankly, if I were in my mid 60s today I don't think I'd even consider retiring in the United States. My wife may feel differently but there are ways around that.

[Peikko 1,575]

Interesting (and a little crazy) that Californians are attracted to Arkansas.

Frankly, if I were in my mid 60s today I don't think I'd even consider retiring in the United States. My wife may feel differently but there are ways around that.

[Nasturtium 500]

Interesting (and a little crazy) that Californians are attracted to Arkansas.

Frankly, if I were in my mid 60s today I don't think I'd even consider retiring in the United States. My wife may feel differently but there are ways around that.

LOL that pic reminds me of a subforum here...

Yeah, I am not sure why they all moved there other than they could sell their house in CA and buy a bunch of land and a huge house for cheap in AR. I do fine it interesting that W_M is mentioning it as well-- so maybe it is more than what I had previously thought-- some kind of CA connection and more of a Western US connection. I moved there for graduate school. Then again, being from Las Vegas/CA, I guess I am to an extent just one of them.

Yeah, we only got a couple of years left here in the US.

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Yeah, we only got a couple of years left here in the US.

Where are you going?