...didn't surprise me: People in blue counties live longer than those in red counties.
But when you slice up the country in an interesting way you get interesting data that comparing red and blue states misses. These are his regions:
The study does find some surprises as it drills down.Yankeedom (pop. 55.8 million)
Founded by Puritans who sought to perfect earthly society through social engineering, individual denial for common good, and the assimilation of outsiders. The common good — ensured by popular government — took precedence over individual liberty when the two were in conflict.
New Netherland (pop. 18.8 million)
Dutch-founded and retains characteristics of 17th century Amsterdam: a global commercial trading culture, materialistic, multicultural and committed to tolerance and the freedom of inquiry and conscience.
Tidewater (pop. 12.6 million)
Founded by lesser sons of landed gentry seeking to recreate the semi-feudal manorial society of English countryside. Conservative with strong respect for authority and tradition, this culture is rapidly eroding because of its small physical size and the massive federal presence around D.C. and Hampton Roads.
Greater Appalachia (pop. 59 million)
Settlers overwhelmingly from war-ravaged Northern Ireland, Northern England and Scottish lowlands were deeply committed to personal sovereignty and intensely suspicious of external authority.
The Midlands (pop. 37.7 million)
Founded by English Quakers, who believed in humans’ inherent goodness and welcomed people of many nations and creeds. Pluralistic and organized around the middle class; ethnic and ideological purity never a priority; government seen as an unwelcome intrusion.
Deep South (pop. 43.5 million)
Established by English Barbadian slave lords who championed classical republicanism modeled on slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and subjugation and enslavement the natural lot of the many.
El Norte (pop. 33.3 million)
Borderlands of Spanish-American empire, so far from Mexico City and Madrid that it developed its own characteristics: independent, self-sufficient, adaptable and work-centered. Often sought to break away from Mexico to become independent buffer state, annexed into U.S. instead.
Left Coast (pop. 17.9 million)
Founded by New Englanders (who came by ship) and farmers, prospectors and fur traders from the lower Midwest (by wagon), it’s a fecund hybrid of Yankee utopianism and the Appalachian emphasis on self-expression and exploration.
Far West (pop. 28.7 million)
Extreme environment stopped eastern cultures in their path, so settlement largely controlled by distant corporations or federal government via deployment of railroads, dams, irrigation and mines; exploited as an internal colony, with lasting resentments.
For example, there's the expected :
And the not-so-obvious:The results show enormous gaps between the regions that don’t go away when you parse by race, income, education, urbanization or access to quality medical care. They amount to a rebuke to generations of elected officials in the Deep South, Greater Appalachia and New France — most of whom have been Republican in recent decades — who have resisted investing tax dollars in public goods and health programs.
One of the most arresting facts that emerged from our analysis was that the most impoverished quartile of U.S. counties in Yankeedom (ones where around 30 to 60 percent of children live in poverty) have a higher life expectancy than the least impoverished quartile of U.S. counties (where child poverty ranges from 3 to 15 percent) in the Deep South by 0.3 years. Those are both big regions (circa 50 million people each) with a wide mix of counties: rural, urban, rich, poor, blue-collar and white-collar, agricultural and industrial. If you compare the poorest category of counties in (completely urbanized) New Netherland to the richest ones in Deep South, the former has a 0.4-year advantage in life expectancy. And people in the Left Coast’s poorest quartile of counties live 2.4 years longer than those in the richest quartile counties in the Deep South.
That shut him up and he hemmed and hawed before apologizing.
