VOA, Texas Monthly, New Orleans Times-Picayune, others on American Nations

American Nations continues to benefit from its second freak virality incident on the Internet, which first manifested itself a week and a half ago at the Washington Post and last week via Business Insider's much circulated articles.

Earlier this week I was interviewed by Voice of America for their "All Things America" blog; that article posted late yesterday. Here's a teaser:

As people move around, one might assume the country would become more homogenous, but Woodard says the opposite occurs, with Americans becoming more polarized as they move to regions they identify with

“That means, in essence, that we are self-sorting,” he said. “That when somebody has an opportunity to move…people tend to be moving to places where they feel more at home, where they are surrounded by like-minded individuals. That ends up with a self-sorting effect that ends up reinforcing the differences between these regional cultures.”

Woodard expects the characteristics of these cultures to remain fundamentally constant over the next century, a key reason he aspires to make more Americans aware of their forgotten past.

Meanwhile, Minnesota Public Radio picked up on the Business Insider piece, emphasizing the great gulf between the two "superpowers", Yankeedom and the Deep South. Meanwhile the Bakersfield Californian named American Nations as one of the ten things their readers needed to know, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune flagged it in regards to what it says about New France, and provoking lots of comments. (For the record, New Orleans itself is shared between New France and the Deep South (and probably the Spanish Caribbean as well, if I ever got into that.))

Somewhere in the fray, Texas Monthly's John Nova Lomax posted this fun article which uses American Nations and Spotify data to explain why various Texas musical genres succeed in being popular in certain areas outside of the Lone Star State. I greatly enjoyed it. An excerpt:

In a way, the Spotify lists lend credence to reporter and author Colin Woodard’s eleven nations of North America map, in which four distinct cultures converge within Texas. Spotify did not provide data for Woodard’s “Midlands” strip of Texas – the northernmost counties of the Panhandle – but his “El Norte,” which he calls “the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas” is exemplified by Spotify’s Spanglish El Paso chart, one of the most unusual in the United States.
And he kind of shares my own long-held observation that the Deep South doesn’t really end until you get to Brookshire on I-10, which is where real Texas finally begins. Music tastes bear this out. For example, even if Houston rappers aren’t specifically well-received in Louisiana or the Deep South in terms of style, the lists of both Humble and Houston in East Texas have a bit more in common with Baton Rouge and Memphis than they do with, say, San Antonio or even Dallas. Both of the East Texas population centers show far more of a taste for various African-American music styles (mostly hip-hop, but also blues and zydeco) than places west of the Brazos and north of College Station, where country takes over. Houston’s western suburb of Katy is more akin to Lubbock than it is to Humble.
- See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/mapping-the-popularity-of-texas-artists-outside-of-texas/#sthash.M25X54nA.dpuf 

In a way, the Spotify lists lend credence to reporter and author Colin Woodard’s eleven nations of North America map....He kind of shares my own long-held observation that the Deep South doesn’t really end until you get to Brookshire on I-10, which is where real Texas finally begins. Music tastes bear this out. For example, even if Houston rappers aren’t specifically well-received in Louisiana or the Deep South in terms of style, the lists of both Humble and Houston in East Texas have a bit more in common with Baton Rouge and Memphis than they do with, say, San Antonio or even Dallas. Both of the East Texas population centers show far more of a taste for various African-American music styles (mostly hip-hop, but also blues and zydeco) than places west of the Brazos and north of College Station, where country takes over. Houston’s western suburb of Katy is more akin to Lubbock than it is to Humble.

I also did Fox News Radio's John Gibson Show, but I don't think the segment's online, so you should have been listening!

Thanks to all the new readers who've reached out this past week. Enjoy the book and look out for the sequel.

In a way, the Spotify lists lend credence to reporter and author Colin Woodard’s eleven nations of North America map, in which four distinct cultures converge within Texas. Spotify did not provide data for Woodard’s “Midlands” strip of Texas – the northernmost counties of the Panhandle – but his “El Norte,” which he calls “the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas” is exemplified by Spotify’s Spanglish El Paso chart, one of the most unusual in the United States.
And he kind of shares my own long-held observation that the Deep South doesn’t really end until you get to Brookshire on I-10, which is where real Texas finally begins. Music tastes bear this out. For example, even if Houston rappers aren’t specifically well-received in Louisiana or the Deep South in terms of style, the lists of both Humble and Houston in East Texas have a bit more in common with Baton Rouge and Memphis than they do with, say, San Antonio or even Dallas. Both of the East Texas population centers show far more of a taste for various African-American music styles (mostly hip-hop, but also blues and zydeco) than places west of the Brazos and north of College Station, where country takes over. Houston’s western suburb of Katy is more akin to Lubbock than it is to Humble.
- See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/mapping-the-popularity-of-texas-artists-outside-of-texas/#sthash.M25X54nA.dpuf