Meta-regions

The idea of meta-regions is all the rage when it comes to national transportation policy. The logic of maps like this are helping frame high-speed rail policy and priorities, for example.  But the regions depicted in this map also represent radically different taste regimes when it comes to design culture.  “Cascadia,” the region defined by Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, is the home of the contemporary language of Patkau, Miller Hull, and other proponents of a woodsie and geometrically inflected modernism that has more than a whiff of Alvar Aalto.  The green region centered on Atlanta and Charlotte, on the other hand, is ground zero of suburbo-preppy New Urbanism.  Gross generalizations for sure, but regional cultural affinities do matter and are greatly clarified by this map.

-Tim