NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. It pulls in a big stretch of the Great Plains and some of the South, unifying through cultural taste places that are variously rural, red and for the most part interior. It also includes California’s Central Valley, which produces about a quarter of the nation’s food. “And the electorate is showing these things change constantly.”, Look through newspaper articles, and references to the American “heartland” proliferate in the 1980s with stories about the struggles of the middle part of the country. Whose traditions are “traditional”? ST. LOUIS — The Heartland. historian who has traced the word’s use over time, pegs its growing prominence to the farm crisis of the 1980s and the economic shifts that began to turn parts of the Midwest into the “Rust Belt.”, “To me, the very ideological or cultural formulation that people are using – whether they’re aware of it or not – comes out of that moment of confronting globalization,” Mr. Higbie said. * Election results are from The Associated Press. This is what the heartland looks like as Trump’s America: That last map recalls a 1969 book by the Republican strategist Kevin Phillips, “The Emerging Republican Majority.” In it, he predicted Republican success from a new coalition of the interior “heartland” — “the land of Methodist church suppers, mile-high mining camps, county fairs, steamboats, round the bend, cattle drives, waving wheat” — with suburbia, the South and the Sun Belt. “And it’s a reaction to that, to sort of say: ‘We are the authentic, quintessential American location. The contorted math behind that figure counted Trump’s margin in 3,084 of 3,141 American counties, excluding big urban centers like New York and Los Angeles — a convenient way of defining nearly all of the country’s land area (if not all of its people) as heartland. In that context, the word heartland was used to suggest that Mr. Trump won the popular vote in authentic America — or, put another way, the true American vote. Definitely the heartland. KEVIN QUEALY That picture, which encompasses much of the Great Plains, shows a swath of land down the center of the country, from the Dakotas to Texas, east into Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and south along the Mississippi River. The four-day event features actress Jennifer Garner, an ambassador for Save the Children; author Deepak Chopra; former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; and Academy Award-winning artist and activist Common. But now we are searching for its boundaries, after an election that pundits proclaimed cast the heartland against the rest of America. By EMILY BADGER and At least as early as 2010, the term Heartland has been used to refer to many so-called "red states", including those in the Bible belt. Cumberland County, Tenn., is in the South, not the Midwest. (If not, choose a map with “holes” in it.) Or the middle, in an election year, discounting its islands of blue? The idea of the heartland is closely linked to the Midwest, although the earliest use of “heartland” in this sense had nothing to do with America. To pin down this elusive place, we used data from the presidential election, the census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics – even data about television preferences from Facebook – to map the many meanings of the word, if we’re really being honest about what we mean. Too close to the coast. The findings tell us many things we already know: Those living in the Heartland weigh more and make less. “It describes a deep set of beliefs about places that somehow authentically stand for America.”. The South Side of Chicago? A new report released Thursday defines exactly what part of the U.S. comprises the Heartland and how it is faring compared with the rest of the country. And a larger percentage of them do not have access to high-speed internet compared to rest of the country. Brutal 41-year-old Benicia cold case murder finally... La Niña is here. * Television show preference is based on how many Facebook users “liked” a television program in a ZIP code in June 2016. “His heartland strategy only works if you close your eyes and imagine any urban space or place with significant people of color as not part of the heartland,” Mr. Higbie said. That picture neatly reflects much of the Midwest without need for state borders and creeps over the state lines, as with Pennsylvania, where the Midwest grows hazy. “In fact, the proliferation of ‘red vs. blue’ maps and apocalyptic talk show punditry has, if anything, made it hard for the region to get a clear sense of itself and how it is doing.”. However, the American Midwest is the most commonly cited area as being the nation's heartland, although many other places have been referred to as part of it, often extending to rural or farming regions in the great plains. Toby Higbie, a U.C.L.A. * Distance from the coast data based on this demonstration. As with the others, it reveals a place that is whiter and more Republican than the country as a whole. Who’s mainstream? What does that mean for Bay Area winter? But is it also in the heartland? 22... Man steals from SF Walgreens as TV crew reports on... SF extends Shared Spaces Program to next summer. We found that the 50 most-liked shows clustered into three groups with distinct geographic distributions; the one shown here represents the rural white cluster. Philadelphia? The black line captures the region as the Census Bureau defines it. “You take a regional name, detach it from the actual physical region,” Mr. Higbie said, “and move it around the country selectively to the places that match your electoral strategy.”. In that sense, the word is not purely about geography. Who’s from implicitly the heart? Does the heartland rigidly follow state lines? This is where all the coal and iron ore came from.”. It’s not just the borders that are in dispute, but the redactions as well. Meteorologists have a lot to say about this. It offers the cleanest, most compact idea of the heartland of any map shown here. Regions and Divisions of the United States. Postwar, the language came to apply to the middle of America, too, not just for its centrality, but also its national importance. It’s time we bring the conversation home.”. * Farm maps from the U.S.D.A. ‘Go big or go home:’ One SF restaurant spent $70K on its... Maps show where PG&E will turn off power in Bay Area tonight, Outdoor dining in this SF neighborhood scared me. The term generally refers to the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, but can also include the southern states close to the Mississippi river. It takes in 19 states including Missouri and Illinois. The Under Armour face mask now comes in sizes from XS to XXL. Maine, admittedly, is something of an anomaly. The best breathable face masks for playing sports and... An upcoming nitrile glove shortage could be the next crisis. What about Detroit, with its demographics and politics that little resemble rural Iowa? PG&E issues shutoff warning due to weekend Bay Area wind event, Wild hogs are ransacking lawns in San Jose, Man steals from SF Walgreens as TV crew reports story on shoplifting, Alleged gunman who railed against 'f—in' Californians' at Idaho campground shot dead, A luxury Tahoe chalet where the snow never melts is asking $2.5M, Pope Fire in Napa County grows to 67 acres, 50% contained, Your guide to purchasing KN95 and NIOSH-approved N95 masks. Doug Moore is a St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer. These maps highlight how the heartland is usually about more than geography — whether it’s also about demographics, economics, ideology or history.