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Dixie Region (Region I, Ex IV)





Garreau's chapter on Dixie and the empirical evidence I have mapped roughly resemble each other. The highest compacted population of places named "Dixie Automotives" is within Garreau's boundaries of Dixie. There are some outliers I have previously deleted. Upon further inspection I discovered places in Canada being named "Dixie Automotives" due to being on a Dixie Highway, not for cultural reasons. In order to get a better understanding of where the boarder of Dixie is located, I could search for streets named after confederate generals or another empirical trait related closely to Dixie's cultural identity.

 This type of map is centered around formal regions. The Human Mosaic's definition for a formal region is described as culturally homogeneous and having one or more traits in common. On this map, we are mapping the trait of the term "Dixie". A formal region also has a core-peripheral and boarder zones. This is very prevalent in the map because the core-peripheral layout is expressed through the large amount of Dixie Automotive stores in the boundary and the slow decline of the phrase fading outwards. The highest amount of Dixie stores are in the center of the zone, and as you work your way outside of Dixie, the number lessens. The boarder zones are shown through the thickness of the line I have chosen to map Dixie. Boarder zones are used more than sharp lines when mapping formal regions because traits will overlap. There is no distinct point where Dixie starts and stops so the line I used is thicker to show boarder zones.

 By mapping Garreau's boarder, I was able to see the correlation with empirical results of Dixie matching up with his analysis. I gained an understanding of why he chose those particular boundaries. In his chapter, he also uses vernacular region to describe his boarders. A vernacular region is one that is perceived to exist by its inhabitants. A major characteristic of vernacular is also the spread and acceptance and use of a special regional name. By finding empirical data of Automotive shops named "Dixie", I was able to see vernacular region being used as well. Dixie is shown on the map to be a widespread and commonly used name.

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