Developmental Aspect of Regionalism

T HE bible of regionalism in this country (and probably for the world) is American Regionalism by Odum and Moore.' By means of argumentative exposition and presentation of a multitude of maps and charts based on indices, these authors have established beyond much doubt the existence of regionalism in the United States and the existence of some six great regions. Upon a background of physical conditions, they affirm that there exists "a relative, composite homogeneity of the largest number of factors for the largest number of purposes in view, to the end that the region may be a practical, workable unit susceptible of both definition and utilization." "It possesses some degree of homogeneity in a number of selected characteristics." "A region has organic unity not only in its natural landscape, but in that cultural evolution in which the agelong quartette of elements are at work, namely, land and the people, culturally conditioned through time and spatial relationship." Its essence, approximately, is found in its socio-cultural homogeneity.2 While Odum and Moore think of regions developmentally and pay regard to this in their exposition and argument, the data they present for the existence of regions is chiefly of a static nature. In the life of the Nation, the six great regions present a photographic picture of a certain time. Indices for developmental changes within regions and in interregional relationships do not appear. The differences between regions at a given time are demonstrated so that they are visible. What the relative situation was as of yesterday and prior to that cannot very well be demonstrated from the evidence adduced. Therefore, their important and admirable work has left something to be done in that direction. Before proceeding to the developmental phases of regions, a few words about regionalism in general may be permitted. Regions do exist in some form, perhaps blurred somewhat and only approximate. Perhaps the concept of regionalism is not more approximate than is that of many or most of our sociological concepts. Few would seek to maintain that any of them have been demonstrated so objectively that from them prediction about future events may be inerrantly made. Social scientists live and work in a field of approximations largely and have to be content with that as an accepted fact. It is doubtful if regions would have been detected had not a prior physical habitat been denoted. It is impossible to prevent the intrusion of physical conditions into the mixture of socio-cultural homogeneities. A mere physical area without a population and culture content is not a region to sociological regionalists. Just at what point in time the development of population and culture in the area brings a region into existence is an interesting scientific question. A condition of nature, such as temperature or precipitation, may be a simplex but when it contacts culture as a cause, its causal manifestations are so conditioned by the work of man and the complexity of culture, that predictable effects and exact measurement of results are rendered impossible. The cultural things of regions radiate into and I Howard W. Odum and Harry Estill Moore, American Regionalism. A Cultural-Historical Approach to National Integration (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1938). 2 Ibid., pp. 14-18.