Appalachia, The Ozarks and Long Island? Through the Looking Glass.

Let me start off by saying that I have personally been to the Ozarks, and quite a bit of Appalachia and to try and compare them or draw a common thread with Long Island has me totally baffled.

I guess we can start out with the trailer for a movie from 1972, called Deliverance. I guess you could say that the men canoing down the river are like Long Island folks, golf playing normal type folks, in a land very different from what they know. I will say that this movie promotes sterotypes of the "hillbilly" image of Appalachia, but does show a sharp contrast from the suburban/urban Long Island to Appalachia.



In the book on page 152 it states, "Today, Appalachia's legendary isolation is gone. No longer realistic is the old image of mountain people living in mountain coves and far up steep valleys and having almost no contact with the outside world." Well I was in Appalachia, in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee in 2002 when I took another one of my grand road trips around the U.S. and let me tell you, it may not be as isolated but it is damn scary nonetheless.

The contrast between Long Island and the Appalachian and Ozark region can be easily seen in the poverty levels, much of the Appalachian region is poverty stricken while Long Island has some poverty, but is wealthy in comparison.

Another sharp contrast to these regions is that they have a low rate of urbanization, and as we have seen in previous blog entries that Long Island is highly urbanized. There are no mineral deposits on Long Island in direct contrast to the coal and ore found in Appalachia.

They do have some items in common, both Appalachia and Long Island have Highland soil. All three regions share Midlatitude deciduous forest, and are in the climate region of Humid Subtropical with the warmest month being over 71.6 degrees. Another thing they do have in common however is that both Long Island and the Appalachia/Ozark regions do participate in general farming to some extent. Long Island does depend somewhat on toursim/vacationers which is much like Branson, MO so the Ozarks and Long Island could be considered similiar in that aspect. Also similiar the 3 areas are all visibly beautiful in different ways. Long Island has its scenic waterfronts, Appalachia has gorgeous greenery and trees, and rollling mountains and views:



The Ozarks have similiar beauty like the Appalachians:



I guess overall there is not too much in common with Long Island, Appalachia, and The Ozarks but one thing. People, the people in all three places are overall friendly and hospitial in my experience and a good time can be had in any of these areas, each unique but worthy of going to see someday.