All of the above is why the whole world should fit between Boston and New York. If you can't get to it in 4 hours and/or on an interconnected set of train and public transity systems, why bother??

It is kind of neat to go down into the metro in DC and emerge a few hours later in New York.

However, Jim Crow laws managed to take away voting rights from most blacks in the South until the early sixties. That is also when the legal apartheid system known as "Jim Crow" finally ended. Until the early sixties there were states where Black peple could not vote, could not enter most shops or resteraunts, had to ride different classes of accomoadation on public transport, had to go miles out of their way compared to whites to find a restromm they could use. Could be jailed for marrying or dating whites (not to mention the real dangers of execution in public lynchings-, though I believe that mostly ended in the fifties). I do know that until Truman, the armed forces of the U.S. were segregated, and black soldiers assigned to worse assignments. Legal equality between blacks and whites in the U.S. is a comparatively recent phenomena. I bring this up here, because I knew several French people in the eighties whom this came as a surprise to, so the thought occurs to me that there might be UnAmericans posting who don't know it. The U.S. South in the 50s (and before of course) was very much like Apartheid South Africa.

There's a fraternity (KA) on my campus which is the Southern fraternity. Honorary president is Jefferson Davis. Each year, their big party is the KA Ball, when the symbolically "secede" from the campus, and all the guys dress in Confederate uniforms and their girlfriends get Scarlet O'Hara dresses. A few years ago, they got in some trouble with the university because they paid some black kids a few dollars to pretend to pick cotton on the lawn of their house. The compromise reached after that was that they could continue to have the ball (the university didn't want to alienate alumni), but they're not allowed on campus in their uniforms. (They don't obey this at all.)

Without the Official Secret Police. (They were unofficial, although, during their day jobs, some of them were police.) So, yeah.

You shouldn't be able to look out your office and see New Jersey!

Well, the Northeast Corridor is so named for a reason. And I like the idea that, until Virginia, you can't come across any territory that isn't incorporated into one town or another. The big empty spaces in the west freak me out.

Never more than 5 miles from a Dunkin Donuts, yo.

Never more than 5 miles from a taquería, yo.

(Looks out of office. Waves to New Jersey)

Well, the Northeast Corridor is so named for a reason. And I like the idea that, until Virginia, you can't come across any territory that isn't incorporated into one town or another.

The Boswash megalopolis!!

Sorry, got a little excited there for a minute.

I was going to make the same point about Jim Crow laws, Typo Boy.

I do love the word "megalopolis". It rolls off the tongue. It ought to be a kind of ice cream. Sort of like tutti frutti, but with more mix-ins.

I spent a long part of my childhood thinking that Britain was vast, because it took days to get from here to there. (You know, I knew they were riding horses, but somehow I assumed that horses and cars went the same speed.) I was very disappointed when I discovered that the English and the Scots had been fighting over a football-field's worth of territory for several hundred years. I mean, for crying out loud.

Bwah!
If it’s any consolation most of us grow up thinking the same thing and there are grown adults, educated grown adults I have met who still believe that the world revolves around the South of England.

British geography and dialects etc all evolved from walking distances. 10 miles in a day is a fair days walk and defines the radius of most local and dialect boundries.
By this definition Edinburgh and London are actually in different worlds.

It’s fascinating to read about travelling in the US. The distances are mind-boggling.