- Objective statistical analysis is the primary basis for the classification.
- The number of eventual combinations should range from 6 to 12.
By using various statistical indexes, it was possible to identify almost three-quarters of the States (34 out of 48) as homogeneous cores of a region or division. The remaining 14 States proved to be somewhat marginal; the statistical evidence was less certain; they fell between two regions and, therefore, could belong to either. It is interesting that the proposed new arrangement contained the same number of groupings (four regions and nine divisions) as the existing system. It retained the same names for the four regions, but made a number of changes in grouping the States. The proposal assigned many States that were on the border of an existing region to a different region, and some to entirely new divisions. For instance, it shifted Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Maryland from the South Region to the Middle Atlantic Division of the Northeast Region; it combined Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico to form a Southwest Division within an expanded West Region; it grouped Nevada with the Pacific States as part of a Far West Division; and it revamped the South into two divisions, each comprising an upper and lower tier of States. It renamed all but two divisions (New England and the Middle Atlantic). Only three of the resulting nine divisions maintained their original State components: (1) New England, (2) the Plains (formerly West North Central), and (3) the Great Lakes (formerly East North Central).
This suggested reclassification had its merits, for on a purely statistical basis it provided a more homogeneous set of areas than any others then in use by the Department of Commerce. However, the new system did not win enough overall acceptance among data users to warrant adoption as an official new set of general-purpose State groupings. The previous development of many series of statistics, arranged and issued over long periods of time on the basis of the existing State groupings, favored the retention of the summary units of the current regions and divisions (see Figure 6-1).
Statistical Groupings6-19
