Glaciers and Money

I've been half assed interested in geology for the past few years mainly because our property is near the southern boundary of the furthest advance of the Cuyahoga and Grand River Lobes of the glaciers that covered northern Ohio about 14,800 years ago. When you spend lots of time outside, eventually the more subtle features of the landscape become more obvious and familiar due to long association which ends up providing a more concrete way to make sense of the argot of geologists.

Our property sits on the pile of debris left behind by the glaciers as they melted. Actually, it's the pile that's slumped up against other piles that were left against the more resistant bedrock just to the south of where we live. In the ice age, Ohio was alternately covered and uncovered by advancing and retreating ice of various depths. In my county, when the ice was deep enough, the whole county was covered, otherwise, it only advanced along the west and east flanks of the county through river valleys.

After years of looking at maps about different statistics, I eventually noticed that the unglaciated areas are more likely to be the lower income areas in the United States than glaciated areas. I haven't done more than a qualitative look at this data mainly because I've got better things to do, but every once in a while I circle around to this topic and try to explain it.

Correlation is not causation. The unglaciated portion of Ohio is substantially poorer than the rest of the state; generally the median household income is about 50% less than the glaciated portion of the state. The unglaciated portion of the state is in Appalachia and is extremely hilly. The glaciated portion of the state is flatter, and more importantly is connected to the Lake Erie Plain, which eventually hooks up with the Mohawk Valley of New York.

The Mowhawk Valley provided a flat route for east-west overland traffic (today it's the route for Interstate 90) and was a main thoroughfare in the 1800s. Similarly, obviously, the great lakes provided a water route to the interior of the US for decades prior to train routes and areas near trade routes more easily participate in trade and are wealthier.

Locally, the wealthiest census tract areas tend to be on geologic zone boundaries, which is maybe a more interesting effect to think about.