I was reading the website that was posted for questions from the thread ‘What happens on May 33rd but only on leap years?’. One of the previous questions had been “According to G. Etzel Pearcy, we live in what state?”, and the answer was “[Jay] Dearborn . (G. Etzel Pearcy was a one time professor of Geography at Cal State University. He came up with a 38 state map that combines SE Wisconsin, NE Illinois, SW Michigan, NW Indiana to create a state called Deerborn).” What I would like to know is why Mr. Pearcy decided to make this map and where I can see a picture of this map.
Pearcy suggested that the U.S. could logically be divided into 38 states based on topography, industry type, etc. He argued that it was only historical accidents that Milwaukee and Chicago are in separate states, while Buffalo and New York City are in the same state. Some of his points are described here: http://www.rev.net/~aloe/region/pearcy.html