# North/south=good/bad: I think I'm on to something. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 15, 2000, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486 "2000-01-15T05:38:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![REW1782](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@REW1782](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/REW1782)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/1 "2000-01-15T05:38:00Z")
Alright, after lots of thought (approx 3 min.) I think I may be on to something with this good side/bad side of town thing. First of all cities are usually built on rivers, to provide drinking water and sewage right? Right. Rivers in the northern hemisphere generally flow south right? Now then where is the least pleasant supply of water? In the north, upstream of the waste, or in the south where all the sewage is being taken by the river? This is exagerated in the Industrial Revolution. When factories were being built the city council’s wouldn’t want them to pollute drinking water for the entire municipality so industrial areas were zoned in the south side of towns. Poorer residential areas in those cities (already in the south) not only had to deal with a fairly unpleasant river but also multitudes of smokestacks. Property values fell and you know the rest. If you don’t check out the south side of Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/2 "2000-01-15T06:04:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Rivers in the northern hemisphere generally flow south right? No. Not really. If anything they generally flow East east of the Rockys and West west of the Rockys. [http://www.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/maps-us/map-8a.gif](http://www.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/maps-us/map-8a.gif) * * * Elmer J. Fudd, Millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/3 "2000-01-15T06:07:00Z")
Sorry! I didn’t mean to mess up the formatting of the thread like that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/4 "2000-01-15T14:49:00Z")
However, east of the Mississippi, in the USA, major rivers (say, rivers that exit in the ocean) do seem to have a strong bias toward running from north to south – the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Deleware… * * * John W. Kennedy “Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.” – Charles Williams ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/5 "2000-01-15T15:35:00Z")
[[I didn’t mean to mess up the formatting of the thread like that.]] Well, it _is_ kind of cool. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/6 "2000-01-15T16:42:00Z")
One might point out that, in Chicago, the river that runs through town ran SW to NE, that is, until they reversed it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2000, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/7 "2000-01-29T22:27:00Z")
In eastern Europe, I think the tendency is to run to the Baltic and the Channel. ---
**Author:** ![TBone2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@TBone2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBone2)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2000, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-south-good-bad-i-think-im-on-to-something/486/8 "2000-01-30T06:09:00Z")
I thought this thread died a decent death a long time ago! I kinda like the new format though! Elmer’s rather simplistic analysis holds true in the main as we travel from west to east, that is, from left to right, UNTIL we come to this little thing called the Mississippi River. The reasons are topographical, physical, gravitational, whatever, but NOT philosophical. In any case, it’s difficult to imagine a position being made for either north or south based on the fact that rivers in a given region flow mainly E-W or W-E. ## Didn’t this argument die a while back? _I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…_ T