Environment, Technology and Society NEWSLETTER of the SECTION on ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY of the AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION SUMMER 2014 A Typology to Consider in Teaching and Research: How Pollution Varies by State

Because the states of the United States are diverse, teachers and policy researchers often find it useful to group the states according to meaningful categories. Several alternatives are available: Woodward’s (2011) 11 regional cultures; the census bureau’s four regions and nine divisions; the blue-purple-red (BPR) political classification of pundits; Gelman and colleagues ’ (2008) rich-state poor-state grouping; and the new typology of states, which this note explicates. This new typology has several advantages. It is more parsimonious than Woodward’s; less geographically based than the census categories, more theoretical than BPR, and more multidimensional than Gelman’s. It is validated (Smith 2014) and strongly predicts differences in pollution. A Typology of State