Yeah, in 12 they're clearly not interested in increasing efficiency--which makes me wonder how much coal they actually use, since you'd think if it was truly critical you'd worry a little more about getting it out efficiently. And I agree the stuff in Eleven is the more labor-intensive horticultural crops, which will stay more labor intensive--you can't just throw strawberries in a truck like you can with grains. But then, I think the current estimate is that one corn farmer in Iowa produces enough calories to feed 125 people, and it'd be straightforward to increase that, just get bigger equipment.
Incidentally, (CAUTION: HUGE GEOGRAPHY TANGENT) the corn belt now is determined mostly by soil types, which won't change with the "catastrophes" and climate, which would, but can be to some extent dealt with by plant breeders. Which is why in my vague Panem map D9 includes most of Illinois, Iowa Missouri, up into southern Wisconsin and Minnesota. I put D10 southwest of that, in the drier part of the great plains with the border passing through Nebraska and Kansas, and D10 can also have Oklahoma and Texas just for kicks.....then if I keep D8 in Minneapolis as in your map you can have an almost sensible progression starting from 12, going south to 11, then west to 10, then north to 9 and then 8 and 7, if "central 7" is somewhere in northern Ontario (which works with forest cover maps--the other obvious option would be the Pacific NW which screws this up). Then you can duck back down to where I put 6 (central town around Chicago, with iron-mining outposts in the UP of Michigan and smelting occurring somewhere in lower MI)--and then it all gets wonky because 5-4-3-2-1 do not go in sensible order, but hey, it's not too bad.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2015-02-19 10:36 pm (UTC)Incidentally, (CAUTION: HUGE GEOGRAPHY TANGENT) the corn belt now is determined mostly by soil types, which won't change with the "catastrophes" and climate, which would, but can be to some extent dealt with by plant breeders. Which is why in my vague Panem map D9 includes most of Illinois, Iowa Missouri, up into southern Wisconsin and Minnesota. I put D10 southwest of that, in the drier part of the great plains with the border passing through Nebraska and Kansas, and D10 can also have Oklahoma and Texas just for kicks.....then if I keep D8 in Minneapolis as in your map you can have an almost sensible progression starting from 12, going south to 11, then west to 10, then north to 9 and then 8 and 7, if "central 7" is somewhere in northern Ontario (which works with forest cover maps--the other obvious option would be the Pacific NW which screws this up). Then you can duck back down to where I put 6 (central town around Chicago, with iron-mining outposts in the UP of Michigan and smelting occurring somewhere in lower MI)--and then it all gets wonky because 5-4-3-2-1 do not go in sensible order, but hey, it's not too bad.
Damn. I should probably draw this.