I like how "the Northeast" is represented as wealthier. As a resident of Maine, I can tell you that ain't why we have more passports. Rather, think about our position in the North, having almost no markets for manfuactured goods to the south (better served by cheaper states in the Southeast), our markets are almost all in Canada. And thank you 9/11 now we all need passports to get over the border.
Don't forget this one: <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-f...</a><p>Honestly, all these (with the exception of Alaska) come down to population density. In the US, it's not North versus South, it's urban versus rural, as far as demographic divides go.
1) More than 60% of residents in the northeast, California and Alaska have passports. Northeast and California because of higher incomes and higher education levels, Alaska because it's isolated from the lower 48.<p>2) In the southern states, many people don't have passports (except for FL). There's a lot of poverty, few college graduates, and they don't have much in the way of LBGT rights in the workplace. Nothing new there.<p>3) People living in the Indian reservations [1] are amongst the poorest, but they do tend to have passports.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bia-map-indian-reservations-usa.png" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bia-map-indian-reservation...</a>