There’s an online study, which I learned about from the Wired magazine web site, about the sometimes complex issue of where people in suburban or rural areas identify themselves as living. It’s not uncommon for someone in the northwestern portion of Bedford County, for example, to have a Unionville mailing address and an Eagleville telephone number, or perhaps it’s vice versa. LEAMIS, the group with which I do my foreign mission trips, has a similar situation with Monteagle and Sewanee — and the actual office is located in Marion County, which is different from either Sewanee or Monteagle.

The study asks participants to identify where they consider themselves to live, as well as of which major city they consider themselves to be in the sphere of influence. (Boy, that would be a hard sentence to diagram, but I can’t think of a more elegant way to say it.) There’s also an automatic link to a separate survey tracking sports team allegiances.