Perception often trumps reality when people consider geographic relationships. Twelve Mile Circle enjoys exploring these disconnects — the remote corner of southwestern Virginia comes to mind — so along those same lines let’s explore the placement of Buffalo, New York. Here’s a trick question made somewhat more obvious by the fact that I’ve chosen to highlight it. So suspend that knowledge for just a moment. Ponder this: Is Buffalo closer to Detroit, Michigan or to New York City?
Buffalo rests in the far western corner of the state, a stone’s throw from Niagara Falls. That’s a long distance from the opposite perimeter. But how distant?
So distant that Buffalo is indeed closer to Detroit than to New York City. In fact Buffalo is closer to Detroit than even to its own state capital in Albany.
The mind naturally wants to think of New York as a single geographic unit, which of course it is. However, it then fails to grasp the significance of its overall size. New York is a single state so naturally its cities are “close together” in one’s mind. Michigan is another state entirely so its cities must be “far away” using that same flawed logic.
Also, New York is an “Eastern” state while Michigan is “Midwestern”. So there’s an additional perception issue that relates to separate geographic regions. Finally it doesn’t help that a chunk of Canada sits squarely between the two. It’s not really an optical illusion but perhaps more like a mental illusion.
The illusion breaks down once we plot the distances on a map. Then it’s easy to see that Detroit is indeed closer to Buffalo. In fact Detroit is 216 miles from Buffalo, while Albany is 260 and New York City is 293.
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