Regional identity

[Docere]

It seems like the areas with the strongest regional identities are New England and the South. New England identity may be stronger than state identity. In the South, there's a strong regional identity but it's a very large region with varying degrees of Southern-ness. 40% of the population in the South lives in Texas and Florida. Texas has its own identity that's almost certainly stronger than "Southerner" and Florida is kind of its own thing.

Another area that may have a strong regional identity is the Pacific Northwest.

In the Midwest, majorities in all states would agree they live in the Midwest but I don't think there's really a strong regional identity. I don't think Minnesotans and Ohioans, say, see themselves as sharing a regional culture.

[JManc]

Louisiana has a strong state identity.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by JManc

Louisiana has a strong state identity.

It's very much a cultural region different from the core South.

ETA: More accurately, North Louisiana = Deep South, South Louisiana = its own thing

[iheartthed]

Southerners are really the only ones that use their region as a cultural identifier, and even that will probably die out within 1 or 2 more generations. The opposite of "southern" has historically been a "yankee", which includes all of the northeast and the upper Midwest. But I think most of us reading this have never heard that used in everyday conversation. We're more likely to hear Brits calling us yankees as Americans.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Southerners are really the only ones that use their region as a cultural identifier, and even that will probably die out within 1 or 2 more generations. The opposite of "southern" has historically been a "yankee", which includes all of the northeast and the upper Midwest. But I think most of us reading this have never heard that used in everyday conversation. We're more likely to hear Brits calling us yankees as Americans.

Southern culture will not come close to dying out in the next 100 years.

Black culture carries a lot of Southern culture with it for obvious reasons, and I don't see that dying out.

Also, Atlanta and places like it aren't the only part of the South. Just because northerners are moving to places like that changes nothing for 95% of the rest of the state.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Southern culture will not come close to dying out in the next 100 years.

Black culture carries a lot of Southern culture with it for obvious reasons, and I don't see that dying out.

Also, Atlanta and places like it aren't the only part of the South. Just because northerners are moving to places like that changes nothing for 95% of the rest of the state.

I dunno... it seems to have become much more muted in just the two decades that I've been an adult. I know plenty of people around my age that grew up in the South but speak with standard northern accents. There will probably be micro-cultures for longer in the slower growing places (New Orleans, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) but southern culture is pretty much already extinguished in the fast growing major cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Houston.

[L41A]

Or, if anything, Southern Culture is growing. By perspective maybe becoming more mainstream, influential, and embedded broadly in US culture with language (y'all, ain't, sayings like 'hit dog will holler', etc), food (shrimp/grits, Waffle House, Chick-fil-a, etc), and always the mainstay of music.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by L41A

Or, if anything, Southern Culture is growing. By perspective maybe becoming more mainstream, influential, and embedded broadly in US culture with language (y'all, ain't, etc), food (shrimp/grits, Waffle House, Chick-fil-a, etc), and always the mainstay of music.

True, I guess you can say that. There are elements of southern culture that are being mainstreamed and becoming part of the general culture. My point is more that the south won't have a strong distinct culture the way it has in the past. In another generation the distinction between north and south will be about as pronounced as the difference between the Northeast and the West Coast.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I dunno... it seems to have become much more muted in just the two decades that I've been an adult. I know plenty of people around my age that grew up in the South but speak with standard northern accents. There will probably be micro-cultures for longer in the slower growing places (New Orleans, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) but southern culture is pretty much already extinguished in the fast growing major cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Houston.

I don't disagree. I have a lot of contemporaries that grew up in the Atlanta area and none of them have Southern Accents. But they do say y'all etc etc. Certainly, they're culturally more Southern than me in other ways (pace, temper, etc).

That being said, accents and class are intertwined. The Philadelphia accent is much more muted than it was even a generation ago, but you certainly hear it still consistently among working class whites.

[Acajack]

Y'all is now quite present in Canada, and I've even seen it show up in Australia recently.

[Crawford]

New England has a strong identity? I never got that feeling. The South, sure.

[aufbau]

Originally Posted by Crawford

New England has a strong identity? I never got that feeling. The South, sure.

Maybe diluted in metro Boston and closer in to NYC but there absolutely is a regional identity. Or maybe sensibility is a more precise word. I lived in rural northern new england town for a while (a real townie town, not resort or rural gentrified place) and you could certainly feel the identity there.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by aufbau

In the townie parts of Boston and points farther away from NYC and beyond, there absolutely is a regional identity. Or maybe sensibility is a more precise word.

I'd say that's a strong Boston regional identity, not a pan New England identity. Maine doesn't have a strong cultural connection to Connecticut, as opposed to say, Long Island.

I'm not saying there isn't a strong local character, BTW. There certainly is, in such a rooted place. I just don't think there's some specific cultural bond limited to those states. The Hudson Valley isn't New England, but it's similarly rooted. It's more of a common Eastern seaboard, looking more towards Europe, general gestalt, IMO.

[Steely Dan]

from my experiences of living in, and traveling all over, the midwest for the past 5 decades, individual city/state identities seem to absolutely trounce any kind of broader regional identity in the midwest, to the extent that such exists.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

from my experiences of living in, and traveling all over, the midwest for the past 5 decades, individual city/state identities seem to absolutely trounce any kind of broader regional identity in the midwest, to the extent that such exists.

Agreed. Ohio can't even agree on itself (we border the South, Midwest, Northeast, Appalachia, and Canada) as there are five sub-states within itself and all think each other as "different" let alone a concept of a broader "Midwest."

I agree the South, followed by New England, have the strongest regional identities. The West can be strange as I've heard some folks from California call Denver "back east." Or is Las Vegas "West Coast?" Hell, is Philadelphia "East Coast" even though their coast is...Camden?

This country is strange.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

from my experiences of living in, and traveling all over, the midwest for the past 5 decades, individual city/state identities seem to absolutely trounce any kind of broader regional identity in the midwest, to the extent that such exists.

I imagine Illinoisians don't have a strong state identity really.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by aufbau

Maybe diluted in metro Boston and closer in to NYC but there absolutely is a regional identity. Or maybe sensibility is a more precise word. I lived in rural northern new england town for a while (a real townie town, not resort or rural gentrified place) and you could certainly feel the identity there.

Well if New England identity is diluted in Boston than New England identity can't be very strong at all. It's the largest city by far; one-third of New England's population lives in the Boston metro area. And Boston screams New England to me (Harvard, the "Athens of America", huge Irish population, leafy suburbs that go back to colonial times etc.) That's as much New England in my view as a lighthouse in a quaint village in Maine.

[JManc]

New England definitely has a strong identity. It's not in your face like southerners or Texans but it's there.

Originally Posted by Docere

It's very much a cultural region different from the core South.

ETA: More accurately, North Louisiana = Deep South, South Louisiana = its own thing

The two areas are culturally different but pretty much everyone is pretty strongly connected to the common identity; LSU, fleur-de-lis, Saints, the food, etc. I had an ex-g/f from Monroe (basically southern Arkansas) and she was 100% Louisiana first, southerner second. She just didn't sound like Adam Sandler from Waterboy.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Crawford

New England has a strong identity? I never got that feeling. The South, sure.

New England is the ruling "elite" culture of America that has disseminated out to being the general wealthy urban bicoastal culture. The culture of the university, the culture of the general "liberal" and moderately progressive. Protestant work ethic that has evolved into an atheistic "humanist" moral framework of how all "good decent and productive" Americans should think and act. They aren't really "wasps" anymore those ethnic markers have died off over the last 50-60 years.

New Englanders generally see people not like this to be somewhere between backwards and needing to be saved or abhorrent and needing to be destroyed.

Hard to see the waters you swim in.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Hard to see the waters you swim in.

So NYC is New England? Except for grad school, I've never lived in New England.

I'm not challenging the underlying argument but rather the geographical distinction. From where I stand, the NYC and Boston area are culturally closer than even the NYC and Philly areas. Someone growing up in Newton, MA and Dobbs Ferry, NY will have essentially the same environment.

I do think there's a legacy eastern seaboard distinction, but not sure the current conception of New England fully captures it. It's more something hugging the coast from Maine to the Chesapeake, more or less, not going inland much past Albany. It has local variations.