Where do Austinites consider Austin to be regionally? (Beaumont, Port Arthur: home, high school)

[theloneranger]

Originally Posted by L3XVS

Austin's in central Texas, and depending on who's doing the classifying, Texas is ether a southern or southwestern state.

Personally though, I'm more inclined to classify Texas as southwestern, as its largest cities are more in tune with southwest/midwest cultural norms than they are traditional southern ones.

Prior to traveling to Austin when I lived in the midwest, if someone took me, blindfolded, to the middle of downtown Austin, I may think I was in Minneapolis, Des Moines, or Indianapolis.

Until someone says hi to you or even just smiles at you out of the blue, which wiould let you know you are probably in the South.

Not to mention how twangy the voices likely would be when you hear people talking!

[doctorjef]

I don't equate Rust Belt with Midwestern, though the upper Midwest (Michigan, etc) includes Rust Belt areas, but so does PA, which isn't in the Midwest. The Midwest also includes Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa, which aren't Rust Belt states. I do think that Ft Worth has a westerly Midwest feel in some ways and I say that having lived there for 6 years in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lubbock, where I finished HS, also has a Midwestern Plains States feel to it.

Regarding the Civil War, I would suggest that my 8th grade Louisiana state history text, which discussed at some length the question of what to call the late unpleasantness, arrived at the most accurate suggestion that the conflict should be considered the War for Southern Secession, noting that the conflict was neither a traditional civil war nor a conflict in which all the states were chaotically fighing amongst themselves (as War Between the States - the traditionally preferred Southern name - suggests).

[Mike78613]

The State Capitol

[compSciGuy]

No option to vote for California?

In relation to Austin, I'm sure there are people who look at Texas and California and compare it to the old Germany, where the capital city is mainly associated with the area it's not attached to. Of course, the Texans probably think Texas is capitalist and California socialist, and they just wish a wall was there to keep people from escaping from the socialist government to the capitalist area.

[jdevelop2]

No option to vote for California?

That option falls under West.

[jread]

I don't see how anyone could consider Austin anything other than a Southwestern city.

[theloneranger]

Originally Posted by jread

I don't see how anyone could consider Austin anything other than a Southwestern city.

50 years ago, were there signs above the water fountains that said "White" or "Colored?"

If the answer is yes, it's a Southern city.

[mm57553]

Originally Posted by theloneranger

50 years ago, were there signs above the water fountains that said "White" or "Colored?"

If the answer is yes, it's a Southern city.

This was actually still commonplace in Texas well into the 1960's. There are actually still places in Texas, like Vidor, where you will still find "Whites Only" signs in windows. Or at least I saw some when I drove through there in 2006.

[polo89]

Originally Posted by theloneranger

50 years ago, were there signs above the water fountains that said "White" or "Colored?"

If the answer is yes, it's a Southern city.

Alot of places had colored and whites only water fountains. There were even sundown towns out west in places like CA. Austin isn't a southern city.

[polo89]

Originally Posted by mm57553

This was actually still commonplace in Texas well into the 1960's. There are actually still places in Texas, like Vidor, where you will still find "Whites Only" signs in windows. Or at least I saw some when I drove through there in 2006.

Vidor is probably the most racist place in Texas.