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New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah aren't just "Old South", they are old OLD South, as in "Colonial South".
I voted for Svannah Charelston and New Orleans. I have noticed the similarities between these three cities, particularly Charelston and Savannah..becsause they seemed to have maintained alot of there Colonial era architecture and mystique.
I think the first 3 remind me of the old south (NO, Sav... etc) ... mainly because I look on the old south as the antebellum south where these cities stood as areas of commerce in an agrarian-focused south and as an opposite to the New South. These cities along with some others such as Baltimore had their heyday in the old south....
Whereas Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami, are having their heyday now as part of the new south... Furthermore the layout and architecture of these cities tells the story and gives a rich historical experience with a street grid and connected towhnouse structure and pedistrian friendly streets as opposed to the autocentric design of current New South cities.
I would say that Birmingham is new south, because although what happened there as far as civil rights symbolizes an old way of thinking about race. It was still industrial-focused and emerged in the new south era.
Of the choices up there it is definitely New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah. When someone says "Old South" I think of the antebellum period. I'd say the cities that I most associate with the Old South are those three (New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah) along with Richmond and maybe Memphis and Atlanta (Atlanta was tiny, but it is linked with the Civil War in the collective conscience b/c of Sherman and Gone with the Wind). I think of things like King Cotton and the Mississippi River.
Birmingham, Montgomery and Jackson were either tiny or didn't exist in the Pre-Civil War days. Birmingham has a much more industrial feel (like a Pittsburgh of the South) and Montgomery and Jackson are smallish state capitals, but not majorly important regional cities. Montgomery did breifly serve as the Capital of the Confederacy so to me it is the most "Old South" of those three, but they are still not nearly as part of that time period as the first three. I'd term them more "Civil Rights Era" Southern Cities. Atlanta and maybe Little Rock are also in that category.
And no one asked, but I'd say we are currently (and have been for some time) in the "New South" era and cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh and maybe Nashville are the cities I think of as "New South" cities. Hmm, interesting that Atlanta makes all three of my lists...
I picked the first option but I don't really think New Orleans has that much in common with the other two. Maybe Richmond instead?
Fair point. Richmond is indeed cut from the same cloth, but I do think New Orleans does belong with Charleston and Savannah, the pronounced French influences in NOLA notwithstanding.
I voted for the NOLA/Charleston/Savannah group because those cities are going to give you the most unadulterated flavor of the Old South, but I concur with jm02 that Richmond should rank right along with these cities as well.
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