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Northern states tend to be a lot more liberal than Southern states. Of course liberal Southerners don't make a place more Northern but that doesn't change the fact that Maryland and Delaware have much more in common politically with Northern states than it does with Southern states.
Because same sex marriage has generally passed outside the South. Southerners are the least likely to approve of it (as per gallup) and the last states to pass it (or never will) will be in the South. The South is a socially conservative region...MD and DE are not socially conservative (or fiscally for that matter).
But again, if liberal southern transplants are voting for same sex marriage, then how does the make the region more "northern?" A southerner can't northernize a region anymore than I can "southernize" a region. What "northern" culture do transplants from the South bring (the South is where the plurality of Maryland transplants come from...a fact so many on here so conveniently dodge and ignore)?
However that does not determine or defines Maryland and Delaware being part of the South or not.
The Baltimore and Washington region of Liberals do not define the Majority of the Conservatives that live on the Maryland Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland.
The majority of the state lives in the Balt-Wash region of the state, though...
And I do know some Southern transplants, but they've all pretty much experienced culture shock and most of them view Maryland as Northeastern as well.
And I do know some Southern transplants, but they've all pretty much experienced culture shock and most of them view Maryland as Northeastern as well.
And according to a very expensive political polling (that ish costs a lot of money), at least 40% of MD residents don't think it's a northeastern state. So where does that leave us? LOL.
Out of curiosity, how do you think residents in Northeastern states would respond to the poll "Is ___________ a southern state?" Would 40% of New York State residents respond in the affirmative?
You should also have trouble lumping the Bronx into the same region as Burlington, VT. I mean, how do you reconcile those two?
Plenty of people have said that culture doesn't stop at state lines. Nobody's really arguing over that. What I've said (and I believe eschaton has said the same) is that Maryland is a southern state that doesn't feel culturally southern anymore. It's the same way Miami is not exempted from the South simply because it has a more transient character than it did in the past.
Yet nobody says Massachusetts is part of the South. And that makes sense because it's not nor has it ever been. Maryland, on the other hand, was an inaugural member of the Southern Legislative Council and the Southern Governor's Association. So it makes sense that people would call it southern because it was strongly associated with the South for most of its existence. And no, "most of its existence" is not from 1980 onward.
From the inside, Maryland is neither northern nor southern. From the outside, it's too southern for northerners to be part of the "North" and too northern for southerners to be part of the South. These are the three general things most people who live or have lived in the area agree on. Thus, most people are satisfied with a "Mid Atlantic" designation, which recognizes that the state is not really in either region.
Great post, I feel the same. You've explained it much better than I can.
New England states plus NY, PA, NJ and DE. That is it, people in here saying Ohio (Midwest), Maryland and N Virginia (mid Atlantic) are northeastern are really stretching it. I even saw a few posts suggesting parts of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana could be northeastern, and that is just out there. Those states are solid in the Midwest or upper Midwest. Its really funny how people stretch these regions, they have been defined over decades or centuries by geography and culture and some of this should be obvious to everyone. For example to say Chicago or Michigan belong in the northeast shows a lack of understanding of basic geography and culture of both the northeast region and Midwest region. Same goes for those who say things like Deleware and parts of New Jersey are southern. Thank goodness we have the US census definitions to at least temper some of this, or we'd have folks claiming Florida is a northern state because of transplants or Nebraska is really part of the mountain west simply because the poster wants it to be
The majority of the state lives in the Balt-Wash region of the state, though...
And I do know some Southern transplants, but they've all pretty much experienced culture shock and most of them view Maryland as Northeastern as well.
That's their judgement when they go to DC and Baltimore which most visit when they go to Maryland. However the same people that your quoting cant tell you anything about the Maryland Eastern Shore, Southern Maryland, or any other part of Maryland that is outside of the Baltimore-Washington I-95 Corridor.
And at the end of the day Maryland is still a Southern State.
I never imagined that the U.S. census was such an authority for people when it comes to cultural and regional definitions.
It didn't seem like it had anything to do with that.
Regardless of opinions Maryland and Delaware are still Southern States....
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