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Can't agree.... whether you look at economics, politics or religion, Maryland has much more in common with the states to its north than those to its south... and that's to be expected, since it's part of the Boston - Washington metropolitan complex. I already mentioned its history as a trade and manufacturing economy... a natural outgrowth of that was financial services: Baltimore is the home of the T Rowe Price and Alex Brown investment firms, counterparts to Fidelity in Boston and Vanguard near Philly. I don't think you'll find firms like those based in Southern cities, because -- until quite recently -- the South just wasn't a financial center.
The white ethnic groups may not be huge as a percent of statewide population, but they've certainly played a role in Baltimore-area politics, and therefore helped decide which pols have gone on to the national scene: Spiro Agnew, for one. And Nancy Pelosi comes from Maryland's D'Alesandro family (her father and her brother both were mayors of Baltimore). And again, when it comes to presidential elections, Maryland is one of the bluest of the states.
On religion, I already noted that Maryland is in the bottom ten in evangelicals per-capita. However, it ranks in the top five in per-capita Jewish population, higher than Massachusetts or Connecticut and very un-Southern.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NW4me
No two states are identitical... but if you're going to arrange them in groups (the original premise of this thread, remember) the sensible thing to do is to put a state like Maryland in with the group it resembles most closely. I think I've shown that there are many reasons (economy, religion, politics) why Maryland resembles the states to the north much more than the ones to the south.
And the underlying reason for most of those characteristics is that Maryland was and is a very urban state. If you look for other states historically dominated by their big metro areas, the easiest example is Massachusetts. There is no comparable Southern state.
There are different definitions of the Black Belt, so I don't know whether it really includes Maryland.
Baltimore is a black-majority city. But so is Newark. And Philly is not far from being black-majority.
And those out-of-state liberals who work in DC and reside in the MD suburbs? Yes, it's a cosmopolitan area that draws people from all over the country and the world. Who said they have to be native-born to be Marylanders?
Sure, the non-urban areas of the state, like the Eastern Shore, are different from the urban core. But if we're deciding which region the state belongs to, the proper way to do that is to go by the characteristics of the places where the vast majority of the population lives. For Maryland, that means the Baltimore metro area and the DC suburbs. The 'country' parts of the state are different from the cities, but that's how it is everywhere.
Couple things here:
The only northern state that Maryland shares even more than a passing similarity to is Pennsylvania, and yet they aren't that much alike more than an hour beyond the state lines. Delaware I guess is the most comparable northern state...
Your insistence that Maryland is more comparable to northern states is narrow. To me, what makes Maryland a northern stare is more predicated on its differences from southern states, than from its similarities with northern ones, because as others have pointed out, it's not terribly hard to start posting some major differences between Maryland and true Northeast states. Maryland is northern, but let's not pretend it's the same type of northern as Massachusetts, New York, or even most of Pennsylvania. It's just northern, with some southern characteristics, but is not and can't be grouped amongst the traditional Northeast...
I will agree that if there is only one measuring stick for states, the way to go is to measure the areas the majority of people reside in. In Delaware, which has the easiest argument as a northern state, most people live in earshot of Philly and Jersey and are culturally linked to them. In Maryland as you pointed out, those people in the DC-Bmore corridor are more northern than southern and inextricably linked to the BosWash corridor. In West Virginia, most of the state lives south of highway 50 and those people are southern without a doubt...
In Virginia, 75% live in the crescent, which has varying degree of southern culture. At this point, that 75% has a mixed culture that at best is 50% culturally southern...at best. People have and do make the argument that Virginians of the NoVa-Richmond-Tidewater "Urban VA" crescent are more culturally neutral than culturally southern, and there is plenty of northern influence within that (obviously more towards NoVa and less towards Southside Hampton Roads, bit evident throughout). Also, Nova and Richmond are in the BosWash corridor and share common characteristics because of that...
Virginia itself isn't the most urban of states, but the actual cities of Virginia within the crescent, most of those cities are highly urbanized compared to southern cities, and were built and developed in the same era and manner as most Northeast cities...
Lol Nancy Pelosi is not a good example if what a Northeasterner sounds like lol...
MD, DE and WV are Mid-Atlantic. West Virginia seems like its the South but thats a spillover from Appalachia. Its just too far north. At some point, geography has got to override culture.
Yes, but saying a state is Mid-Atlantic still does not answer the question of whether a state is Northeastern, Midwestern, Southern or Western. Mid-Atlantic is a subregion, not a region like the South or Midwest.
Regarding West Virginia, I am surprised that someone from Minnesota would think that West Virginia was too far north!
Many West Virginia natives don't identify with the South. From what I understand it is less than half who consider themselves Southern.
Heck some of them remind me more of Pittsburgh people than of Southerners.
I believe West Virginia is not southern, at least most of it.... Its western border is mostly Ohio, parts of it stretch very far to the north, almost to Lake Erie. Also you cannot deny history as well, the state was formed because they did not want to be in the confederacy. There are though some southern tendencies, but not enough to override history and geography. West Virginia has a strong central Appalachian culture but that does not automatically make it Southern. It shares more culturally with western Pennsylvania than it does with southern Appalachian places that are truly southern places like East Tennessee, western North Carolina or north Georgia.
Also the fact that most West Virginians don’t consider themselves southern carries a lot of weight too.
I believe West Virginia is not southern, at least most of it.... Its western border is mostly Ohio, parts of it stretch very far to the north, almost to Lake Erie. Also you cannot deny history as well, the state was formed because they did not want to be in the confederacy. There are though some southern tendencies, but not enough to override history and geography. West Virginia has a strong central Appalachian culture but that does not automatically make it Southern. It shares more culturally with western Pennsylvania than it does with southern Appalachian places that are truly southern places like East Tennessee, western North Carolina or north Georgia.
Also the fact that most West Virginians don’t consider themselves southern carries a lot of weight too.
Most West Virginians do consider themselves southern. The poll you are referring to asked 8 West Virginians a year that question. That is not a poll.
Lol Nancy Pelosi is not a good example if what a Northeasterner sounds like lol...
Well, this topic seems to be played out for now... but just to clarify: the only reason I named Pelosi in an earlier comment is that she's one of the offspring of the D'Alesandro political family of Baltimore. But many C-D readers outside Maryland would not have heard of the D'Alesandros, so I mentioned Pelosi.
The only northern state that Maryland shares even more than a passing similarity to is Pennsylvania, and yet they aren't that much alike more than an hour beyond the state lines. Delaware I guess is the most comparable northern state...
Your insistence that Maryland is more comparable to northern states is narrow. To me, what makes Maryland a northern stare is more predicated on its differences from southern states, than from its similarities with northern ones, because as others have pointed out, it's not terribly hard to start posting some major differences between Maryland and true Northeast states. Maryland is northern, but let's not pretend it's the same type of northern as Massachusetts, New York, or even most of Pennsylvania. It's just northern, with some southern characteristics, but is not and can't be grouped amongst the traditional Northeast...
I will agree that if there is only one measuring stick for states, the way to go is to measure the areas the majority of people reside in. In Delaware, which has the easiest argument as a northern state, most people live in earshot of Philly and Jersey and are culturally linked to them. In Maryland as you pointed out, those people in the DC-Bmore corridor are more northern than southern and inextricably linked to the BosWash corridor. In West Virginia, most of the state lives south of highway 50 and those people are southern without a doubt...
In Virginia, 75% live in the crescent, which has varying degree of southern culture. At this point, that 75% has a mixed culture that at best is 50% culturally southern...at best. People have and do make the argument that Virginians of the NoVa-Richmond-Tidewater "Urban VA" crescent are more culturally neutral than culturally southern, and there is plenty of northern influence within that (obviously more towards NoVa and less towards Southside Hampton Roads, bit evident throughout). Also, Nova and Richmond are in the BosWash corridor and share common characteristics because of that...
Virginia itself isn't the most urban of states, but the actual cities of Virginia within the crescent, most of those cities are highly urbanized compared to southern cities, and were built and developed in the same era and manner as most Northeast cities...
Lol Nancy Pelosi is not a good example if what a Northeasterner sounds like lol...
She's not from the Northeast, she's from Baltimore. We have our own accents here.
Also Southern influenced accents don't start in Indian until about mile 50 on 65 which means 50 miles north of Louisville. Even then they are only influenced. Far Southern Indiana like Jeffersonville even has less of a Southern accent than Louisville.
Just commenting on this part: I think Southern-influenced accents are more widespread in Indianapolis than you say. My dad's side of the family is from the Indy area, and while he and his mother doesn't sound Southern at all, his sister and her ex-husband do, and so do their kids, who are my age. I've noticed some Southern-ish pronunciations among people in restaurants and shops when I've visited there - though less so among people I met at college and online who've lived in the Indy area and then left.
Just commenting on this part: I think Southern-influenced accents are more widespread in Indianapolis than you say. My dad's side of the family is from the Indy area, and while he and his mother doesn't sound Southern at all, his sister and her ex-husband do, and so do their kids, who are my age. I've noticed some Southern-ish pronunciations among people in restaurants and shops when I've visited there - though less so among people I met at college and online who've lived in the Indy area and then left.
Indianapolis having Southern transplants doesn't do anything to the actual identity of the city nor to the majority of people who live there who sound Middle American. Nobody there speaks with a drawl in any sort of significant amount. The blandest of least characteristic accents reside in that city. You're more likely to find that in Cincinnati honestly. I don't deny a few outliers but they aren't numerous.
I also doubt you heard drawls either. Part of me wonders if your perception of Indy accents is based on you being from further North as well. You live in Chicago so a Midland accent will sound Southern to your ears; it's inevitable as most people from the NCVS region seem to hold similar views.
To a Northern ear a Midland accent will sound Southern due to some shared vowel sounds. But for an accent to be considered Southern there has to be Southern drawl present. If this isn't present, even cities physically in the South can be characterized as non Southern due to the absent drawl.
The truth is, full blown Southern accents do not cross into significant portions of the Midwest outside of Missouri. Even the Hoosier apex is a small region outside of Louisville. What some of you hear are shared vowel sounds that are not unique to the South BUT are absent in the North. Long O fronting, glide deletion before liquid consonants (also heard in Northern England), and even L-vocalization are heard in the Midland but not the North. This makes Northerners hear these sounds as Southern even though a drawl (elongation of short vowels to a lilting sound) is absent. A drawl makes pit sound like pee-yuht, and man sound like Maine almost. That simply doesn't occur in most of the Midwest much less a city as far North as Indianapolis.
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