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Northern VA was never really that culturally separated from its neighbors to the north historically. It always had a "south lite" feel, and yes some confederate names of roads and statues, but still had many traits of what the mid-Atlantic is while being a part of Virginia. This didn't all of a sudden just change when the government expanded in the DC area. Which is why I and most people see NoVa as a bit different from the "sunbelt South". It really is a border area more so than anything and always has been.
09, hi..
It's understated to suggest Northern VA simply has 'some' Confederate connection, and is a 'lite' historical version of the South. Until recently NoVa was largely agrarian, which is different than the historically commercial Mid-Atlantic.. and NoVa was proud (before mass influx of transplanted beauracrats) of it's connection to local, Southern historical figures like Lee & Mosby's Confederacy, etc..
How can you substantiate that u and 'most people' have always seen NoVa as disconnected from the South (?) I'm curious, how long have u lived in NoVa, how deep are your roots in NoVa to speak authoratively (?) Peace.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Originally Posted by Babe_Ruth
09, hi..
It's understated to suggest Northern VA simply has 'some' Confederate connection, and is a 'lite' historical version of the South. Until recently NoVa was largely agrarian, which is different than the historically commercial Mid-Atlantic.. and NoVa was proud (before mass influx of transplanted beauracrats) of it's connection to local, Southern historical figures like Lee & Mosby's Confederacy, etc..
How can you substantiate that u and 'most people' have always seen NoVa as disconnected from the South (?) I'm curious, how long have u lived in NoVa, how deep are your roots in NoVa to speak authoratively (?) Peace.
I'm from across the river, so 20 minutes away, and have worked and still do work in NOVA. Plus family and friends throughout, so a pretty good understanding. Yes there have and still are street names or schools etc dedicated to the confederacy, although even as of last week another school name is being changed to take Lee's name off. I just get a vibe with most people there that mid-Atlantic is a better definition to them because the vast majority of people there look or associate Northward more than South, at least until you get further down towards Dumfries or Stafford and then on to Fredericksburg where it starts shifting a bit. I never said disassociate completely however it is still a mix.
Though I grew up in NoVa, I don't have roots there (or anywhere in Virginia, for that matter), so understandably that may color my perception differently than someone who does...
That said, growing up you knew you were (allegedly) in "the South". It wasn't a point of contention, because nobody from either side was trying to tell us where we were. You learned this in school. Along with that, though, myself and others I knew would always refer to "going down south" if we were going south of Virginia. My parents are from Memphis and Little Rock, and there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of NoVa and DC residents with roots south of DC, so maybe this comes from the generations before us too--->having a basic knowledge that we were in the South but calling other states the South as if we were not of the same region...
This disappoints a lot of the DC-area Marylanders, but absolutely nobody referred to Richmond as a changing of regions. Nobody I knew, and I lived in the largest county (Fairfax) in the DC area, full of people from everywhere. Going back to at least my upbringing in the late 90s/early 00s (and likely before then), Richmond always had connectivity to DC and NoVa, always. Richmond was smaller and more country but the "down south" terminology and the "Fredericksburg is the start of the south", these aren't things the typical Northern Virginian felt. Richmond has always been in our range of conversation and there are plenty of NoVans who had ties to Richmond either through root, work, or something else...
And as I've also mentioned, going to high school in the Richmond area (Tri-Cities) was very much a similar thing. We were told by kids from deeper south that we weren't really southern, and our cultural influences were largely northern. It was slower there so probably more southern by default, sure, but it was another case of us acknowledging that we were in the South, but viewing ourselves differently from "down south"...
NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, DC (the Northeast minus New England).
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Which States are Mid Atlantic?
