How "southern" is Kansas City? (St. Louis, Jackson: to live in, legal)
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The map I don't like much. Maybe for MO river on south in the Ozarks with Appalachia, BUT Southeast Missouri isn't similar to Appalachia like the Ozarks are! Maybe places like Cape Girardeau county, BUT places like Mississippi County Missouri is NOT like West Virginia or Eastern TN. It has the bootheel with Appalachia when it should be right there with the rest of the Delta in the Deep South. The Bootheel and SEMO has more in common with northern MS and western TN that it does West Virginia. Anyone can tell you that.
The bootheel isn't the upper south. It is in the Delta. Totally different kind of southern and culture than Appalachia type southern.
The map I don't like much. Maybe for MO river on south in the Ozarks with Appalachia, BUT Southeast Missouri isn't similar to Appalachia like the Ozarks are! Maybe places like Cape Girardeau county, BUT places like Mississippi County Missouri is NOT like West Virginia or Eastern TN. It has the bootheel with Appalachia when it should be right there with the rest of the Delta in the Deep South. The Bootheel and SEMO has more in common with northern MS and western TN that it does West Virginia. Anyone can tell you that.
The bootheel isn't the upper south. It is in the Delta. Totally different kind of southern and culture than Appalachia type southern.
I have to travel quite a bit for my job, and there's no mistaking Kansas City for any southern town.
Forget whatever accent you think you hear or the barbeque, it looks and feels more midwestern than anything by far.
Two key distinguishing characteristics that makes the south the south are: attitudes towards community and what it means to be a community, and attitudes towards work or work ethic. Not saying it's better or worse, but those two things really define the south and lay the groundwork for it's culture and how the development of communities play out.
Different brands of Christianity and the civil war no doubt steered these attitudes to some extent.
Some say the accent came about because hatred of the north was so strong that they didn't even want to sound like northerners, and also the isolation brought about by the war.
Not sure I subscribe to that idea. The isoaltion part, maybe.
Ethic backgrounds and even weather may play greater roles in the formation of dialects.
Regardless, KC is midwestern. Perhaps a Great Plains version of it, but midwest nontheless.
I have to travel quite a bit for my job, and there's no mistaking Kansas City for any southern town.
Forget whatever accent you think you hear or the barbeque, it looks and feels more midwestern than anything by far.
Two key distinguishing characteristics that makes the south the south are: attitudes towards community and what it means to be a community, and attitudes towards work or work ethic. Not saying it's better or worse, but those two things really define the south and lay the groundwork for it's culture and how the development of communities play out.
Different brands of Christianity and the civil war no doubt steered these attitudes to some extent.
Some say the accent came about because hatred of the north was so strong that they didn't even want to sound like northerners, and also the isolation brought about by the war.
Not sure I subscribe to that idea. The isoaltion part, maybe.
Ethic backgrounds and even weather may play greater roles in the formation of dialects.
Regardless, KC is midwestern. Perhaps a Great Plains version of it, but midwest nontheless.
We are not saying it's southern, but the influences we are talking about.
Also, during the civil war KC was a very small city. Hardly anyone lived there unlike St. Louis. It's a newer city and many more transplants than compared to St. Louis as well.
Some of the towns outside of KC are older though like Lexington MO which is in Little Dixie. Places like that you can still see some southern influences today. Like I posted earlier in the thread that video for example.
The map I don't like much. Maybe for MO river on south in the Ozarks with Appalachia, BUT Southeast Missouri isn't similar to Appalachia like the Ozarks are! Maybe places like Cape Girardeau county, BUT places like Mississippi County Missouri is NOT like West Virginia or Eastern TN. It has the bootheel with Appalachia when it should be right there with the rest of the Delta in the Deep South. The Bootheel and SEMO has more in common with northern MS and western TN that it does West Virginia. Anyone can tell you that.
The bootheel isn't the upper south. It is in the Delta. Totally different kind of southern and culture than Appalachia type southern.
He listened to it as an audiobook, so I don't think the map much factored in for him.
We are not saying it's southern, but the influences we are talking about.
Also, during the civil war KC was a very small city. Hardly anyone lived there unlike St. Louis. It's a newer city and many more transplants than compared to St. Louis as well.
Some of the towns outside of KC are older though like Lexington MO which is in Little Dixie. Places like that you can still see some southern influences today. Like I posted earlier in the thread that video for example.
Actually, if we're going there (you did bring up Lexington), another Civil War battle took place within the present-day city limits of Kansas City: the Battle of Westport (1864), which, according to the Wikipedia article on it, some call "the Gettysburg of the West." The result of the battle was the same as at Gettysburg and cemented Union control of Missouri.
Some of the action took place on the hillside that 50th Street climbs up from Brush Creek to become 51st at its top. The shuttle buses that connect the all-boys private school on State Line Road I attended from grade 7 on with the all-girls one atop that hill (the two have since merged) traversed this street. AFAIK, very little of the battlefield has been preserved; present-day Loose Park occupies some of its territory, some of those who fought are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, which also lies on part of the land where the battle took place, and the 1858 John Wornall House (58th Street and Wornall Road), which both sides used as a hospital, is a historic landmark open to the public.
Edited to add: I also see from the Wikipedia article that the main battlefield also includes part of the upper campus of the school I attended (the former girls' school).
Last edited by MarketStEl; 08-31-2018 at 04:55 AM..
Actually, if we're going there (you did bring up Lexington), another Civil War battle took place within the present-day city limits of Kansas City: the Battle of Westport (1864), which, according to the Wikipedia article on it, some call "the Gettysburg of the West." The result of the battle was the same as at Gettysburg and cemented Union control of Missouri.
Some of the action took place on the hillside that 50th Street climbs up from Brush Creek to become 51st at its top. The shuttle buses that connect the all-boys private school on State Line Road I attended from grade 7 on with the all-girls one atop that hill (the two have since merged) traversed this street. AFAIK, very little of the battlefield has been preserved; present-day Loose Park occupies some of its territory, some of those who fought are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, which also lies on part of the land where the battle took place, and the 1858 John Wornall House (58th Street and Wornall Road), which both sides used as a hospital, is a historic landmark open to the public.
Edited to add: I also see from the Wikipedia article that the main battlefield also includes part of the upper campus of the school I attended (the former girls' school).
Forgot about Westport.
Actually, many say it was the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1861 that cemented union control of Missouri. If The MO state guard won that battle then more confederate help would have piled in and they would have kept control of Missouri and wouldn't be called a border state in a historical context because the governor and lawmakers would have had control and seceded and it wouldn't be disputed like the ordinance they passed in Neosho that many don't consider valid anyway.
You also have "Prices Raid" in 1864 and Pilot Knob. If that battle was won and they got to Jefferson City and re-installed the elected lawmakers then that too in historical context maybe chance MO from a border state to southern state. For one thing there might have been federal level re-construction in Missouri then instead of just at the state level.
Pilot Knob, Iron County many call a hick country too btw. I see a lot of people call that area racist as well in Southern MO due to Klan activity. Again, Iron County is pretty far south in Missouri though. Most of the state isn't like Iron County or that area near the Southern quarter of the state.
We are not denying the southern influences in the poll on here, just stating overall it's mostly midwestern but there are some southern influences in Kansas City, yes. I'd say it's about 15 percent in Jackson County area. Mainly midwestern but a little influence. It's when you get further west in the metro area like out in Lafayette you will notice the influences a lot more.
It's close but not quite close enough for the transition zone classification that should start just right below KC.
Go further south way down to Neosho Missouri which is about 150 miles south of Kansas City. You will be calling Kansas City midwestern when comparing it to there which is southern basically.
Missouri from about the MO river on south to close to highway 60 is just like southern Indiana is. More south you go the more influence. Around highway 60 and south of that in Missouri IS Dixie. Which even Brad Pitt has said Springfield is literally right on the dividing line.
Btw Blue Fox, do you travel to Southern Indiana a lot? How would you compare the southern influences in KC to southern IN? I'm not talking right on the Ohio River but a tad north of that. Because that part of IN is still in the transition zone a little bit. That might give you an idea of the level of southern influence you see in KC.
Southern Indiana has more Appalachian influences in addition to some southern influences via in part due to the Great Migration of the 20th century that led to many very impoverished people from the Appalachian Mountains moving for greater economic opportunities at the time. Those and other historical settlement patterns and topography play a much larger role in addition to the historical economic focus of the Ohio River for trade, transport, logistics, and manufacturing. The older river cities north of Louisville, KY were settled at much earlier points in time than large portions of the central and northern parts of the state, meaning some towns were established in the 1700's. Getting back to differences in topography, New Albany, IN is situated on the river at around 410 ft elevation. There is a road that you can take out of New Albany to the west called Paoli Pike. The road goes from 440 ft elevation to around 925 ft in a span of less than 10 minutes at Floyds Knobs. The odd thing is that while the elevation gain is not terribly significant, the landscape is completely different as it is mostly all very steep wooded hilly terrain with defined ridges and hollows like you're in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As one travels 30-40 minutes north of there to Salem, Indiana I would define that area to the be in the lower Midwest quite solidly... However, going east again to northeast Clark County, IN the Midwest agrarian influences come back with a vengance, only to abruptly change again by the time you drive up the road to the next river town, Madison, Indiana. Here the Appalachian influences come back into play yet again, somewhat similar to Floyds Knobs, but with steeper bluff terrain being the norm, hence the Clifty Creek State Park having that "Foothills of the Appalachians" geographic effect again. In summary, very little in the way of uniformity in terms of categorizing or pinning down large areas of southern Indiana into narrow definitions, but fascinating from a cultural geographic perspective.
Springfield is only three hours away, but Springfield and southern Missouri is WAAAAY more southern than Kansas City. But even Springfield/southern Missouri isn't anything like the deep south.
I have lived in KC and now Atlanta for a few years and from that perspective it is very midwestern. Midwestern is a good thing! People from the Midwest are the friendliest by far in my opinion. Also as one poster said they don’t say “bless your heart”. Calling someone sir or ma’am in the Midwest is typically reserved for the service industry. In the south parents have their small children answer them with “yes sir and ma’am” and generally consider it disrespectful if they don’t. I personally have told my son. I am your mommy not you ma’am. He learned it at school. Lol. Also, shopping carts are buggy’s here. Regarding BBQ. You just can’t get it here unless it tastes like vinegar. Yuck! It’s crazy here. We are moving this summer back to the Midwest. I have had just about all my heart can take down here in the sweet south. Urgh. Oh one more thing. In the south many people don’t know their neighbors like the do in the Midwest.
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