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Old 03-24-2011, 10:41 PM
 
Location: Carrboro and Concord, NC
963 posts, read 2,399,662 times
Reputation: 1255

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Spend a week in Southwest Virginia - Pulaski, Bristol, Wytheville, Roanoke.

And then spend another week in Danville, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Petersburg, Franklin.

And you'll never wonder whether or not Virginia is southern again.

That drive down US 58 between Emporia and Chesapeake - nothing but swamps and tobacco and blackwater rivers - pretty much identical to eastern North Carolina or coastal South Carolina.

And for what it's worth, there's plenty of places in Maryland - eastern shore springs to mind - that haven't exactly shaken off their southern roots either, and they don't seem to be in any hurry to do so.

Get out of the cities. You'll see the true character of a place then. Especially when we are talking about metro DC, which might as well be the dark side of the moon, relative to the overwhelming majority of pretty much everywhere else.

 
Old 03-24-2011, 10:47 PM
 
Location: Rome, Georgia
2,745 posts, read 3,941,654 times
Reputation: 2056
None of you know how to stir up ****. "Virginia is most assuredly southern, but Texas is not".
 
Old 03-25-2011, 08:08 AM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,512,599 times
Reputation: 5943
Quote:
Originally Posted by Georgiafrog View Post
None of you know how to stir up ****. "Virginia is most assuredly southern, but Texas is not".
LOL

My second will call on you, sir!
 
Old 03-25-2011, 12:58 PM
 
Location: Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne
17,919 posts, read 24,183,302 times
Reputation: 39021
I, being from the North, was once visiting friends at college in D.C. I remember remarking how different the South was and eyes all around the room widened and a chorus of "D.C. is NOT the South!", erupted.

Hey, even if D.C. is situated by the culturally Northern most part of the culturally Northern most part of a Southern state, it still seemed more like the South than the North to me at the time.

To put it another way, Philly and NoVa are fairly close to one another and share a lot of Mid-Atlantic traits, yet Philly is distinctly North and northern Virginia is definitely South albeit not deep South. I wouldn't have it any other way.
 
Old 03-25-2011, 01:01 PM
 
Location: MichOhioigan
1,595 posts, read 2,973,539 times
Reputation: 1598
"Is Virginia a Northern or Southern state?"

Yes.
 
Old 03-25-2011, 02:27 PM
 
3,643 posts, read 10,693,684 times
Reputation: 1916
Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQConvict View Post
I, being from the North, was once visiting friends at college in D.C. I remember remarking how different the South was and eyes all around the room widened and a chorus of "D.C. is NOT the South!", erupted.

Hey, even if D.C. is situated by the culturally Northern most part of the culturally Northern most part of a Southern state, it still seemed more like the South than the North to me at the time.

To put it another way, Philly and NoVa are fairly close to one another and share a lot of Mid-Atlantic traits, yet Philly is distinctly North and northern Virginia is definitely South albeit not deep South. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Most people in Northern VA dont consider themselves Southern, so why should we call it the South?

Last edited by Smtchll; 03-25-2011 at 03:06 PM.. Reason: typo
 
Old 03-25-2011, 02:57 PM
 
Location: Washington D.C. By way of Texas
20,501 posts, read 33,325,658 times
Reputation: 12109
Quote:
Originally Posted by AQUEMINI331 View Post
The Mason-Dixon line has moved south. It is now situated on the Potomac. So Virginia is southern, Maryland and D.C. is not. At least that's the way I look at it. Although I totally understand why some people say that Maryland is southern.
Move it a little bit more South. I'd say just south of Fredericksburg to Manasses to Winchester line.That still means most of Virginia is Southern so yes, Virginia is a Southern state. Once you get north of Fredericksburgh, you start to enter into a transition zone and it's the Mid-Atlantic.
 
Old 03-25-2011, 05:37 PM
 
Location: metro ATL
8,180 posts, read 14,785,088 times
Reputation: 2698
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smtchll View Post
Most people in Northern VA dont consider themselves Southern, so why should we call it the South?
I don't even think non-Southern transplants in Atlanta consider themselves Southern. There's a difference between asking someone if they are Southern vs. if they live in the South. They are really two different things.
 
Old 03-25-2011, 05:45 PM
 
3,643 posts, read 10,693,684 times
Reputation: 1916
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akhenaton06 View Post
I don't even think non-Southern transplants in Atlanta consider themselves Southern. There's a difference between asking someone if they are Southern vs. if they live in the South. They are really two different things.
The difference is, in Atlanta, you're surrounded by the South in all directions, so even if your particular area doesn't feel like the South and is dominated by transplants, you're still in the South. Places like NOVA are bordered by the North, so people who live there would have an easier time saying that they don't live in the South compared to someone who lives in Atlanta
 
Old 03-25-2011, 05:54 PM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,512,599 times
Reputation: 5943
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akhenaton06 View Post
I don't even think non-Southern transplants in Atlanta consider themselves Southern. There's a difference between asking someone if they are Southern vs. if they live in the South. They are really two different things.
Very true, AK!

I know I have posted this survey/study at least a hundred times (close to being literally!), but here it is again, along with the news-story/press-release announcing it, originally:

*****************************************

WHERE IS THE SOUTH?
The South has been defined by a great many characteristics, but one of the most interesting definitions is where people believe that they are in the South. A related definition is where the residents consider themselves to be southerners, although this is obviously affected by the presence of non-southern migrants.

Until recently we did not have the data to answer the question of where either of those conditions is met. Since 1992, however, 14 twice-yearly Southern Focus Polls conducted by the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have asked respondents from the 11 former Confederate states, Kentucky, and Oklahoma "Just for the record, would you say that your community is in the South, or not?" Starting with the third of the series, the same question was asked of smaller samples of respondents from West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Missouri (all except Missouri included in the Bureau of the Census's "South"). Respondents from the 13 southern states were also asked "Do you consider yourself a Southerner, or not?," while starting with the second survey those from other states were asked "Do you consider yourself or anyone in your family a Southerner?," and if so, whether they considered themselves to be Southerners.

It is clear from these data that if the point is to isolate southerners for study or to compare them to other Americans the definition of the South employed by the Southern Focus Poll (and, incidentally, by the Gallup Organization) makes sense, while the Bureau of the Census definiton does not. We already knew that, of course, but it's good to be able to document it.

--John Shelton Reed

Percent who say their community is in the South (percentage base in parentheses)

Alabama 98 (717) South Carolina 98 (553) Louisiana 97 (606) Mississippi 97 (431) Georgia 97 (1017) Tennessee 97 (838) North Carolina 93 (1292) Arkansas 92 (400) Florida 90 (1792) Texas 84 (2050) Virginia 82 (1014) Kentucky 79 (582) Oklahoma 69 (411)

West Virginia 45 (82) Maryland 40 (173) Missouri 23 (177) Delaware 14 (21) D.C. 7 (15)

Percent who say they are Southerners (percentage base in parentheses)

Mississippi 90 (432) Louisiana 89 (606) Alabama 88 (716) Tennessee 84 (838) South Carolina 82 (553) Arkansas 81 (399) Georgia 81 (1017) North Carolina 80 (1290) Texas 68 (2053) Kentucky 68 (584) Virginia 60 (1012) Oklahoma 53 (410) Florida 51 (1791)

West Virginia 25 (84) Maryland 19 (192) Missouri 15 (197) New Mexico 13 (68) Delaware 12 (25) D.C. 12 (16) Utah 11 (70) Indiana 10 (208) Illinois 9 (362) Ohio 8 (396) Arizona 7 (117) Michigan 6 (336)

******

CHAPEL HILL Ask even educated Americans what states form "the South," and youre likely to get 100 different answers. Almost everyone will agree on Deep South states -- except maybe Florida -- but which border states belong and which dont can be endlessly debated.

Now, the Southern Focus Poll, conducted by the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides strong support for including such states as Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma in the South. On the other hand, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Delaware and the District of Columbia dont belong anymore, if they ever did.

Fourteen polls, surveying a total of more than 17,000 people between 1992 and 1999 show, for example, that only 7 percent of D.C. residents responding say that they live in the South.

Only 14 percent of Delaware residents think they live in the region, followed by Missourians with 23 percent, Marylanders with 40 percent and West Virginians with 45 percent.

"We found 84 percent of Texans, 82 percent of Virginians, 79 percent of Kentuckians and 69 percent of Oklahomans say they live in the South," says Dr. John Shelton Reed, director of the institute. "Our findings correspond to the traditional 13-state South as defined by the Gallup organization and others, but is different from the Census Bureaus South, which doesnt make sense."

The U.S. Census Bureau includes Delaware, D.C., Maryland and West Virginia in its definition.

"Clearly some parts of Texas arent Southern whatever you mean by that -- and some parts of Maryland are," Reed said. "But sometimes you need to say what the Southern states are, and this kind of information can help you decide. Our next step is to look inside individual states like Texas, break the data down by county, and say, for example, where between Beaumont and El Paso people stop telling you that youre in the South."

A report on the findings, produced by UNC-CHs Institute for Research in Social Science, will appear in the June issue of the journal "Southern Cultures." Reed, who directs the institute, says the results should interest many people including survey, marketing and census researchers.

"Personally, I think they ought to be interesting too to ordinary folk who are curious about where people stop telling you youre in the South as youre travelling west or north," he said. "Where that is has been kind of hard to say sometimes."

Perhaps surprisingly, 11 percent of people in Utah, 10 percent in Indiana and slighter fewer people in Illinois, Ohio, Arizona and Michigan claim to be Southerners.

"Thats because in the early part of this century millions of people left the South, and their migration was one of the great migrations not just in American history, but in world history," Reed said. "Their children may not think of themselves as Southern, but they still do."

The UNC-CH sociologist said he was surprised that 51 percent of Floridians describe themselves as Southerners even though 90 percent know their community is in the South.

"Florida is the only state in lower 48 where most people living there werent born there," he said. "In fact, most of them werent born in the South, much less in Florida."

Because of the Souths growing economy, only between 90 and 80 percent of residents of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia and the Carolinas said they are Southerners, the surveys showed.

"If you want to define the South as where people say it is, now we have a better sense of it," Reed said. "For the most part, it confirms what I already suspected, which is why Im glad to see it. This work shows something we wanted to show, but havent been able to before."

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