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Baltimore does a pretty bad southern impersonation. When NYC ran hiphop, everybody either dressed like DMX or Jay-Z. Baltimore has no originality.
I disagree! Bmore put Air Force One's on the map in the early 80's. Then DC started to rock them. Then NYC. It was an article on kicks.com where a Nike rep confirmed it. Nobody in the world was rocking those long a$$ tee's but Bmore. Although I hate those long a$$ shorts (capris), Bmore started that too. Bmore was doing gold teeth way back in the day before NYC. Gold teeth just caught on in the south maybe in the 90's. My folks from Bmore had them joints in the late 70's and early 80's.
I dont think Bmore lacks originality, i just think places that fall between Baltimore all way down to Norfolk have mixed culture and are buffer zones between North and South.
As for the OP topic question, Norfolk/Hampton Roads is more like Baltimore and DC than Atlanta or Charlotte. Much more so, which isn't the same as saying that HRVA is a carbon copy of Baltimore and DC; rather, just stating that HRVA is closer to those two cities on the spectrum of similarity than it is to Atlanta and Charlotte. Now, as for the other silliness that was brought up throughout this thread:
-Norfolk is a Southern city (duh). It is also in the Mid-Atlantic South. Why can't it be both? It's always people with limited to no knowledge of Virginia on here trying to categorize us. The area is vastly different from most anywhere in the South, so the points of comparison are few, but it is still South nonetheless...
-I spoke about the Tidewater accent on a thread here years ago, and have long held that the Tidewater accent is expansive and present in places that aren't in the Tidewater. To explain, I'm certainly not an expert on dialects, but I'm from Virginia, essentially the DMV region, and grew up amongst that accent. DC definitely has a variant of Tidewater dialect, I'm speaking of native Washingtonians. Baltimore als has a variant of Tidewater, although present to a lesser degree because Baltimore also has a larger Northern (think Philly/Jersey) presence in their accents...the Tidewater accent is also present in Greater Richmond/Central Virginia to a degree. I grew up partly in Hopewell, which is heavily Tidewater influenced, even though it abuts Petersburg, where a stronger Southern accent is present. Make no mistake, Tidewater is heard in Petersburg too, and the southern dialect in Petersburg is more classic Virginia aristocratic than Deep South. The East End of Richmond also tends to have a Tidewater presence than the rest of the region besides Hopewell.
People don't understand how far-reaching that accent is. The real borderline is the Tri-Cities/Hopewell-Petersburg. Prince George County has a blend of original southern and Tidewater; by the time you hit Surry County, the Tidewater accent is more prevalent. Regarding Williamsburg, the accents there are blended as it is in the Tidewater but a spitting distance from Richmond, so it was influenced by that Virginia southern as well...
-Regarding the posters who assert the Central Virginia (RVA) region as "definitively" more southern than Hanpton Roads, my response is where? I would say the two regions are equal in South/North influence. Southampton County, Suffolk, and the outer reaches of Chesapeake are definitely no less southern than Dinwiddie, Petersburg, or Prince George. If we're talking Richmond city versus Norfolk city, Richmond does have more prevalent use of a more Southern accent than Norfolk; I've never actually met anyone from Norfolk who spoke classic Virginia southern. However, that accent is certainly not typical Southern and probably hasn't been in well over a century, so anyone insinuating that there's this deep drawl in Richmond is either ignorant to native dialects or outright lying. In other measures, Richmond is far more artistic and urban than Norfolk--yes, we all know that Norfolk is denser as a complete city, but has density ever been the only measure of urbanity? Norfolk definitely gives a definitive 'city feel' no question, but it isn't more urban than Richmond, and with the hundreds of people I know between the two cities, myself included, I've never heard ANYONE say they felt "more city-like" in Norfolk. Not people familiar with both.
So for those who measure HRVA vs RVA in terms of countryness/city feel/southern qualities, you are probably misguided or probably don't know the areas well enough, if you don't realize that they are about the same on this platform...
-The wierdos who brought NC in the conversation get a brief address. NC is a much stronger variety of southern than any one of Virginia's big three metros. I have said that in my opinion, there is more of a NY influence in Raleigh, but not really relatable to accents. Native Raleighites definitely sound southern. Being a transient city in this generation doesn't affect your personality as much as its hyped on city-data. I've known hundreds of people from Raleigh. They are hugely southern, and f a deeper southern than VA's big three. There certainly isn't anything like the Northern influences found in Greater Richmond or Hampton Roads present in Raleigh...
Lastly, regarding VA's placement in southern characterization...I lived my eighth grade school year in Memphis, which is where my mom was partially raised. I was told that I wasn't from the South and had a "weird" accent. This was in 2002-2003, by 13-14 yr olds. Fast forward to high school, I went to school with a few Georgia transplants, two of whom were very proud to be from the dirty, and said we weren't the "real" South. In adulthood, I've been told I sound different in both NC and GA. No one from NC or GA has ever told me I wasn't southern, though, although in Georgia, I did get the "you're barely a southerner" once...
Growing up, it was just generally accepted that we were Southern. Virginia has such a rich history as one of the first states and the most prominent Southern state, historically. You're taught Virginia History all the way through fifth grade. So being southern or a part of the south was never in question. Again though, when we came into contact with people from further south, we could see and hear the differences...
We are a different version of Southern. It's not bad, but experience in virtually every other southern state has shown me that we have a different, lighter kind of southern. Just like living in New York showed me I was definitely not a Northerner, not that I was confused haha. I got called "country" more than a few times up there. To them, all of us southerners sound the same lol...
Last edited by murksiderock; 07-17-2015 at 11:58 PM..
I lived there in the early 2000s. Up to that point, I had only lived on the west coast. I was expecting it to be southern, but it's really not. I met a lot of transplanted New Yorkers and other east coasters there. I wouldn't feel like I was really in the south until I drove 100 miles west.
It doesn't feel like Atlanta or DC/Baltimore. It reminds me most of the stories I used to hear growing up about what San Diego used to be like in the 1950s.
The Hampton Roads region is probably more like DC/Baltimore. It's both southern and Mid-Atlantic, so you could draw similarities with Wilmington, NC along with Baltimore. However, I'd say it's more like DC/Baltimore especially over Charlotte/Atlanta. Both Charlotte and Atlanta are much more southern than any Virginia metro, same with Raleigh/Durham. I still don't understand the people who say Richmond is more southern than Raleigh/Durham but no way IMO.
I went to Norfolk state in the early 90's and although the area is southern there is a lot of transplants for new York. The area is highly transient not just from the military but from the many colleges. Being there I got my first taste of gogo.
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