Which major metro area is least welcoming to transplants? (live, state, better)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
...especially those from opposite ends of the country (not including immigrants, for the sake of simplicity). Everyone here is familiar with images of Manhattanites scoffing at Midwestern NYU students, Southerners snubbing Yankee neighbors, San Franciscans tolling their eyes at red-state upstarts, etc. In your experience, where is this sort of behavior most endemic?
Of the biggest metros, my (extremely subjective) ranking
Philadelphia
Chicago
Boston
New York
Atlanta
Miami
Dallas
Houston
SF
LA
DC
DC has a national outlook by default, and it shows. Similarly, Sunbelt cities seem to be accustomed and well-adapted to domestic migration; but every so often, one can meet a Southerner who harbors a palpable resentment toward Northerners, no doubt stemming from four-hundred years of baggage that Westerners have been able to sidestep. The same can be said for the North, and overall, it does seem the most entrenched, perhaps because its cities have more residual prestige to stand on. Finally - though I fear the flame war that might ensue from this comment - I've placed Chicago and Philadelphia at the top, due in no small part to the comments I've encountered while lurking on this board, and this is coming from an admirer of both.
Throughout all my years and moves, I have been accepted by, easily adapted to every community I have lived in - NYC; Boston; Long Island; Washington, DC, Pittsburgh; Charleston/Huntington, WV; Orange County, CA; LA
Yet for some reason, the Saint Louis Metro area was a real problem. I made some good friends there, but like me, they were also transplants.
Throughout all my years and moves, I have been accepted by, easily adapted to every community I have lived in - NYC; Boston; Long Island; Washington, DC, Pittsburgh; Charleston/Huntington, WV; Orange County, CA; LA
Yet for some reason, the Saint Louis Metro area was a real problem. I made some good friends there, but like me, they were also transplants.
Funny, I was going to rank that #1, but I left out smaller metros for brevity. I haven't been there, but that issue has come up in several threads here, enough for me to notice it, at least.
I really don't see how any of them are any worse or better than the others. I guess I wouldn't include regional hub area that see huge amounts of transplants like NYC, Chicago or Atlanta
Seattle was the worst in my experience. The city where "Californian" is a four-letter word, and defines nearly everyone who moved from anywhere else in the US (people from overseas, interestingly, seem to get a bit of a free pass).
The irony is that it didn't used to be this way (I was born in Seattle to a third-generation Washingtonian mother, and spent much of my childhood and formative years between there and Boston)... it changed largely because of transplants. Strange bird, that Seattle...
I would also say Seattle for a major city... But this is mostly going from stereotype, I've never lived there. San Francisco and Chicago were both quite welcoming for the most part, even though I wasn't from the West Coast or Midwest. I have heard Denver had something similar going on anti transplant? But when I was out there I didn't get that vibe.
Seattle for sure, I think its just if your from California tho---CA transplants get blamed for everything up there. LOL.
Seems to be a cross country thing. I grew up in NY. All the other states that I lived in saw me as a New Yorker and I never had a problem of assimilating or being accepted.
But I lived in CA for 20 years before I moved to StL. I wonder if things would have been different in St. Louis if they knew I came form NY, even though I tried to maintain a low profile of moving from CA.
I think many parts of the country are envious of Californians or scared of Californification. Those damn Californians bring in Weirdness, Birkenstocks, Trader Joes, Socialism, Mexicans and Liberal Politics (even though Orange and San Diego Counties are some of the most conservative/libertarian counties in the country).
That list actually looks about right. I've heard similar things about Philly and Chicago, and quite a few people have said Philly is especially provincial for such a large city. To answer the question, I think the metro areas least accepting of transplants are probably the ones in the Midwest. Most cities in that region have very few transplants compared to other regions, and if they do have transplants, they're usually from somewhere within the region. Even in Chicago, most transplants I meet are from Ohio. Indiana, Iowa, and a bunch from Michigan. In the south and both coasts of the U.S., it's not hard to find transplants from all regions.
I think the Cincy area could be added to that list. Most cities I go to, a common conversation ice breaker is "so where are you from?" In Cincinnati people automatically assume you were born and raised there so a common question upon meeting someone is "what high school did you go to?" The conversation usually immediately goes south when they find out you are not from the area, especially if you're from Michigan, Chicago, Cleveland or the East Coast. I'm not trying to sound arrogant or anything, but I've met people here who practically act like they're intimidated by people from the East Coast.
I was at a service station here in Cincy talking to another guy in the store who I spotted with a Ravens jersey on(during my desperate period of looking for other transplants), so we talked about the Ravens for a little while. When I got up to the counter, without even a hint of a greeting the cashier said "where you from?" I replied "Maryland" and she replied "oh, I could tell by your accent you from 'up north' somewhere. Last time I checked, Cincinnati was located in a northern state, but anyway. I've dealt with several instances like that, especially during my brief stint in customer service.
In Cincinnati you have to put in a lot more effort to make friends compared to say, a city in the Sun Belt. It took me a while to gather up a close set of friends here in Cincy. I'm not an all out extrovert, but I'm certainly not an introvert, and I consider myself to be a fairly sociable person. Only two of my friends are from Cincy and the others are from somewhere else. I won't fault the city for that though. People here usually have a close set of friends in adulthood that they've known from grade school since most of the people in the area grew up together.
Cincinnati is a fairly good city, but probably not one I would recommend for a transplant.
The DC Area is almost dominated by transplants at this point. If you go into a bar on U Street and spark up a conversation with someone, the majority of the time they will tell you they are from anywhere from L.A. to Ohio to Denver etc. The boom in federal spending and rapid gentrification of DC has attracted people from all over the nation. Just a few years ago in the early to mid 2000's, DC was more of an average city with a lot more average people. Today, DC is the richest city in the nation and millions of people are dying to move to DC in hopes of hoping on the gravy train of reckless federal spending. It has worked for tens of thousands of recent transplants who run the streets of a safer, more gentrified and Whiter DC. However, DC natives are very unwelcoming of outsiders. Many lifelong Black residents of DC dislike anyone but their own kind: Black DC natives. Baltimore is very similar in this vein and Baltimore is much less gentrified than DC. Most times, a non-Baltimore native in Baltimore sticks out like a sore thumb. People from Baltimore hate out-of-towners on a level that is parallel to hicks in a small rural town.
Native New Yorkers also seem to really hate people who aren't from NYC. Native NYers have the attitude that they've seen everything, that their city is better than every other city in America in every possible way and any Tom, Dick or Jane from outside of NYC city limits is akin to a Malibu's Most Wanted-esque suburban teenage wannabe from Idaho or an uncultured country yokel. Although many native NYers have never actually seen palm trees in a natural setting or life beyond northern New Jersey or the East Coast, they've somehow seen "everything". But can you blame many NY natives for being so rude to outsiders living in their city? NYC is only the most hipster infested place on the entire planet. Seeing so much irony and over-the-top try-hard fashion everyday would make anyone hopelessly cynical to a clinically insane degree.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
), so we talked about the Ravens for a little while. When I got up to the counter, without even a hint of a greeting the cashier said "where you from?" I replied "Maryland" and she replied "oh, I could tell by your accent you from 'up north' somewhere. Last time I checked, Cincinnati was located in a northern state, but anyway. I've dealt with several instances like that, especially during my brief stint in customer service. 
