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I have spent about 8 years working in Richmond and living east of Austin for 24 years. Richmond does not feel like a southern city when compared to other southern cities I have worked in such as Huntsville, AL; Birmingham, AL; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Greenboro, NC; Charleston, SC. Richmond has too much of a northern city feel similar to Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD or Minneapolis, MN. The accents are a bit different, but the attitudes and temperament isn’t as “genteel” as other southern cities.
Austin is very hipster in and around downtown and UT, but in the rest of austin is more like Huntsville or Greensboro than is Richmond. The professional and retiree groups of people in Austin are more relaxed than the same groups in Richmond. The underbelly of Richmond is more “urban” in its outlook than similar peoples in Austin. Austin is likewise more “urban” than some of the southern feeling cities I am familiar with, but much of it is closer than Richmond is.
I will grant that the middle class whites in Richmond are more prone to NASCAR than their Austin counterparts, but the Austonians are more prone drink a case of beer and toss the empties in the bed of their pickup.
I have an extremely hard time believing that Richmond feels more like Minneapolis than Greensboro.
+1. Also not sure about Austinites sitting around in an f150 and throwing the empties in the back of a pickup
+2
And you spelled Prius wrong.
Edited:
My life experience in Austin has been tech companies. It’s like anywhere else. Nobody in the office building is from the city. Lots of Asian/Indian and bright people from around the planet. The same life experience as Research Triangle Park or the Bay Area or Boston. I imagine state office workers and college students are predominantly Texan. I have no life experience with that slice of Austin. Most of the engineers in the development group I dealt with most recently were Chinese and Taiwanese. Former U of T computer science students somewhere on the spectrum of getting a green card to US citizen.
Richmond,VA easily. Austin area starts losing it's southern feel once you get pass Manor. Georgetown might be the closest burb in Austin that still resembles a southern Texan "charm" to it. Round Rock and Pflugerville just come off like typical anywhere suburbia especially with the amount of transplants there. And as far as the actual city? HA! The only constant southern thing about the city limits of Austin is the historically black communities still hanging in there. That's about it.
The African-American population is about 30% of the Richmond MSA, and only about 8% of the Austin MSA, which is a Texan city but much less a culturally Southern city, with a Hispanic population of over 25%. Austin may not be El Paso, but it's not as culturally Southern as Richmond still is.
My life experience in Austin has been tech companies. It’s like anywhere else. Nobody in the office building is from the city. Lots of Asian/Indian and bright people from around the planet. The same life experience as Research Triangle Park or the Bay Area or Boston. I imagine state office workers and college students are predominantly Texan. I have no life experience with that slice of Austin. Most of the engineers in the development group I dealt with most recently were Chinese and Taiwanese. Former U of T computer science students somewhere on the spectrum of getting a green card to US citizen.
One thing that did annoy me though, was OOS folks who said "Austin is the only place I'd live in Texas" or the "only bad thing about Austin is it's in Texas." Not cool at all. Austin is definitely a Texas city as well.
Meh. Everywhere has been pretty much the same since the 90’s. These discussions tend to be pretty grasping.
Austin has certainly changed more since then, when it was more in the league of what a Huntsville or Knoxville is today.
Richmond has been more of a slow, steady growth, and its metro is better at preserving its southern history than Austin is, which was right on the frontier at the time of the Civil War anyways, so it never had that classical, "old South" feel that's common in even the eastern part of TX.
And as much as you could compare Richmond to DC/Baltimore (which are borderline Southern already), it could easily fit in with a Savannah or New Orleans. Main Street in Shockoe Bottom is no Bourbon St, but it has a bit of a similar setup to it. Those cities are dense for the Deep South and have similar urban desnity to Richmond.
Last edited by Borntoolate85; 02-16-2022 at 08:32 AM..
In a 2020's context. It's obvious both cities aren't stereotypically "Southern" in the way Atlanta, New Orleans, or Nashville is.
But the Austin metro area still loves country music like the rest of Texas and eats BBQ, while Richmond still has the classic Southern accent(in certain parts), still loves Iced Tea and NASCAR racing.
But both metro areas are becoming centers of migration(especially Austin) in the last 10 years that's changing the native culture of both areas.
So which peripheral urban Southern metro area has a stronger "Southern" cultural influence between two metro areas.
The premise of your assumptions is way off. Richmond was a capital of the Confederacy and home to many monuments and museums. Austin loves bbq and country western music. Both have noticeable southern dialect and accents. New Orleans is far from being a stereotypical southern city.
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