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I fundamentally don’t find DC/NOVA or points north to be Southern, but that’s just me. The more time I spend on the east coast, the more I realize there’s a lot of quirks I’d never have thought of.
That doesn't pan out population-wise though.
It is only closer to more states because the states around it are smaller.
It would be more meaningful to look at population, and by population DFW would be near a greater population pulling in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and parts of Mississippi.
To be honest I think Atlanta exerts influence over Georgia, SC, Alabama and parts of Tennessee, and North Carolina. That sounds like a lot when you are counting states, but most of these places are sparsely populated.
North Carolina has its own area of focus and by the time you get to Virginia, Atlanta's reach is overshadowed by DC.
Tennessee also has its own areas of influence. Atlanta may exert some influence on the Chattanooga area, but that area is equally influenced by Nashville.
Passed Tennessee into Kentucky and Atlanta is not a thing there to.
The southern areas of Mississippi and Alabama have more in common with New Orleans than Atlanta. New Orleans is connected to more than just the coastal areas of Mississippi. Vicksburg, is definitely more like New Orleans than Atlanta.
It's probably more telling to look at where Atlanta is NOT the center of gravity.
Florida
Texas
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Louisiana
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Kentucky
Mississippi
Almost all of Tennessee
Most of North Carolina
Parts of Alabama
Parts of South Carolina
I would say that is over 90 million people in the south that has a closer pull to somewhere other than Atlanta.
That gives credence to the opinion that one city doesn’t overwhelmingly overshadow the others.
Why are we looking at the pull of cities in the south, but for the other regions we are looking at the strength of the cities themselves?
Going by that silly metric Denver would cover most area in its region.
After DC, Houston and Miami imo are the two strongest in the south. Dallas a close 4th.
Baltimore's gdp blows all those cities out of the water.
It should be with Charlotte and Austin
City.......gdp in millions: Baltimore 222,967
Charlotte 207,866
Austin 193,773
Tampa 190,708
Orlando 167,279
Nashville 163,031
San Antonio 144,384
Raleigh 108,288
Virginia Beach 107,067
Jacksonville 101,367
Richmond 99,38
Memphis 86,493
New Orleans 81,829
Baltimore is definitely not among that lower rung
Wow, I must admit I’m surprised. I guess I’ve never really thought much of Baltimore due to its long-term crime problems and simply being overshadowed by its neighbor cities to the north and south… For what it’s worth though, it’s got a fantastic aquarium. I look forward to taking my kid there in the next year or two.
1. DC
2. Miami
2. Dallas
2. Houston
5. Atlanta
6. Austin
6. Nashville
6. Charlotte
6. Orlando
6. Tampa
In what metric are Nashville and Austin over Charlotte?
Charlotte is larger and has the larger economy. It also is ahead in almost every measurable metric...im confused?
In what metric are Nashville and Austin over Charlotte?
Charlotte is larger and has the larger economy. It also is ahead in almost every measurable metric...im confused?
I have them as a tie. This is just opinion, quantitatively measuring cities tend to lead to terrible rankings.
while Dallas draws from western Tennessee, and northwestern Mississippi, and
This is interesting. I've always figured those for Atlanta (if we are limiting ourselves to these alpha towns) simply because Atlanta is closer to western TN and NW Mississippi culturally and geographically. But those areas do look like they could be an sort of a tweener zone.
Well, if we want to be culturally honest, we can split the South into three or four regions.
One is the Cotton Belt: Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. This is the 'Deep South," and this was where anti-Black bigotry and repression was the most virulent. Culturally, it vies with the region just to its northeast for the mindshare of non-Southerners looking for a mental image of "the South". And I think it's in part because of the way the pols in this region especially behave that many non-Southerners still think the South is all Spanish moss dripping from live oaks and "Gone with the Wind."
The second is the Tidewater: the Carolinas, Virginia — and Maryland. There may have been just as strong a commitment to keeping Blacks down here as in the Land of Cotton, but I'd say the history is a bit more mottled: Wilmington, NC, for instance, had a successful interracial municipal government made up of white small-farmer/small-merchant folks and freed Black slaves that came to an end only when the plantocracy staged a coup in 1896. William Byrd may have pledged "massive resistance," and the SNCC did sit in at Greensboro lunch counters, but overall, oppression of Blacks in this area involved less overt violence, and the era of integration was greeted less grudgingly.
Maryland, and Virginia above Fredericksburg, however, have been annexed to the Northeast in part because of the flow of commerce along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor. Also, while Baltimore may be a Southern city, it feels to me more like a Northern industrial city (and also looks more like Philadelphia, only with wider streets and more trees) than it does a city in the Deep South proper (Birmingham would be its closest Deep South analogue).
Then we have the Middle South: Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. Louisiana is distinct because of its French heritage, while Kentucky and Tennessee are (at least in part) defined by the very independent (and impoverished) hillbillies of their eastern thirds. That culture, which some articles I've read argue is basically little changed from that of 18th-century England, is also distinct from that of other Southern locales. Yet at the same time, those states also have their genteel sides. Arkansas is basically comprised of hillbillies without mountains (unless you count the Ozarks in the state's northwest), and thus they're not as poor because they can raise crops and make money off the farms (or go work for Walmart or Tyson Foods, both based in the 'Zarks).
Then there's Texas, which, as the old tourism ads used to say, is "like a whole 'nother country." It really doesn't mesh with any other place we call "the South."
Florida is really a product of the 1920s and is Southern only geographically, save maybe for the Panhandle.
And I would say that the DC of 2023 is less Southern than the DC of 1950. However, I guess JFK's description of the city as "combining Southern efficiency and Northern charm" still works.
Whoa, historically Louisiana was one of the most virulent anti-Black states. The worst states for lynching blacks were 1) Mississippi-539 2) Georgia-492 (... bit of a gap...) 3) Texas-352 4) Louisiana-335 5) Alabama-299 6) Florida-257 (shockingly high for how low the black population was) 7) Arkansas-226 8) Tennessee-204 9) South Carolina-156 10) Kentucky-142. It also shows up a lot looking at mass racially-motivated violence (I would say relative to Alabama, but Alabama's an oddly low outlier compared to its peers with regards to these.). Louisiana is actually in consideration for the worst offender, mainly with Mississippi and it isn't even a dark horse (Georgia or Florida).
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