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I've never said Virginia isn't the south. As someone who grew up and lives in NoVa, VA IS the south but NoVa has much more in common with the NJ suburbs of NYC than anywhere in the south. It's not just about transplants, if that's the case no where in the south would still be the south - it's more about attitude, politics, economics, salaries, education, culture, how cosmopolitan the area is, etc. All of that comes into play since the area is so heavily tied to MD/DC.
But make no mistake, Virginia, with the exception of NoVa is the south - and that's not really a good or bad thing, it just is.
I also definitely believe NC is the south, without a doubt. There was nothing about The Triangle that felt northern to me.
There has always been a cultural divide in much of this country between rural and urban experiences. The things that make the south "southern" in many instances stem from its historical connection to an agrarian way of life. Until the post war boom in the sunbelt, there wasn't much in the way to define southernness mixed with an urban experience. To me, the loss of southerness is the increased urban and suburban way of doing life. Why the two aforementioned states along with the Atlanta area and much of Florida are deemed less southern as the years go by.
I've never said Virginia isn't the south. As someone who grew up and lives in NoVa, VA IS the south but NoVa has much more in common with the NJ suburbs of NYC than anywhere in the south. It's not just about transplants, if that's the case no where in the south would still be the south - it's more about attitude, politics, economics, salaries, education, culture, how cosmopolitan the area is, etc. All of that comes into play since the area is so heavily tied to MD/DC.
But make no mistake, Virginia, with the exception of NoVa is the south - and that's not really a good or bad thing, it just is.
I also definitely believe NC is the south, without a doubt. There was nothing about The Triangle that felt northern to me.
There isn't much southern charm or tradition in the D.C. suburbs around Arlington and Alexandria. You'd have a tough time convincing anyone that the D.C. portion of the state is southern.
It's too much to categorize an entire state into one narrative. Virginia is big enough and diverse enough that it cannot be the same throughout. Rural and southern Virginia are Southern, and the people of those areas will have a lot in common with other southerners from Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, etc. However, people from northern Virginia are basically in the Mid-Atlantic, and even from an outsider's perspective, I can tell that the Mid-Atlantic and the southern states are very different.
North Carolina I consider to be southern throughout, you just have a few large cities with transplants from the north. Leave those cities and go to the suburbs and exurbs, and many of the locals will have a twang.
But every state of the region is technically Southern, some are just more "pure" and others more "modified" so to speak. Additionally, there are significant variations within each state. Many areas of Virginia have little influence from outside the South, but those sections of the state are not where the bulk of the population resides today.
Just a question, in your opinion, does the bolded also hold true of Maryland?
.........
Nobody in real life suggests NC isn't the South. My parents (who are from Memphis and Little Rock) have jokingly called NC unsouthern, but my mother also spent half of her upbringing in Western/Upstate New York (as well as lived in St. Louis and Connecticut before she had kids), so any mention of NC not being the South is made in jest. So I guess I should say the only mentions of NC not being the South in real life are made both jokingly and sparingly...
There is plenty of real life debate as to how southern Virginia is, and isnt relegated to only NoVa. Longtime posters know I grew up in NoVa and Central VA, and I have an oft-told story of being 13 years old in Memphis and being told i wasnt southern, an assertion that has reverberated many times in my adulthood. Additionally, just last November, I ran an office survey, small sample size notwithstanding, in which 40% of the people i work with (mixture of natives and transplants) believe that urban Tidewater VA isn't the South...
The city of Richmond has more in common with DC than it does with Raleigh and even Norfolk, and has much stronger cultural associations with states to its north (namely MD but also PA, NY, and Mass to varying degree) than to any state to its south--yes, that means North Carolina...
This topic has been brought up, beat to the dirt, buried and resurrected a million times on here. For some, it is hard to fathom that the fabled "Capital of the Confederacy" has moved on from that period (like, 154 years ago). For others more familiar with the city, even if they don't view Rich as "northern", they understand why it is a question to some. People question Richmond in real life and for different reasons than the ones who question Raleigh or Charlotte, which incidentally only happens in citydata World...
For the record, for those not familiar with my posting history: I consider Virginia the South. All of Virginia, as a young man who grew up in Northern Virginia....but, Urban Virginia (NoVa x Central VA x Hampton Roads), where 75% of the state lives, is markedly different from outer Virginia (everywhere outside The Crescent), and is noticeably different from most of the rest of the greater South. I've lived in all three of VA's Big 3 metros. There is cultural overlap in all three (especially Nova/RVA and RVA/HR, but some overlap from Nova/HR as well), that is not present in outer VA. Anybody who thinks NoVa is on this island by itself is misinformed or uneducated on VA, or in the case of one of my fellow Virginians, just need to get out and explore The Commonwealth more. All of Virginia is in the South but this is a different type of South than found anywhere outside VA's Urban Crescent, a Mid-Atlantic South...
I've never said Virginia isn't the south. As someone who grew up and lives in NoVa, VA IS the south but NoVa has much more in common with the NJ suburbs of NYC than anywhere in the south. It's not just about transplants, if that's the case no where in the south would still be the south - it's more about attitude, politics, economics, salaries, education, culture, how cosmopolitan the area is, etc. All of that comes into play since the area is so heavily tied to MD/DC.
But make no mistake, Virginia, with the exception of NoVa is the south - and that's not really a good or bad thing, it just is.
I also definitely believe NC is the south, without a doubt. There was nothing about The Triangle that felt northern to me.
NC is proof that you can be cosmopolitan and still be southern, the triangle area does give off a more mid-Atlantic vibe (like suburban Deleware) but just less urban and more southern. I never heard anyone said VA wasn't southern till I moved to NC. When I was living in NYC pretty much anywhere south of DC was considered the South, but because of mass immigration and transplants moving south it causes certian states to lose their southerness. At one point all of Florida was considered southern, but because of decades of attracting people from the Northeast and the Caribbean it lost southern nature over time and became the opposite of what people associate with the South. The South is the only region in the US that I see people saying is losing its regional identity. I don't hear people say New York isn't the NorthEast anymore or California isn't the West Coast anymore despite those states attracting a lot of newcomers. Other reigons of the US are defined purely by geography like Chicago is still a midwestern city despite being the opposite of what people associate with the Midwest or San Francisco is still a West Coast city despite giving off more of an East Coast vibe.
I've never said Virginia isn't the south. As someone who grew up and lives in NoVa, VA IS the south but NoVa has much more in common with the NJ suburbs of NYC than anywhere in the south. It's not just about transplants, if that's the case no where in the south would still be the south - it's more about attitude, politics, economics, salaries, education, culture, how cosmopolitan the area is, etc. All of that comes into play since the area is so heavily tied to MD/DC.
I can't really agree with that. NoVA doesn't have urban anchors like Newark and Jersey City, the built environments of both regions are TOTALLY different, northern NJ is much more socioeconomically diverse than NoVA (there's a palpable blue collar presence in wide swaths of northern NJ), there's no urban decay to speak of in NoVA, the Black population is a bit negligible in NoVA compared to northern NJ, etc. Those are enough significant differences that preclude anyone from saying the emboldened IMO.
I think part of it could be that Georgia is surrounded by states (other than Florida) that are unambiguously Deep South, whereas Northern Virginia is at the geographic fringes of what could be considered the South anyway. Atlanta is just a large city that's attracting inter-regional culture from everywhere, whereas NoVa is more like the voundaries of the South as a whole are moving farther south.
Why do people erroneously consider Virginia and North Carolina to not be in the South?
Ignorance from being terrible at geography and history...
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