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None of them. Insularity has benefited no body. We’d all do ourselves a justice by spending at least some time living—not vacationing—in a place that was pretty different from where we came. Like if you grew up in NYC, you went to school in Nebraska, or if you grew up in Kentucky, you worked a temp job in California.
This is every region though, it isn't unique to the South.
I run into KC expats often enough here in the Northeastern US. And you might want to note where several participants on C-D's Kansas City forum, including me, say they live.
I often joke that "after corn and wheat, the Midwest's third greatest export is Midwesterners."
I haven't been in New Orleans since Katrine, What I described was an ambience that that nobody ever voluntarily left and then learned to feel at home somewhere else. If you're born Yat, you die Yat. It's the code.
I have to agree with this. How can you possibly know if your hometown is “the best” unless you’ve had a lived experience elsewhere?
I see your point, but my point was that many people don’t think about it that way and just live their lives where they were born and raised and where they are, with or without certain amenities, with trade offs, and to the extent that they even think about their identity being connected to where they were born and raised, it is what it is and will never change.
Not necessarily the best in the nation but I've noticed most people in the south tend to stay put in their hometowns no matter how small.
And I admire and on some level even envy them. I said as much to my first cousin who lives eight miles out in the country near a town of 900 people - sixth generation farmer - born and raised in the same community as my mom and my ancestors since the late 1700’s. I told him part of me envied him (didn’t say admired), and he said he never wanted to go anywhere else and didn’t care about anywhere else.
I limited the title of this thread title to cities, but I think about towns and the country the same way as far as where people are from and live are concerned. It’s true that a decisive majority of people never move far from home, and most of those people don’t have city-versus-city or place-versus-place comparisons on their minds. They live where they live and that’s it. That’s probably why I cringe at city-bashing and way-of-life-bashing.
South Carolina here, fifth-fastest growing state last year per the Census Bureau, but if not for transplants we would have stagnated. That’s pretty much the choice all states have now: welcome newcomers or stagnate or maybe even shrink. And there’s a mindset among many native South Carolinians that shrinking would be fine if it meant an end to newcomers “coming down here and messing everything up.” That’s them talking, not me.
And I admire and on some level even envy them. I said as much to my first cousin who lives eight miles out in the country near a town of 900 people - sixth generation farmer - born and raised in the same community as my mom and my ancestors since the late 1700’s. I told him part of me envied him (didn’t say admired), and he said he never wanted to go anywhere else and didn’t care about anywhere else.
I limited the title of this thread title to cities, but I think about towns and the country the same way as far as where people are from and live are concerned. It’s true that a decisive majority of people never move far from home, and most of those people don’t have city-versus-city or place-versus-place comparisons on their minds. They live where they live and that’s it. That’s probably why I cringe at city-bashing and way-of-life-bashing.
I agree with your sentiment. Although I actually used to sometimes look down on the people in my hometown who were so content and never wanted to leave. I was so desperate to leave and did. Then when I did leave every time I came home my little hometown grew on me more and more. Although I would never settle back down, exploring other cities made me realize just how much my hometown shaped me and how familiar it is. Then I finally understood why some people don't ever want to leave
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