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The problem isn't that Virginia (or even NC) is included in the mid- Atlantic. The problem is people thinking the Mid-Atlantic is more or less northeast and not southern.
These categories lose significance by the day
The problem is people thinking you go mid Atlantic than the South is monolithic Mississippi.
VA, NC, SC, GA, and FL is the South Atlantic. There nothing "mid" about it. these states are East Coast and Southern.
Eye ball test says Virginia is exactly mid, if we're looking north to south. Nova's latitude is close to Nebraska's.
I mean yeah, depending how you look at things it's even further north than south. Maine's latitude goes up to 47.26 at fort kent but the atlantic part only goes to 45.19 at calais. Virginia beach is at 36.85 (-8.34 from calais to MB) and Miami is at 25.76 (-11.09 from vb to miami). If you count all the way to key west then it's even more extreme. But if you pick Calais as the northernmost point and put the southernmost point around Daytona Beach (colloquially the end of "the south") your midpoint ends up right around Newport NewsVA.
I don't think that stuff really matters though. the south, and even the southeast is obviously a bigger region than the northeast. the midwest doesn't perfectly align with the middle of the country nor the middle of the western half of the country. the mid atlantic doesn't have to perfectly align either.
All that said, I'm not totallly against putting Virginia into a midatlantic category anyway. I think it's midatlantic similar to the way New York would be.
New York could be mid atlantic overall but has other strong influences. NYC is midatlantic, but Buffalo and Plattsburgh obviously are not. New York as a state could be like 50% mid atlantic 25% northeast 25% great lakes/rustbelt
NJ and Delaware are the only states that are 100% mid atlantic to me. Maryland is like 75%midatlantic 25% southern
Pennyslyvania is more mid atlantic than NY and VA but less than those other three. maybe like 60% mid atlantic 40% appalachia.
Virginia to me is like 60% southern 40% mid atlantic (overly simplifying all of these states %s and omitting categories but same idea) but I could see a reasonable argument for going the other way with a slight edge to mid atlantic
Again, I think some people are using mid-Atlantic to simply be geographic “it’s in the middle of the Atlantic seaboardâ€. And some are using it to mean some expanded version of the two related but different historical regions (the Middle Colonies and the “Chesapeake†colonies). For some there is a cultural component to it, for some there is none. We have posts here that declare Baltimore as Southern while at the same time saying NC is the border of mid-Atlantic and Southern. That scattered opinion on it I think more or less underscores in general that most people don’t recognize the mid-Atlantic as a region that exists except on a map.
For my part I’ll just restate. People have strong opinions on the South and on New England both as cultural and geographic and historical regions. Most people don’t have much details in mind when discussing the Mid-Atlantic. It’s what remains of the Eastern seaboard after accounting for the South(east) and New England. The former Middle Colonies plus Maryland are probably the most consistent Mid-Atlantic states for most people. Virginia (particularly the Chesapeake portion) and West Virginia are likely the only others ones that significant people would place there.
Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas are placed in the South by a simply majority but only just. But the dropoff is considerable, as Maryland only polled 6%. I think for better or worse that is how the majority of Americans view the matter if they were to think about it (however most probably don’t).
I don't think there's such a thing as "truly Southern," which is why I find the whole exclusion of what is (no longer) Southern so facetious to begin with. The entire premise of this thread has been about trying to label NC as "Mid-Atlantic"/no longer Southern precisely because of other influences. Places evolve. NC can change and progress and reinvent itself-- it's still Southern.
And no one, at least not me, is claiming that WNC is "only the South." The South and Appalachia overlap to some extent, but each have their identities.
And about your first point, about everywhere becoming more globalized/homogenous, sure. But I don't find anyone claiming that parts comfortably within the Northern US are somehow a Southern transition zone.
Edit: Also, Charlotte isn't merely some "corporate hodgepodge." If you're not venturing outside Uptown or the burbs, that's no one's fault but your own. Charlotte isn't like Nashville or Charleston where the culture kind of serves itself to you right on a plate-- maybe go actually explore the neighborhoods sometime. There's a pretty distinctly Piedmont, largely Scots-Irish influence to be found.
Additionally, I'm confused by your claim that "truly Southern" is a stupid term, but also that Charleston is "100%" (coastal) Southern. Putting forth both assertions seems contradictory to me. Either you recognize that "truly Southern" holds little meaning/validity, or you claim the bit about being "100%" Southern, not both.
Where did I say that Charleston is 100% Southern? AFAIK I didn't even bring up SC.
Also I do disagree with you about Charlotte. Although I haven't been there in about 2 years (aside from going to the airport) many of the times I have gone, I've been very underwhelmed by it. To me it just feels like a suburb that has a few skyscrapers and that's it. It doesn't have that "urban feel" that you get with other cities where there's more pronounced culture
Nova was the original cutoff, but within the last decade it's been pushed more south. My point is that there isn't a real hard line between the North and the South. It's a gradient that slowly transitions into areas that are 100% Southern culture, or Southern culture is still the dominant influence.
NC right now is the true "cusp" state where all 3 of these cultures (North, Mid-Atlantic, and South) ALL meet (the split) and then whether you go north, west, or south is when these cultures have single dominance.
Wait, which of the three cultures dominates as you go west?
I'll buy that NC is the cusp between South and Mid-Atlantic, but also between Mid-Atlantic and North?
P.S. Am planning a trip to southern Delaware next month, and noticed that right near my cottage is a Harris-Teeter. There's a sign that Delaware will be juuuuust a little southern.
Where did I say that Charleston is 100% Southern? AFAIK I didn't even bring up SC.
Also I do disagree with you about Charlotte. Although I haven't been there in about 2 years (aside from going to the airport) many of the times I have gone, I've been very underwhelmed by it. To me it just feels like a suburb that has a few skyscrapers and that's it. It doesn't have that "urban feel" that you get with other cities where there's more pronounced culture
You literally brought up Charleston in that regard in your post (#84).
Anyways, a lot has happened in 2 years. South End is pretty unrecognizable even from a few years ago imo, even the area around NoDa has grown a decent amount.
I don't mind if you think Charlotte is boring, truth be told-- I'm sure a lot of the locals would prefer to not be on the national radar in a kind of way that Nashville or Austin is.
Yeah, Baltimore, DC and NoVA are in the South, but in the context of more granular/detailed "regions," Mid-Atlantic would be a better descriptor.
So for the purposes of this thread, I would definitely classify them as Mid-Atlantic, and I do think North Carolina at a state-level would be the dividing line, between the South and the Mid-Atlantic, and then I would consider Pennsylvania the gateway to the North.
Baltimore is in the South, but NC is the dividing line between Mid-Atlantic and South? Maybe I'm missing something here.
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