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If you're referring to the overall "metros" in Texas vs. Florida, then yes I agree to a certain degree. But individual cities -- say the city of Tampa vs. the city of Dallas, then no. There is not a strong Southern culture in Dallas, maybe a bit more-so in Houston. Even then, Houston is one of the most international cities in the country.
The Dallas-side of DFW is religiously diverse with many that are not religious, while the Fort Worth-side is filled with Baptists. San Antonio is predominately Catholic. Conservative politics are a suburban and rural thing in Texas, not in the urban areas.
City vs City specifically? Tampa's city boundaries are tiny, and the city was built originally by Spanish and Cuban immigrants that started moving to the area in the 1880s. I doubt the story of Dallas is the same. I can't speak for Fort Worth but when I was living in Dallas several years ago the Southern culture was definitely noticeable. You hear the accents, the people's Baptists backgrounds, etc. It wasn't as noticable as much as Atlanta, but it was quite apparent. Orlando started out as a retirement and vacation spot for wealthy northeastern people.
Houston on this board gets called more Southern than Dallas but my visits to Houston over the years showed me less Southern things than I saw in Dallas. I kept meeting people from Africa, Asia, Mexico, etc. In Dallas I encountered more Southerners.
City vs City specifically? Tampa's city boundaries are tiny, and the city was built originally by Spanish and Cuban immigrants that started moving to the area in the 1880s. I doubt the story of Dallas is the same. I can't speak for Fort Worth but when I was living in Dallas several years ago the Southern culture was definitely noticeable. You hear the accents, the people's Baptists backgrounds, etc. It wasn't as noticable as much as Atlanta, but it was quite apparent. Orlando started out as a retirement and vacation spot for wealthy northeastern people.
Houston on this board gets called more Southern than Dallas but my visits to Houston over the years showed me less Southern things than I saw in Dallas. I kept meeting people from Africa, Asia, Mexico, etc. In Dallas I encountered more Southerners.
I guess it depends where you lived in Dallas and when. Definitely not the case in the more central areas of the city.
Among the non-Hispanic white population, Florida is significantly more diverse than Texas, which is the result of high rates of domestic migration from Northeastern and Midwestern areas of the United States to Florida over the past ~100 years.
I would venture to guess that the NHW population in Florida is among the most diverse in the South, given that many Americans of German, Irish, Italian, Ashkenazi Jewish, Greek, Polish, French-Canadian and Russian heritage make their home in Florida.
OTOH, the non-Hispanic white population in Texas is almost exclusively British and German, not to mention very Baptist. In my experience, many of the whites I knew while living in Florida were either Catholic, Jewish or Eastern Orthodox.
The Hispanic population is more diverse in Florida, too - Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, South Americans, etc. By comparison, Texas' Hispanic population is almost exclusively Mexican.
Except that you aren't accurate. Jacksonville might kind of be like a smaller Dallas, but it is actually more like a smaller Atlanta on the beach. You aren't going to find anything like Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Florida Keys, or any of the other large metros along Florida's peninsular coasts similar to Texas, rural or urban.
The Keys are a large city? As far as big city life, is Tampa really that different than Houston?
Orlando started out as a retirement and vacation spot for wealthy northeastern people.
No.
Orlando got it's start as a commercial hub for the burgeoning citrus industry. From there it diversified into tourism, recreation and banking.
"The period from 1875 to 1895 is remembered as Orlando's Golden Era, when it became the hub of Florida's citrus industry. But the Great Freeze of 1894–95 forced many owners to give up their independent groves, thus consolidating holdings in the hands of a few "citrus barons" who shifted operations south, primarily around Lake Wales in Polk County."
No.
Orlando got it's start as a commercial hub for the burgeoning citrus industry. From there it diversified into tourism, recreation and banking.
"The period from 1875 to 1895 is remembered as Orlando's Golden Era, when it became the hub of Florida's citrus industry. But the Great Freeze of 1894–95 forced many owners to give up their independent groves, thus consolidating holdings in the hands of a few "citrus barons" who shifted operations south, primarily around Lake Wales in Polk County."
Much of that is transplants which largely only move because warm weather/beaches and not much else. Weather alone is a superficial reason to move somewhere. But the long time locals from those cities are a different story. They actually root for their home teams and have more local pride. Miami's a different ballpark. Its filled more with immigrants than with transplants, and those immigrants have children that grow up in the city and give the city a more distinct identity. I never knew that many transplants in Miami. I knew plenty of people from Cuba, Colombia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and people whose parents came from there, but not as many US born people who came from up north when they were much older, so a lot of people you meet in Miami, are actually from Miami which gives it a unique distinct identity.
I don't agree when people say Miami is "not southern." Its very urban, (yet you still got the Redlands and Homestead) and it has a Latin-American vibe, but none of those things are exclusive from Southern. They just make it distinct, just like French Cajun/Creole culture has made New Orleans and southern Louisiana distinct. You can ask my fifth grade teacher, an African-American woman from Miami, if she's still alive, how Miami was back then in the 50s and 60s. Socially, no different than Atlanta was.
Thank you. Since I been on this forum, people have tried to down play Florida's Southerness. Including Miami. Maybe I'm bias speaking from the Black perspective. But most Blacks in Florida will tell you they are Southern. They listened to the same music, ate the same foods though every region has twists. Fish and grits was big in Miami as it is in Georgia and South Carolina. Miami is unique but that shouldn't take away the fact that it's in the South. Not every city in the South is the same. Just like not every city in the Midwest is the same.
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