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I don't understand why the D.C. Metro is so damn expensive.
The weather is aweful more often than not (being oppressively hot in the summer and a humid cold (bone-chilling) in the winter.
Horrid crime rates throughout
Poverty all over the place.
Why is Maryland classified as a Southern state when it closer to Canada than Florida, and has northern culture?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge Terror
For your information while Maryland is technically a Southern state, it is not culturally or politically Southern. According to Wikipedia, President Bush won all the Southern States in both elections of 2000 and 2004 except for Maryland if you consider it "Southern" according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Why is Maryland still considered to be a Southern state by the U.S. Census Bureau? Maryland is a lot closer to Canada than Florida. Politically it is a liberal, Democratic state that is more similar in voting patterns to states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts than it is to Georgia, North Carolina, or Alabama. Most people in Maryland don't speak with Southern accents, and I know that from a previous job that I had where I made phone calls and Maryland was in my calling region. The winter weather is not extreme but occasionally the state gets big snowstorms, even in Baltimore and the D.C. suburbs. Even some Baltimore Orioles games have been snowed out at some time in the past (including, as I recall, the first game of the 1979 World Series).
It seems like most of the things I have described about Maryland today make it a Northern state, not a Southern state. So why is it still classified as a Southern state?
Not to mention it is quite likely that Maryland will get gay marriages via the Court of Appeals soon enough. And people in Maryland speak with Philadelphia accents.
I think travel agencies and some state gov't officials like to market Maryland as a Southern state to appeal to New Yorkers such as myself, and others from the "upper-North." As a New Yorker though I must say there's little cultural difference between New York and Baltimore, except that Baltimore has both sorts of crabs.
Historically MD has been considered a border state, that is a state that contains elements of both Northern and Southern culture. MD allowed slavery until the Civil War and the tobacco based plantation agriculture system was the dominant land use in much of the state. As a kind of generalization, Southern MD and the Eastern Shore favored seccession and the Northern and Western part of state wanted to stay in the union. Of course the issue was taken out of the state's hands once federal troops from other states occupied the state and martial law was declared.
These days the influx of people to the DC and Baltimore regions has definitely swung the balance of the population into the "northern" cultural realm. Large parts of the state (large in land area, a minority in statewide population) are still very southern in their dialect, culture, outlook, etc. Specifically rural Southern MD, the lower Eastern Short, and Western Maryland (I think more now even than back in the day) contain large amounts of people that still proudly identify as Southerners.
For a good discussion on the issue, go to Wikipedia, search Southern USA, go the discussion page, then click on archives. There is a wealth of sources here that give evidence of Maryland's "Southerness" Also, inspite of what a previous poster claimed, Wikipedia identifies Maryland as a state that is "Occasionally/Sometimes" considered Southern.
Not to mention it is quite likely that Maryland will get gay marriages via the Court of Appeals soon enough. And people in Maryland speak with Philadelphia accents.
I think travel agencies and some state gov't officials like to market Maryland as a Southern state to appeal to New Yorkers such as myself, and others from the "upper-North." As a New Yorker though I must say there's little cultural difference between New York and Baltimore, except that Baltimore has both sorts of crabs.
There's a HUGE difference between the MD and Baltimore accents and the Philly accent to my ears at least.
I'm concerned when reading some of the posts of the people in this forum because I have experience with living in the South, and in fact, in South Carolina. What I'm going to say has some positive and negative things about Maryland, and it has positive and negative things about South Carolina too.
Wow, that was a great post!
I haven't been too happy with MD & DC lately, but your post made me appreciate MD a little more. I probably would be miserable in SC if everything you've described about it is accurate.
Why is Maryland still considered to be a Southern state by the U.S. Census Bureau? Maryland is a lot closer to Canada than Florida. Politically it is a liberal, Democratic state that is more similar in voting patterns to states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts than it is to Georgia, North Carolina, or Alabama. Most people in Maryland don't speak with Southern accents, and I know that from a previous job that I had where I made phone calls and Maryland was in my calling region. The winter weather is not extreme but occasionally the state gets big snowstorms, even in Baltimore and the D.C. suburbs. Even some Baltimore Orioles games have been snowed out at some time in the past (including, as I recall, the first game of the 1979 World Series).
It seems like most of the things I have described about Maryland today make it a Northern state, not a Southern state. So why is it still classified as a Southern state?
The only reason Maryland is considered a Southern State is the Mason-Dixon Line.
Outside of that, it's not.
When looking geographically one will find West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania are considered Mid-Atlantic. Of course, Virginia has an awful time with that since Richmond was the second capital of the Confederacy, however today in 2007 I look at it as:
I'm concerned when reading some of the posts of the people in this forum because I have experience with living in the South, and in fact, in South Carolina. What I'm going to say has some positive and negative things about Maryland, and it has positive and negative things about South Carolina too.
First, I am a native Marylander. I am from Montgomery County and have also resided in Frederick County. I attend school in Baltimore and love living where I do, but could see myself in Baltimore or other parts of the beautiful state too.
For four years, I lived in Charleston, SC to attend college. I moved there with the best of intentions, being totally and completely open to the atmosphere, the people, and not trying to force my views (or what I thought were my views) on the people there... after all, it's their home, right? I also spent a LOT of time in Lancaster County (below Charlotte) and in Horry County (Myrtle Beach) and I have a lot of experience and dealings with the people in South Carolina. My girlfriend's Dad owns a traveling food service business so I traveled to most of the counties in the state assisting him on our weekend ventures, so I have a perspective on the state.
I consider myself to be a friendly person who looks out for others, and I found this type of people to exist in Montgomery County, MD, but also in Charleston County, SC as well. While some people think that people there are friendlier, there is also something sacred about being able to go to a grocery store on a Sunday morning in your sweatpants and your hair messed up from sleeping on the right side on the pillow all night and not having to see someone that you know... who will just so happen to comment without fail (and I mean, without fail) about your hair and to inquire as to why you're not in Church. Well, I'm not in Church because I had a study group last night that went until 1 AM, but what I'm perplexed about is why you're not at Church but you're still grilling me about why I'm not there. This happened to me in MD, but it happend MUCH MORE in Charleston... and it happend to me MUCH MORE in the small towns of Lancaster County than it did in Charleston... nice people, but annoying when you need to get in and get out, which doesn't happen that often...
The culture there is very concerned with religion, and if you're an athiest, it's not the place for you. I consider myself to be a Christian and I have strong beliefs, but I found it rather distressting, distasteful and rude for people to constantly ask me if I was "saved" and if my "yankee-ness" made me a Christian or not. While not every person has this "backwards, limited and blinded" thinking, my experience (and the experience of my girlfriend, who is from there and now lives with me here - THANK GOD :P, reports) is that people just consider you to be a Christian without realizing that there are other important and influential religions that people follow... like Judiasm. I went looking for a Catholic Church one day and there were TWO within the vicinity of where I was living, and I didn't live "far out". If you're going to live here, you're going to have to accept that the Bible is used as the "moral compass" for the residents and political and economic decesions there... that's just the way it is. While it's not always right, and it's been used before to make African Americans less of a person, it is still being used to further someone's politcal agenda... for better or for worse.
Guns are rampant in South Carolina. I found that many parts of the state where crime was so bad, most of the people who are REPUBLICANS are tired of all the shooting and being afraid to walk out to get their mail or newspaper at night, so they don't want as many guns on the streets. So, many people there are anti-guns and many people in Maryland are pro-guns. I think the problem is only 50% guns, the other 50% is the people that misuse them! The solution should not be no control, but the solution should not be full control either! My Dad and his friends and most of my family gather during NASCAR season and watch the races in Montgomery County, Maryland... and dare I say that some of them are in Bethesda?
In terms of the traffic, I lived in the north area of Charleston and worked downtown and it took me 40 minutes to commute the 20 miles each morning and it was worse in the evenings, not to mention when it rained (which it did pretty much everyday from March until October), then the commute could easily turn into 60 minutes... and don't get me started on the I-526 and I-26 merge... Traffic in Maryland is bad, but we've got seven lanes coming up I-270 and they've got three (or in some places, two) lanes going up and down I-26... the population in the county is around 350,000 now, so we can say that the # of lanes in terms of the population is about the same. Local roads are just as bad, and on many of them you find the speed limit to be 25 MPH but you're only going 15, which may sound "relaxed" and "nice" until you find yourself with a kidney stone on a windy road where the pickup truck in front of you with no bumper or hood (no joke) and the confederate flag bumper sticker proclaiming "If I had known this, I would have picked my own cotton" driving 10 under in front of you, it becomes a problem. It was actually really annoying because then at the stoplight 5 miles down the road, he has the nerve to tell me "we don't drive like that around here"... well Mr., I've got a da** kidney stone and I needed you to move out of my way! I guess being in pain made me a Yankee... whatever. The roads in Maryland are WAY better than those in many (but not all) parts of South Carolina. Then again, those taxes some people mentioned... sometimes if you don't want potholes and crappy roads, you have to PAY FOR THEM. God doesn't drop asphalt out of the sky, you know! Perhaps the reason why we have better (and smoother) roads here in MD is because people don't ***** and compain about paying for them... and even then, there was a $50 fee on my girlfriend's vehicle property taxes last year for road work... and they're still horrible! At least our liberal government collects the taxes and fixes the roads... there they collected the fees but still had terrible roads! Go figure!
Then there's the good 'ol Southern boys, who, as long as you're white, you would be welcomed around... but don't mention your friend Treyvonne, and then you're all of a sudden out of the country club... because at that point you're no longer white and your African American friend all of a sudden becomes the "N word" and you're just another Yankee invading their territory. I kid you not, but I had several of my white friends (whom I never noticed were white until they pointed out the following) approach me when I was talking to my African American friends and whisper in my ear "you know they're black, right"? No, I didn't, but thanks for alerting me to that... and now that I know, I still feel the same way about them. I'm not saying that they're all racist, because they're not... my girlfriend is TOTALLY not that way, but I think it's more common there. Places in New England are pretty bad in terms of being "racist", and those people aren't any differnt than those in the South. There will be people like that no matter where you go. Some people think that in the North it's move covert, but I also see a lot more inter-racial dating going on and more inter-racial play on the streetcorners here and in the parks. Neighborhoods are also more integrated here and it just seems that there's more of a comingled spirit here as compared to there. I found many of my neighbors in Charleston to be concerned that the "neighborhood was getting darker" as also being unfriendly grouchy people that don't like change and didn't like Yankees either. I found it more difficult to make friends there and to get to know my neighbors than I ever had here... and I was trying, harder at times than others, but I definatley didn't go by day to day without looking up, smiling, holding the door for others, and being friendly in general. Again, as with everything, not all people are opposed to change and I found several people who were ready and willing to move out of the area because they wanted to see some things change after living there their whole lives, so there ARE people moving both directions! I do think that it's slowly changing, perhaps not as fast as it should be, but I do see changes being made... there's just a long way to go (as evidenced in the bumper sticker - no matter what you think about the confederate flag - you have to realzie that people use it in that manner and regardless of the flag, the statement itself is ABSURD, RICICULOUS and PETTY).
As for the taxes, since Maryland has more income tax brackets (which makes the system FAIRER, which I know a lot of people dislike because they're in the upper brackets...), my income taxes are less here than they were in South Carolina. Also, the sales tax is 5% across the state here, whereas the state BASE sales tax there is 6% (was 5% until recently) and counties can add as much as 2% additional on to that (like Dorchester County, where the sales tax is now 8%). Property taxes are more here, but homes are also worth more here, so the difference can be accounted for. Car insurance, home or renters insurance is MUCH less here (both - even in Montgomery County with MORE coverage - are less, and I'm under 25, single and a white male), and flood insurance is actually affordable here. And no thanks to South Carolina Electric and Gas, our power rates are .01 less here, and that was after the "70% hike"! EEK! I've also enjoyed not having to write a $400 check for a 1999 Ford sedan in property taxes each year, not to mention the fact that there are NO inspections to ensure the safety of vehicles on the roads! South Carolina has the HIGHEST fatality rate on the interstates in the nation, and about 35% of the people in the state don't wear seatbelts! It's no wonder why so many people die each year, because they're thrown out of their cars instead of being inside them to survive (most of) the crash(es). And the natives don't drive cautiously, either...
Cost of living is something that people talk about a lot. Sure our cost of living is 40% higher than the national average, but our incomes are also close to 40% higher than the national average too. Our finances here are BETTER with ONE LESS PERSON WORKING, and we live in the heart of the most expensive county to live in Maryland... go figure. When we left Charleston, our rent was close to $800 per month for this little dinky apartment in the middle of the ghetto where people got shot up on the block one a week and sometimes more than that, and now we pay $300 more a month in a MUCH safer ara and in a county where the homicide rate (VIOLENT CRIME here) is less than 12 people per year. In places like Little Rock, Shreveport, Nashville, etc..., those rates would be A GIFT if it were for a QUARTER of a year! Even people talk about Prince George's county, and theirs is still WAY lower than the VIOLENT crime rates in South Carolina!
And if South Carolina's economy is so great, then why is the states unemployment rate nearing 10% with the state closing in on being in the top 5 of the states with the most foreclosures? Where my girlfriend is from, they just laid off 150,000 people from the plant and the popuation in the local areas is struggling to make it on nothing. Interestingly enough, one of those companies was moving people to the Baltimore region with a "partner" company so that they could lead better lives... and these are native, die-hard South Carolinians who have been laid off and are going elsewhere so that they can survive. Not everyone lives near a huge condo or hotel on the Ocean or by the BMW factory. From those views, it looks like the economy is doing well... but there's a lot more state than that and the picture is grim.
And speaking of beaches, I must say that South Carolina has some of the world's FINEST beaches! From Horry all the way down through Beaufort county, the beaches are PRISTINE! I would reccomend a beach in SC over a beach in NC or GA ANY DAY, and that's from a person who really could care less if he ever LIVED in South Carolina again... that's how nice the beaches are. And I have to say... most people visit SC for that very reason. Myrtle Beach is also a tourist trap. For those of you who like your taxes "low" (which they really aren't... and tax-regressive, I might add), you should thank the MILLIONS of visitors each year that come into SC (many from the DC and Baltimore region) and bring BILLIONS of tax dollars. If they stopped coming, that state would be in financial ruins and shambles and they would NOT know what to do with themselves! My personal favorite is Sullivans Island and Folly Beach, but they are all good!
So, while I may sound like I hate the state, it just wasn't a good experience for four years... although I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I learned a lot about myself and other people and I realized that not all people live the same way that I do... for better or for worse... but I decided that I was better suited for living here because it was REALLY uncomfortable to have Asian, African American and Hispanic friends and be ridiculed for it... we're all people, we all smile in the same language, and we're all out for the same thing... we all want a better lives for our next generations... and here I can be myself without being called a Yankee all the time or being asked why I don't have an accent... I just don't. My girlfriend LOVES it here and nobody makes fun of her accent (which she thought they would)... instead, they love it and they love her. We have friends from all races, cultures, religions, walks of life, and we love it here... she doesn't want to return because of the lack of good, sustainable, well-paying and descent jobs, but also because of the climate for change and diversity... and this coming from a white Republican who saw that those ways weren't necessarily the best ways to go about fixing a long-overdue problem... but I guess if that doesn't matter to you than you might be able to stand it... but for people who want us all to be people on the inside, we're good here.
Their is no way that guns are 50 percent of the problem Can you name one incident where the gun fired itself or held up a store by itself. Most of your post was pretty accurate until the gun part. I hope you are joking. As far as the murder rate D.C. bordering mont. county has had the highest murder rate in the country for a while not now but for years and years.
2. Maryland has one of the highest population density in the United States with 542 people per square mile.
3. Rude People.
4. Congested Roads which fuels Road Rage.
5. There's no great in-state rivalry for College Football. (We're missing out from such matchups other states have like Texas vs. Texas A & M, Alabama vs. Auburn, South Carolina vs. Clemson, and many more.)
6. Too many D.C. Elites lives in Maryland. They are disconnected from reality.
7. High Taxes
8. High rate of Crime in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, enough said.
9. The Tyranny of Montgomery County where they regulate everything to death. (No smoking in any of restaurants, bars, despite it is a private establishment and should be free from government intrusion)
10. One Party Machine in the State where they control virtually everything in the State.
If you live in the State of Maryland and you have a brain. Get out! Now I'm living in the American South, in the Great State of South Carolina.
SC is not in any way as good or even close to being as good as Md. Not in any way. One of the highest povert rates in the country very high unemployment rate . You must be joking
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Why is Maryland classified as a Southern state when it closer to Canada than Florida, and has northern culture?
, so I have a perspective on the state.
