Do you consider Virginia to be part of "The South"? (Mount Vernon: station, rated)

[DJRR]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

Northern Virginia, no-brainer different from the rest of Virginia.

Tidewater (my native stomping gorund), not so fast. Tidewater is laid-back blue-collar like the rest of VA. Has a slave/confederate history like Richmond.

Yeah, I guess it depends on how you define it. Williamsburg is filling up with retired Yankees and I believe the huge military presence in Norfolk is quite different culturally. Combined with the growing urbanization in Norfolk/Hampton/Newport News it feels more like NoVa did 30 years ago. The more rural areas of Chesapeake, Smithfield etc. are probably little different from Danville, Roanoke, etc.

[VAsouthern]

Most of Virginia is southern culturally; the only areas that I noticed to lack southern qualities are northern VA and eastern Hampton Roads. Also, no one can ignore history when defining the culture of a state. Virginia was part of the Southern Colonies during the Colonial period, and it was part of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Richmond, VA was also the capital of the CSA the longest.

Climatically, Virginia is very diverse. Northern Virginia has cold snowy winters and humid relatively hot summers. Southeastern Virginia has hot humid summers and mild winters.

The plant life is also diverse; southeastern Virginia has distinctively southern plant life such as longleaf pine, live oak, bald cypress, southern magnolia, Spanish moss, loblolly pine, water tupelo, and more. Since this is the area where I was raised I can't believe it when people question whether Virginia is southern or not; I've always thought it was obvious that Virginia is southern.
However; the mountainous areas of Virginia have plant life such as eastern white pine, red spruce, eastern hemlock, and Fraser fir (even though it is a fir, it is a southern fir native to only the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).

Virginia will always be southern in my book.

[back2dc]

Originally Posted by VAsouthern

Most of Virginia is southern culturally; the only areas that I noticed to lack southern qualities are northern VA and eastern Hampton Roads. Also, no one can ignore history when defining the culture of a state. Virginia was part of the Southern Colonies during the Colonial period, and it was part of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Richmond, VA was also the capital of the CSA the longest.

Climatically, Virginia is very diverse. Northern Virginia has cold snowy winters and humid relatively hot summers. Southeastern Virginia has hot humid summers and mild winters.

The plant life is also diverse; southeastern Virginia has distinctively southern plant life such as longleaf pine, live oak, bald cypress, southern magnolia, Spanish moss, loblolly pine, water tupelo, and more. Since this is the area where I was raised I can't believe it when people question whether Virginia is southern or not; I've always thought it was obvious that Virginia is southern.
However; the mountainous areas of Virginia have plant life such as eastern white pine, red spruce, eastern hemlock, and Fraser fir (even though it is a fir, it is a southern fir native to only the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).

Virginia will always be southern in my book.

Um yeah. Not! Is this VASinger back again reminiscing about the 1800s again?

[VAsouthern]

Originally Posted by back2dc

Um yeah. Not! Is this VASinger back again reminiscing about the 1800s again?

Excuse me? I am not VASinger, who ever that may be; could you be more ignorant? How is anything I said not true? Reminiscing about the 1800s? I stated facts from different periods in Virginia's history and I don't remember stating that those were the good times.

[Carlingtonian]

No, it's part of the Northeast! Where have you been?

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

No, it's part of the Northeast! Where have you been?

Must be all the Irish and Italian neighborhoods here.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Must be all the Irish and Italian neighborhoods here.

sigh. So my unitarian friend with the anglo-saxon name who lived in Summit New Jersey, was less northeastern than I was despite her ancestors probably having been in the northeast when my ancestors were hiding from Cossacks?

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by brooklynborndad

sigh. So my unitarian friend with the anglo-saxon name who lived in Summit New Jersey, was less northeastern than I was despite her ancestors probably having been in the northeast when my ancestors were hiding from Cossacks?

Let's just say that if yours and other ethnic groups hadn't arrived during the 19th and 20th centuries, NJ wouldn't be as different from VA as it is.

[Old Tired Man]

Northern VA people have all the southern charm of the nice folks in Newark NJ.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Let's just say that if yours and other ethnic groups hadn't arrived during the 19th and 20th centuries, NJ wouldn't be as different from VA as it is.

Maybe. If religion and ethnicity trump everything else. In some ways the cultural ideals of conservative, churchgoing, south Italians of recent peasant origin were MORE similar to Va than the ideals of some of the New England origin anglo-saxons in the NYC area. But the anglo-saxons certainly looked more like (white) virginians than South Italians did, and were more similar in other ways.

My point is that "northeasternness" is not defined by late 19th c immigration. Thats only one element in the history and character of the northeast, one that did not impact all parts of the northeast equally.

The things that make NoVa unnortheastern are more its large numbers of US born folks of non-northeastern origin (though I wonder which group of northerners we really have more of - northeasterners, midwesterners, or far westerners - I wont go by my own experiences, as my location inside the beltway, and the number of Jews in my social circle, distorts things) and - the extent to which its economic, travel and other ties are as much to the south as to the northeast. IE are Va people and companies more tied (on a day to day basis, not by origin) to Charlotte, Raleigh, Hampton Roads, etc than to Baltimore, Philly and NYC?

Richmond as the state capital of course commands our attention a great deal. Im not sure how much that should be weighted as a factor.