Is St. Louis a Southern city? (Cape Girardeau, Sikeston: phone, east coast, historic)

[MOforthewin]

Originally Posted by shooter2219

Aint nothing southern about springfield. I use to date someone down there and when i lived in the ozarks it was where the nearest mall was.......safe to say ive spent alot of time there. nothing about springfield struck me as southern.



No it isnt. Its a tourist town. granted, its close to arkansas, but thats about as southern esque as i remember it. When i went there it struck me as a tourist town in the mountains......like a mini lake of the ozarks kind of thing going.

And a number of business in southern Missouri, southern quarter have southern in their name.



No but cornfields is a signature thing found mostly in the midwest. you go down south you dont see nearly as many of them. you find some in kentucky, esp btwn owensboro and henderson but they dont dominate like they do in Illinois, Indiana, half of Ohio and half of missouri. You goto rural areas in other regions of the country you dont find nearly as many cornfields as you do in the midwest. Most of the "corn belt" is midwest states.



Id say southern missouri is the transition zone. Only part of MO that struck me as southern was the bootheel.




Rolla? i used to live 15 minutes away from there. It didnt feel southern to me. Small townish? country? absolutely......but southern? nah.



meh Id say I-70 is the dividing line between the cornfields and the ozarks. when you get out by columbia jeff city some sections of I70 i literally remember seeing hills on one side flat cornfields on the other.



This is can agree on. Its not stereotypically midwest the way indiana illinois or Iowa is. but most of the state is not southern to me. keep in mind ive lived and spent time in the south. I lived in kentucky for 2 years (another state some argue isnt southern) but kentucky showed much stronger southern characteristics than most of missouri did. esp once you go south and west of Louisville and lexington. Ive spent time in tennessee, georgia alabama the carolinas part of the Mississippi delta and southern Virginia........Missouri didnt remind me of any of those places.

Springfield is not solid Midwestern. All because some of the people are not southern doesn't mean it doesn't have southern influence lol. Branson is 15 miles from Arkansas and the region is NOT Midwestern. Linguistics (actual studies), religion, history, etc. it does NOT line up with the Midwest. Sure there are transplants there, but overall the locals many who have ancestors that came from VA, KY, TN, NC came to the Ozarks. The southern quarter of MO you don't see many Catholic churches, but lots of southern Baptist. I was down in Branson before the tourist season started and heard a lot of upper south, Ozark southern style accents than you don't even hear a lot up in Lebanon area for example that still has some southern influence, and it's not like all these people were from 100 miles to the south because most of the plates were from MO I saw.

and I didn't say Rolla was a southern city. I said it's in the transition zone and no one on here will argue that.

Places like Ripley and Oregon counties in Missouri are pretty southern as well down in the Ozarks and I talk to someone who has family from that area and they consider themselves southern and at the local level in Oregon Co. democrats still won a lot for years because of the views towards republicans from the war of northern aggression.

Springfield is literally on the line from the end of the transition zone and start of the solidly southern areas of MO. You can't compare Springfield to Omaha or Des Moines or Fargo, or Billings MT. and tell me it's Midwest just like them. Springfield has more in common with Tulsa/NE OK, Wichita KS, and NW AR than it does with those cities.

You don't just go from southern to Midwestern as soon as you cross the state line from AR to MO and THBgunner will back me up here as well as Stlouisan another longtime poster too. The only place in Mo where there is a sharp divide like that is over in far eastern MO when you go down 55 there is very little transition zone and you go from Midwestern to southern very quick around the Jackson, MO area unlike the rest of Missouri where it is a gradual transition from Midwestern to southern.

The University PA map is considered to be one of the most accurate studies done. While not perfect like it has the line in Southeast MO about 15-20 miles too far south, it's pretty accurate. Plus MO was a border state in the civil war claimed by both sides to add to it too. Look at the map and MO certainly sticks out a lot from the Midwest. Southern Indiana is considered a transition zone as well and does not have nearly the amount of southern influence via dialect, religion etc that southern MO has.

Yep, MO is a Midwest core state like WI, ND, MN. Even though German and other ancestries have a larger percentage, English still has a number of counties where it is the main one compared to other Midwest states and Indiana.

And I never said MO was as southern as KY.





https://ohiohistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/genealogy-map.png[/img]

[EddieOlSkool]

Lexington is genteel and Louisville is mixed. The only truly Midwestern region of Kentucky is Northern Kentucky (greater Cincinnati). Even Louisville is more Southern than they are and parts of Louisville have a Rust Belt feel (South End) where parts of it have an old money, preppy Southern feel (East End).

[OpanaPointer]

It's south of me.

[MOforthewin]

Originally Posted by Bill Bidwill

Yes, St. Louis is a Southern city,

It's hot.
It's humid.
It's very slow-paced.
It's full of racial tension and associated crime.
It's well behind the curve.
Its denizens thrive on unhealthy fried food and cheap beer/liquor.
It's denizens maul the English language on a consistent basis, and get pissed off when corrected.

St. Louis is a Southern city.

It isn't a southern city in modern times. Even 150 years ago it wasn't fully southern and had influences from the northeast, but still had strong southern influences and was easily a border city still.

I won't deny there are some southern traces left though, maybe around 10-12 percent, but it's not enough to include it in the transition zone which starts just to the south of there.

Now if St. Louis was more like Cape Girardeau or Springfield, MO there would be a much stronger argument that it leans more southern but it's nothing like those two cities.

I think we can put the debate to rest. Modern times St. Louis isn't a southern city. The stronger debate is how much southern influence does Missouri have. A state that is 50 percent Midwestern 25 percent transition zone mix and about 25 percent of the state truly is pure southern.

Missouri is a unique state which can be Midwestern or Dixie within a short drive within the state.

It's hot and humid in the summer, but the average high at the max is only 89 degrees. I will say in college I had a professor for a summer class who was from Iowa and he said about Missouri in general is a lot different feeling than Iowa. He said the pace in Missouri seemed slower, and that it has the bible belt feel that he didn't have in Iowa.

Kentucky overall is a Southern state! Although it has more northern influence that some other southern states due to it being so far north and when people think of the south they think deep south, not upper south so much.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by Bill Bidwill

Yes, St. Louis is a Southern city,

It's hot.
It's humid.
It's very slow-paced.
It's full of racial tension and associated crime.
It's well behind the curve.
Its denizens thrive on unhealthy fried food and cheap beer/liquor.
It's denizens maul the English language on a consistent basis, and get pissed off when corrected.

St. Louis is a Southern city.

Cincinnati has those same traits and who thinks of that as a Southern city?

Racial tension exists in Chicago. They Southern?

Do you have stats about how apparently fried food and liquor are not seen in the North?

Speaking of mauling the English language, it happens in Chicago, too. Do you even know what Southern culture is?

A lot of what you said could also apply to San Antonio.

[shooter2219]

Originally Posted by Bill Bidwill

Yes, St. Louis is a Southern city,

It's hot.
It's humid.
It's very slow-paced.
It's full of racial tension and associated crime.
It's well behind the curve.
Its denizens thrive on unhealthy fried food and cheap beer/liquor.
It's denizens maul the English language on a consistent basis, and get pissed off when corrected.

St. Louis is a Southern city.

alot of midwestern and even some east coast cities have those same qualities........I havent been to a city in the midwest that feels southern.......the absolute closest to southern ive experienced in the midwest is the bootheel and far southern IL WAAAY down by Cairo. most of the midwest any trace of southern ive seen or heard is usually from the local blacks in the area who migrated from the deep south and never lost their accents (which is common throughout the midwest)

[U146]

Originally Posted by shooter2219

St Louis is firmly midwest. old industrial town thats seen better days, lower cost of living than the coasts, only time u see traffic is during rush hour and construction. Only thing southern about St Louis is the citys large black community, most of whom migrated up there from Mississippi memphis and arkansas. its not even on the border of the south for gods sake! you drive west on I 70 east on I 70 north on I 55 or local state roads all you see is cornfields, a heavily midwestern characteristic. I lived in the ozarks for a year. its not really southern. just hillbilly country smack in the midwest lol. Alot of the local business signs even say MIDWEST trucking, plumbing, etc.....at most you go south on I55 from 270 to about jackson MO itll remind you of kentucky with all those rolling hills.......North of I70 all across the state is FIRMLY midwestern bc its all cornfields. the ozarks is just midwest with hills and mountains. Springfield/Joplin area it turns into prairie.....at most it might remind you of eastern oklahoma....the bootheel is probably the most southernesque part of the state ill give you that..... im from the east coast and i can tell you.....theres nothing east coast like about St Louis......

Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee all have black populations equally as large as St. Louis.

[elkotronics]

You could no doubt add Kansas City to the above list, too.

[U146]

Originally Posted by Bill Bidwill

Yes, St. Louis is a Southern city,

It's hot.
It's humid.
It's very slow-paced.
It's full of racial tension and associated crime.
It's well behind the curve.
Its denizens thrive on unhealthy fried food and cheap beer/liquor.
It's denizens maul the English language on a consistent basis, and get pissed off when corrected.

St. Louis is a Southern city.

Lots of other Midwest cities are hot and humid as well. Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, etc. Racial tension and crime is present in all Midwestern cities. Many Midwestern Rust Belt cities like St. Louis such as Detroit and Cleveland are also behind the curve. Beer and liquor are all over the Midwest. Fried food is no longer a Southern thing. And I don't get the mauling of the English language...the younger generations in St. Louis speak the General American accent found in Iowa with the exception of African Americans. The older generations speak with the traditional St. Louis accent, which is pretty darn close to General American with a few unique quirks. So in essence, your reasons for St. Louis being Southern are flawed.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by U146

Lots of other Midwest cities are hot and humid as well. Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, etc. Racial tension and crime is present in all Midwestern cities. Many Midwestern Rust Belt cities like St. Louis such as Detroit and Cleveland are also behind the curve. Beer and liquor are all over the Midwest. Fried food is no longer a Southern thing. And I don't get the mauling of the English language...the younger generations in St. Louis speak the General American accent found in Iowa with the exception of African Americans. The older generations speak with the traditional St. Louis accent, which is pretty darn close to General American with a few unique quirks. So in essence, your reasons for St. Louis being Southern are flawed.

Agree with everything except that the old STL accent is not General American but in fact Chicago influenced. Also with weirder almost Irish quirks.

Can't comment on young STL accent however.