Now you're making assumptions. I never said VA as a whole - just most of NoVa (I say most because PW county is part of NoVa but I and many others feel like NoVa ends at the FFX county line). I guess I should just cave and call it my opinion but whatever.... :rolleyes:

I asked a question. You said you liked the pic that I posted and that you aren't alone in your beliefs. The pic does not include VA as a southern state.

You Chicago people piss me off when you do that ;)

Also Southern Illinois is not "anything South of I80" for the record.

"My beliefs" and me liking your picture do not mean the same thing, for the record.

Now you've clarified. Good job.

We're mid-atlantic. We have aspects of Northern and Southern culture, but I'd say it's still more Northern than Southern, maybe like 60%-40%. I agree that the people who have lived in the DC area for generations are more Southern, but with the current cultural makeup, I can't say that Maryland/DC/NoVa are Southern. I'll make two lists:

Northern:
Maryland and DC didn't secede
very liberal---this is A LOT of what in my mind makes us more northern.
Educational performance
Low teen birth rate
not as religious---of the ones who are, most are Catholic, and Jews are a very prominent minority
fast pace of life
lots of transplants
lots of immigrants
diversity
we don't deep fry everything under the sun and we don't automatically load our iced tea with sugar
We don't have a southern accent
MoCo and Baltimore

Southern:
We are scared little bitches when it snows/we don't know how to drive in it
Maryland and Virginia were slave states, Virginia seceded
Our bagels do not compare to the ones in New York
We don't have the same accent that any other areas of the northeast have
We identify ourselves by counties and do not have townships
We are south of some stupid random line that allegedly divides north and south
Our weather is disgustingly hot

ETA: Of course there are a lot of "yes but..."s on these lists. There is no exact cultural line. I'll agree that 50 years ago the DC area probably identified as more Southern than Northern, but I think if you ask most residents TODAY, they'd identify as more Northern than Southern.

I do -- people who remember when it operated under Jim Crow. There was (and still is) segregation of a different kind in Northern and Western cities, of course. But by the 1950s, legally separated black and white schools were a Southern thing. There was and still is a meaningful regional difference between DC and its closest neighbors to the north, like Philadelphia.

So, Southern compared to Mobile? Heck no. But Southern in its own way, yes.
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Ok, I would agree to this.

"You Chicago people?"

SRSLY?

I object.

Since this is so fun. :p I generally agree with violetpretty regarding the different influences and that it is also generational.

These are interesting northern qualifiers when you consider what education and teenage pregnancy are correlated with.

These things would make a number of southern cities "northern." :)

When people moved from NY, and other parts of the north, to VA and other parts of the south decades ago, they brought population shifts and cultural influences with them. Examples include when D.C., Charlotte, and ATL became "Chocolate Cities" in the 80s and 90s. That didn't make these southern areas nonsouthern nor did it make them "kinda northern." It made them southern cities that were influenced by transplants.

In my opinion, there isn't A southern accent. I think it depends on the area of the south and what people consider to be a southern accent. There are accents that are (stereo)typically southern, just as there are (stereo)typical northern accents that not all people born and raised in the north have.

What about Baltimore? LOL.

Hence the word majority being imperative in my statistic. :)

Such is true of any bagel outside of New York. Maybe Jersey. And that's a big maybe.

I had a pretty good laugh at this - and yes, I'm from Chicago. There are many areas of the country that border the South either geographically -- or culturally -- like parts of Missouri and Kentucky. Parts of the state may seem Northern, other parts might be much more Southern. The Mason-Dixon line becomes very arbitrary and people's personal interpretations are what matters.

I think the Grits Line is more informative nowadays. If grits are offered as a matter of course when you order eggs at the local diner (not a shabby-chic gourmet diner, like the ones that serve grits in San Francisco), you're in the South. If they don't serve grits, or if they have them but you have to ask to substitute them for hash browns, you're not in the South. By this definition, Kentucky is clearly in the South, and parts of southern Illinois and Missouri are, too.

It's impossible to imagine an authentic diner in New Jersey where grits come with everything. That's true even in Cape May, which is geographically south of the Mason-Dixon.
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This is a debate that will NEVER end.
I suggest you move this to the City Data forum.:rolleyes:

Well shoot. There are parts of Ohio that are even considered Southern. Like anything south of I-70, to some and south of Dayton to others.