Most of the Southern transplants whom I know relocated to New York for career and educational opportunities.
One needed a change. He said that he grew up near a swamp in Texas near Arkansas and almost never wore shoes as a boy. He might have been kidding, but I'm not sure. He has been here for about a dozen years.
Another man moved to NY from Mississippi because he fell in love with a New Yorker. He said that a Southern gentleman will do anything to keep a woman he loves happy. I think that this was the best reason.