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Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasReb
For those who have not seen it, here is the study again...as well as a "press release" giving a summation of it. This survey took place over a time-frame of 7 years, involving 14 individual ones (it was done bi-annually), and questioned some 17,000 respondents.
This is just my opinion, of course, but I honestly think this study, which defines "The South" by where a majority of residents consider themselves to live in the South and personally think of themselves as Southerners, is just about the best way to "define" its boundaries (if such a thing is possible at all).
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WHERE IS THE SOUTH?
The South has been defined by a great many characteristics, but one of the most interesting definitions is where people believe that they are in the South. A related definition is where the residents consider themselves to be southerners, although this is obviously affected by the presence of non-southern migrants.
Until recently we did not have the data to answer the question of where either of those conditions is met. Since 1992, however, 14 twice-yearly Southern Focus Polls conducted by the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have asked respondents from the 11 former Confederate states, Kentucky, and Oklahoma "Just for the record, would you say that your community is in the South, or not?" Starting with the third of the series, the same question was asked of smaller samples of respondents from West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Missouri (all except Missouri included in the Bureau of the Census's "South"). Respondents from the 13 southern states were also asked "Do you consider yourself a Southerner, or not?," while starting with the second survey those from other states were asked "Do you consider yourself or anyone in your family a Southerner?," and if so, whether they considered themselves to be Southerners.
It is clear from these data that if the point is to isolate southerners for study or to compare them to other Americans the definition of the South employed by the Southern Focus Poll (and, incidentally, by the Gallup Organization) makes sense, while the Bureau of the Census definiton does not. We already knew that, of course, but it's good to be able to document it.
--John Shelton Reed
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Percent who say their community is in the South (percentage base in parentheses)
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
2,709 posts, read 5,094,873 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB
If you want to talk about border states, lets not act like those states are the same statewide. For example:
Missouri isn't a southern state, it's midwestern overall. However, the bootheel is 100% part of the Mid-South.
Virgina is a southern state. However, Northern Virgina near D.C. is very aligned with the Mid-Atlantic.
If you feel like you can group border states completely into one category or another, good luck to you because you have an uphill argument to make. A general grouping is fine, just don't act like there aren't exceptions to the rule. I could make an argument for extreme southern Illinois as part of the south (and a damn good argument I might add). Does that make Illnois a southern state? Hell no it doesn't.
100% agreement. Just because a state doesn't lean 100% towards the region that it's grouped in doesn't mean you still can't generalize it. My take is that unless we truly have a 50-50 argument, it's still possible to categorize something in general. All it takes is 51-49 to make a general grouping IMHO. Is that close? Yes, very...but still enough to conclusively lean one way or the other.
The best way to determine whether or not a city is southern is by taking a look at the locals. Not how transient the place is becoming or has already become.
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KodeBlue
The best way to determine whether or not a city is southern is by taking a look at the locals. Not how transient the place is becoming or has already become.
I considered the locals in every single state in question here. Talking to locals from before the Civil War is pretty tough to do, but each state by my criteria is also based on the local natives that are of a reasonable age. Generally, the older the local is, the more reliable of a representation I consider them to be. Florida is the south to me for this very reason....Florida experienced such a massive influx of Northerners and Latinos that they have essentially diluted the state's traditional Southern culture. And there is no other reason for Florida to be acting the way it acts except for these migrants...Florida is too far away from other states for locals to naturally have Northern leanings, and while it is close Latin America, it is still part of the United States. Florida legitimately seceded in the Civil War and was heavily Southern well into the latter-half of the 20th century. I still consider Florida southern in any case, because less than half a century isn't nearly enough to completely phase out its underlying culture...you can still find many locals around all of Florida who are as Southern as anyone in Georgia. However, I see Florida in the long run ultimately losing its Southern identity as long as the tourist industry flourishes, the natives of the Baby Boomers and Greatest Generations begin dying out, more retirees from out of state continue settling in there, and more Latin immigration continues takes place. Florida has become so weakly influenced by Southern culture that it no longer makes sense to call it part of the Deep South, which it once very much was.
100% agreement. Just because a state doesn't lean 100% towards the region that it's grouped in doesn't mean you still can't generalize it. My take is that unless we truly have a 50-50 argument, it's still possible to categorize something in general. All it takes is 51-49 to make a general grouping IMHO. Is that close? Yes, very...but still enough to conclusively lean one way or the other.
I'm originally from Southeast Missouri and I consider myself nothing but southern. However I realize that much of the Missouri's people are quite midwestern. Doesn't bother me a bit but I can honestly say when push comes to shove that I don't have much in common with most people from Missouri, especially the two major urban areas of the state. I have more in common with people from Western Kentucky and Northwest Tennessee than probably 90% of the people from Missouri.
I have seen this study posted before, and I think this is about as definitive an answer as we can come up with.
It pretty much mirrors my expectations, except I'm a little surprised at how many Oklahomans say they are southern and their community is in the south. Everything else seems about where I would have guessed.
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
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Quote:
Originally Posted by po-boy
I have seen this study posted before, and I think this is about as definitive an answer as we can come up with.
It pretty much mirrors my expectations, except I'm a little surprised at how many Oklahomans say they are southern and their community is in the south. Everything else seems about where I would have guessed.
I for one was sort of shocked about West Virginia having only a 25% identification rate. i can certainly say that except for the northern and eastern panhandles, it's pretty tough for me to associate WV with anything but the South. Only 84 were interviewed, so maybe a bigger sampling would have given us something else. But I guess WV's status in the Civil War could have aided in the percentages. That was the only state in which I would do a recount if I had to.
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
2,709 posts, read 5,094,873 times
Reputation: 1028
Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB
I'm originally from Southeast Missouri and I consider myself nothing but southern. However I realize that much of the Missouri's people are quite midwestern. Doesn't bother me a bit but I can honestly say when push comes to shove that I don't have much in common with most people from Missouri, especially the two major urban areas of the state. I have more in common with people from Western Kentucky and Northwest Tennessee than probably 90% of the people from Missouri.
Well, one thing we do have in common is that we agree and appear to have similar points of view on many things and are from the same state. So even if we don't have much culturally in common, I still consider you one of the better friends I've met on here.
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