Either You’re In, Or You’re Out
I woke up thinking a LONG post in my head about the responses New Englanders have been giving me when I say I’m moving to North Carolina. It’s not dissimilar from the response I get from Southerners about living in New England. The stereotypes are fierce, strongly held, and mostly complete garbage. Division between groups is a human phenomenon, not a Southern one. Granted, the South has a history of slavery. There is certainly racism in the South, but there is also racism in the North, usually in the form of colorblindness (“Oh I don’t see color. Everyone is exactly the same to me.” Bullshit!).
As a person who has spent quite a bit of time in the South, in the North, in the Midwest, and some time in England, I can make a few statements based on my experience:
- People who haven’t moved around much tend to think of people like them as normal and others as “weird”
- People who live in places with low population density seem to have an intense dislike/fear of those unlike them
- No matter where I have lived, I have always found a group of intelligent and thoughtful like-minded people (although I have never spent much time in suburbs or rural areas)
- People who live inside city limits are more like me than people who live outside of city limits, so people in Boston have much more in common with people in Atlanta than with people who live in the suburbs outside of Boston. I think that “city folk” are quite similar with regards to politics, education, and habits no matter where that city is. To me, the self-selection of where you live in terms of city/suburb/town/neighborhood/rural is the best predictor of your lifestyle, not whether you pick north or south or east or west
- Oftentimes people in cities have terrible stereotypes, just as bad as anyone anywhere else. You should hear some of the things I’ve heard people in SF say about the rest of the country
- White flight happens in every city
One last thing, of all the cities I’ve lived in, I find Metro Boston to be the most internally divided, probably because of its historical division of towns. Many other cities I’ve spent time in (Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Atlanta, London, Memphis) are more divided up by race, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status. To me, Boston is more homogenous, so the divisions are more about geographical borders than about real differences in people – although I’m sure most Bostonians would disagree.
Comment by Abby's mom
November 17, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
I’m the first to admit what a city snob I am, but having lived in a rural area for 2 1/2 years now, I can attest to the fact that intelligent and thoughtful like-minded people exist here as well, but in proportionately smaller numbers. AND, the city has it’s fair share of dumb unthoughtful people with whom I disagree on many things.