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Transplants: How is life for you in the South?


Rwarky

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In the past 5 to 10 years, I've notice a great number of people have moved to the South form other parts of the country and the world. I've wandered how people from these areas felt about there new area, and how it differs from where they are originally from.

Are you from another part of the country such as the Northeast, Midwest, or elsewhere in the U.S. or the world, and have relocated to the South? What area (e.g., city, town, or region) of the South do you live? Furthermore, how has life been for you here (again, in the South) compared to where you originally come from?

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In the past 5 to 10 years, I've notice a great number of people have moved to the South form other parts of the country and the world. I've wandered how people from these areas felt about there new area, and how it differs from where they are originally from.

Are you from another part of the country such as the Northeast, Midwest, or elsewhere in the U.S. or the world, and have relocated to the South? What area (e.g., city, town, or region) of the South do you live? Furthermore, how has life been for you here (again, in the South) compared to where you originally come from?

Originally from Lancaster, PA, now living in Charlotte, NC.

Warmer weather, more bang for your buck than in the northeastern cities DC, Baltimore, Philly, New York, Boston, hence so many transplants. Moved from DC to Charlotte six years ago, and while I loved DC, it made no sense to me to pay what I had to pay to get by up there.

I have no plans of ever moving back up north.

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Some northerners I have noticed say they miss the culture they they had up north. Most northern towns have had great DT's for years while some southern ones (Raleigh, Charlotte, Norfolk to name a few)are just now beginning to come into fruition. Great idea for a thread.

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Some northerners I have noticed say they miss the culture they they had up north. Most northern towns have had great DT's for years while some southern ones (Raleigh, Charlotte, Norfolk to name a few)are just now beginning to come into fruition. Great idea for a thread.

Don't get me wrong, I love the downtowns up north and miss some of the culture, but I'm content to live in the south and watch a city grow up, especially being in the design profession myself. The amount of new development is staggering, hence I'm not going to be running out of work anytime soon.

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When I tell acquaintences from back up north that I've moved south, I always have to counter their astonishment ("what! you! Why on earth?") with a defensive 5-10min monologue about how my experience so far has been so different from my preconceived ideas about the south, which were largely based on the image Hollywood has spread - a lot of which was based on how it probablly was in the 50s and 60s.

If they are still not convinced, I get to the money aspect - comparing quality of life with respect to living standards. For what I save on real estate costs compared to NY, I can pay a hell of a lot of flights back and forth. And I DO go back once a month on average, because I need to suck up the energy and creative vibe in the streets of NY, go catch a show and do a few of the cultural things that my new local comunity can't live up to. BUT, I also think more and more often when I'm there, that I'm glad I don't live there any more.

Climate is another biggie. Mild winters and not unbearable summers. Upper 80's in NYC feels a lot worse than 100

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When I tell acquaintences from back up north that I've moved south, I always have to counter their astonishment ("what! you! Why on earth?") with a defensive 5-10min monologue about how my experience so far has been so different from my preconceived ideas about the south, which were largely based on the image Hollywood has spread - a lot of which was based on how it probablly was in the 50s and 60s.

If they are still not convinced, I get to the money aspect - comparing quality of life with respect to living standards. For what I save on real estate costs compared to NY, I can pay a hell of a lot of flights back and forth. And I DO go back once a month on average, because I need to suck up the energy and creative vibe in the streets of NY, go catch a show and do a few of the cultural things that my new local comunity can't live up to. BUT, I also think more and more often when I'm there, that I'm glad I don't live there any more.

Climate is another biggie. Mild winters and not unbearable summers. Upper 80's in NYC feels a lot worse than 100

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I did the opposite move--from south to north.

I find the pace of life, the abundance of exciting & interesting urban neighborhoods, and climate in the northeast (I actually like snow and nearby skiing) quite desirable.

The "newness" of urbanism in the south isn't a turn-on for me. I find many new urban areas to seem sterile/plastic/made-up.

I find older, more lived-in neighborhoods offer more variety of activities and retail/restaurant establishments. If I want to go to a bookstore I'd rather find an old rare book store than Borders. If I want Chinese food I want to find Chinese enclave with authentic food, not P.F. Changs or Top China Delivery. I want an authentic Kosher bakery, not the bakery section of Food Lion. And I want all of these things within walking distance or a few transit stops away. I think places that meet those demands are harder to find in many southern cities.

Yeah, the cost of real estate is lower in the south, but I'd honestly rather pay $500k (if I had it) for a small 2-BR condo in Hoboken over a 4-BR SF house on 1/2 acre in Suburbia, NC.

I like my southern hometown and enjoy hearing about the development growth going on there, but it doesn't offer the lifestyle options I prefer.

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Well i'm from Paramus, NJ and moved to Winston-Salem, NC about 4 years ago and am currently on the move to Charlotte. As somebody above mentioned, you do get more for your money down here in the south and sometimes get a better quality of life. My only complaint about somethings in the south are the humidity and "fake" people. I do realize that not everybody in the south is "fake" because I have met numerous salt of the earth people that are pleasing to be around but I have encountered many people since my move that you make friends with and then they go and talk behind your back or act like everything is peachy when everything is not. <_< But, overall I love NC and I intend to spend the rest of my life here. :)

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Well i'm from Paramus, NJ and moved to Winston-Salem, NC about 4 years ago and am currently on the move to Charlotte. As somebody above mentioned, you do get more for your money down here in the south and sometimes get a better quality of life. My only complaint about somethings in the south are the humidity and "fake" people. I do realize that not everybody in the south is "fake" because I have met numerous salt of the earth people that are pleasing to be around but I have encountered many people since my move that you make friends with and then they go and talk behind your back or act like everything is peachy when everything is not. <_< But, overall I love NC and I intend to spend the rest of my life here. :)

How long has it taken you to adjust to the different pace of life?

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For most people, most northerners relocate to the southern cities but that was not the case for me, I relocated to the country (Moore County, NC) for a good portion of my life until after high school. Now that ive been in central jersey for a little hwile, i plan on returnign back to NC to finsih out college

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  • 1 month later...

My girlfriend and I left Metro Boston after graduating college to live in Durham, NC.

Life in the south for me its ups and downs.

On the plus side, we could afford to buy a loft after only a year in the workforce. If we wanted to purchase property in the Boston area, we'd have to win the lottery.

I miss the subway and commuter rail. And a lot of the "culture" that I'm accustomed to is missing here too, but that's partially made up for with the south's own charm (e.g. fried chicken, storefront churches, redneck radio shows, etc.).

Although the mild winters are phenomenal, we're planning on heading back north within the next two years or so.

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My dad is from Brooklyn and he misses WHITE CASTLE and the culture. lol. we went up to new york last week and ate about 100 of those burgers...alot of our family up north were asking how it was down south and they were thinking about moving down here because of the slower pace of things and cheaper cost of living, etc.

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Being born in the NYC metro area but living in SC since grade school, I can appreciate the good and bad in both. I miss the culture, the pro sports, and the faster pace of a large metropolitan area. But I don't miss the traffic, the cost of living and the cold weather. Also, people in the south are friendlier to strangers.

Some of my opinions are even contradictory. I hate deep southern accents, but I lay one on in order to act like a "good old boy" in certain situations (i.e. talking to my auto mechanic). By the same token, I hear native southerners talk about "damn yankees" and roll my eyes; however, when I hear a "New Yawka" complain loudly about how backward it is here, I feel like telling her to go back home.

I do believe that many traditional Southerners resent Northerners (especially those from the Northeast and North Central States), in that their presence is somehow diluting the Southern heritage. This regionalism is a exclusive to the South; people in other parts of the country don't regard themselves as Northerners, Westerners or Easteners. The closest identification I guess would be midwesterners. To some, their "Southernness" is akin to some kind of religion. It's definitely different from anywhere else in the country, but Northern transplants have no right to move here and mock the Southern way of life without being confronted by the natives.

A few other points:

--I think race relations are better in the South than in the North; there doesn't seem to be the hostility between the races here in SC that I see in the northern cities, but that might be an urban/rural thing.

--The south is the only place where a perfect stranger will come up to you and ask you what church you go to and if you are saved. I've lived here for 25 years, and I still look at them like they are crazy (because they are). It's none of their business where I go to church. Fortunately, that overt fundamentalism has lessened a little over the years.

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John Boy & Billy :rofl:

That, and this one morning show out of Raleigh called "Bob & The Showgram." They're so sexist and racist, and they seem to have the intellect and maturity level of 10th graders.

Don't John Boy & Billy have their own BBQ sauce? Now that's something you don't get back home.

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I do believe that many traditional Southerners resent Northerners (especially those from the Northeast and North Central States), in that their presence is somehow diluting the Southern heritage. This regionalism is a exclusive to the South; people in other parts of the country don't regard themselves as Northerners, Westerners or Easteners.

That's very true. In my 22 years before moving to the south, I never called myself a "northerner." Where I lived was exactly that: it was a place where I happened to live. Sure, we're all products of our environments in some way or another, but in the south, folks are all about being from the south. It's not a place but a state of mind, a way of life. Don't believe me? Look at all the Confederate flag bumper stickers.

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That's very true. In my 22 years before moving to the south, I never called myself a "northerner." Where I lived was exactly that: it was a place where I happened to live. Sure, we're all products of our environments in some way or another, but in the south, folks are all about being from the south. It's not a place but a state of mind, a way of life. Don't believe me? Look at all the Confederate flag bumper stickers.

Ugh! Please don't remind me. That one thing about this region people would let go of.

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I do believe that many traditional Southerners resent Northerners (especially those from the Northeast and North Central States), in that their presence is somehow diluting the Southern heritage. This regionalism is a exclusive to the South; people in other parts of the country don't regard themselves as Northerners, Westerners or Easteners. The closest identification I guess would be midwesterners. To some, their "Southernness" is akin to some kind of religion. It's definitely different from anywhere else in the country, but Northern transplants have no right to move here and mock the Southern way of life without being confronted by the natives.

I personally dont resent Northeners moving South, but it has definitle killed off semblance of Southern culture in places like Atlanta. Its so generic and fake in Atlanta that it makes me sick. It shouldn't be a suprise to hear a Southern accent in Atlanta, but it is. I don't blame people for moving down here though. The weather is better, the food is better, the football is better and the women are hotter :w00t:

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  • 4 weeks later...

That's very true. In my 22 years before moving to the south, I never called myself a "northerner." Where I lived was exactly that: it was a place where I happened to live. Sure, we're all products of our environments in some way or another, but in the south, folks are all about being from the south. It's not a place but a state of mind, a way of life. Don't believe me? Look at all the Confederate flag bumper stickers.

You may not have considered yourself a "northerner" but I would bet you associated yourself with Boston (or whatever town you were from). I lived in Mass for a few years, I couldn't believe the townie mentality of the people, their town was so much better than the neighboring town. Southerners consider themselves Southern partly because the media and people from outside have labeled them so. I would talk to people in Mass and they just considered the whole region the "South". There was no difference in their mind between North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia... it was all the same.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You may not have considered yourself a "northerner" but I would bet you associated yourself with Boston (or whatever town you were from). I lived in Mass for a few years, I couldn't believe the townie mentality of the people, their town was so much better than the neighboring town. Southerners consider themselves Southern partly because the media and people from outside have labeled them so. I would talk to people in Mass and they just considered the whole region the "South". There was no difference in their mind between North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia... it was all the same.
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That's very true. In my 22 years before moving to the south, I never called myself a "northerner." Where I lived was exactly that: it was a place where I happened to live. Sure, we're all products of our environments in some way or another, but in the south, folks are all about being from the south. It's not a place but a state of mind, a way of life. Don't believe me? Look at all the Confederate flag bumper stickers.
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