Southern jealousy

[davidzLA]

If you go to another country, say in Europe and Asia, and ask them what cities do you want to visit in America, and I can bet you there won't be one city in the South mentioned.

[krazeeboi]

I can't buy your hypothesis that there is widespread jealousy of the South based on publication of positive economic indicators. (Or otherwise.) Can you give me an example or two?

[poonther]

For the money one would pay for a 2,000 sq. ft. house in, say, Acworth ... what would that get you in London ? Paris ? Milan ?

[Dale]

Everything of course is relative, but my quality of life would be much greater living in a cardboard box under a bridge in London, Paris or Milan than it would in a cookie-cutter home in suburban ATL.

Many times I don't agree w/ Metro, but this time especially his description of ATL was dead-on IMHO. Just my personal case: many of my father's family live in suburban ATL (Conyers, Oxford, Covington,Roswell.) Many of the middle age relatives and older take pride in the fact that they never have to go to downtown ATL. Some of them can count in years the last time they set foot in downtown ATL and these people are not hermits by any means. If the younger relatives go into downtown ATL it's usually for a sporting event.

On the other side of my family, my Mom's family live in suburban San Fran (Fremont, Hayward, SJ.) These relatives are about the same ages as the ATL family, but these relatives venture into downtown SF monthly or more. They go to shop, eat at restaurants, cultural stuff, special events etc. etc. and often times they use BART or Cal-Tran. These CA relatives are not anymore adventurous than the GA family and in fact if this has anything to do w/it, the GA family tends to hold higher degrees of education than the CA family.

And to bring it back on topic, none of my CA family is at all jealous of the South or Atlanta.

[poonther]

^In country where Bush is President and Wal-mart reigns supreme, I definitely believe your statements above have merit.

Although I don't really know any of these "jealous" non-southerners personally....but I do believe you Dale that they exist. My blood family in CA thinks that Southern and Northern CA (depending on which part they live) is absolutely the best place to live in the world and all my Jersey in-laws love it there and are full of Jersey Pride (big hair and nails) and only see the South as a big region in their way as they journey down to South FL.

[Dale]

That's all I'm saying - some are jealous of the South, whereas some are not.

[suburban george3]

Although I don't really know any of these "jealous" non-southerners personally....but I do believe you Dale that they exist.

[monsoon]

Cheap land and cheap housing. That's one of the main driving factors and it's contributing to sprawl. Most southern communities can't say "NO" to cheap poorly-planned developments. We will pay for this in the future, watch and see...

[satalac]

And you have summed up in one word the original topic of this thread, Cheap. This isn't anything to be jealous about.

[suburban george3]

there is a difference between cheap and less expensive. i believe the south is less expensive.

[davidzLA]

I just cited lists and rankings as evidence that more and more people are becoming aware of the South and are realizing that it's no longer just a cultural and economic backwater.

[davidzLA]

What most folks are "jealous" of though is something that should concern us. Cheap land and cheap housing.

[davidzLA]

While it is true that most things are less expensive in the South, much of the new development in the south is "cheap." Most new housing developments are built buy national builders who pretty much "factory build" their homes.

As far as commercial development, retailers are building cheap boxes that have at best a life span of 25 years. Where will they go then? Newer suburbs, if suburbia hasn't died?

[rnc]

And you have summed up in one word the original topic of this thread, Cheap. This isn't anything to be jealous about.

[krazeeboi]

Well, you can only take opinions voiced in UP postings to be the opinion of people who post on Urban Planet, not Americans generally or people generally. But your second line confuses me, can you tell me what people are jealous of?

[davidzLA]

I thought I explained it in my first post: our population and economic gains and the positive exposure that comes along with that.

[krazeeboi]

As I see no evidence for jealousy of the South based on economic indicators and population growth I have no basis to believe in it. Since you hold a different opinion I assumed you had some experience or exchange or basis for having it.

[lammius]

One of the token complaints people who live here in Jersey make is the cost of living. Home prices, rents, and property taxes are among the highest in the nation (prop taxes are THE highest). Standing around the water cooler, you'll hear people gripe about it when their tax bill comes in. But if you tell them, "Hey, it would be cheaper if you moved to North Carolina." they respond, "Yeah, but it's cheap for a reason." or "Yeah, but who the hell wants to live there?" Those statements come out of ignorance, and I don't think they are jealous of anyone.

This is a weird topic because, in my experience anyway, I find that the South is the only place in the country that really has a REGIONAL identity. My grandparents in Virginia are SOUTHERNERS first, everything else afterward. I caught hell from them when I moved to NJ for school. I had the choice of Rutgers or Georgia Tech and I chose Rutgers. I told Grandma, "But Rutgers is only 5 hours away while GA Tech is twice as far, so you should be happy." She said, "It doesn't matter, you need to stay in the South, not become a NORTHERNER!" She was half kidding, but really half not. It's weird that she, in Virginia, found Atlanta to be in the same region as her and she thought that herself and an Atlantan would have a lot in common culturally. Meanwhile a New Yorker would never think of a Philadelphian as having anything in common with him. A NY'er would recognize that yeah, Philly and NYC are in the northeastern quadrant of the country, but the two cities might as well be in different worlds.

There's not a Northeastern identity represented by flags and whatnot. And from many (almost too many) visits to California and elsewhere, I don't get the idea of regional identities elsewhere that come anything close to the close-knit Southern identity. Even in this thread you'll see someone from one state cite growth of cities in other states and say "we (Southerners) are doing well enonomically." Someone in Syracuse, however, would never say "we" to include people from NYC. Although they're in the same state, the two are on different planets and don't feel at all tied or allied with one another. I think, in sum, Northeastern cities are "Northeastern" as an accident of geography rather than culture or identity.

[Pillsbury]

Southerns are a tight-knit group. It comes out in everything we do, from the way we talk to the foods we eat. It's amazing that through all of mass migration from other parts of the country and world, I know I can still walk into a restaurant in Atlanta and get sweet tea and grits, and hear a pretty strong Southern accent.

Shoot, they even had sweet tea (real sweet tea) at a restaurant I ate at in Orlando---I even heard a couple of Southern accents!!! Of course that was Cracker Barrel....(just kidding).

[satalac]

While it is true that most things are less expensive in the South, much of the new development in the south is "cheap." Most new housing developments are built buy national builders who pretty much "factory build" their homes. I can not say I'm not guilty of buying into a newer subdivision populated with houses built with vinyl siding or brick facades only. I will say, that the houses in my subdivision, do not seem to have been plagued with issues of other area housing developments of the same price range ($150-200K.) The houses built in this neighborhood were not of the "Square Footage" design. In otherwords, the avg. per square foot cost in this subdivision is higher than in the same builder's newer neigbhorhood a few miles away. There also was more attention paid to details inside the home. These "Square Footage" houses are just cheap boxes put up that will never have any curb appeal or character. These type of homes are being built all over the South and the East Coast.

Granted, housing stock of equal grade will be less expensive in the south, but we aren't turning out as much of that anymore. The housing stock which is moving is the $100-175K range and people want the "Square Footage" designs. You wouldn't see housing of this poor grade of construction anywhere on the West Coast, IMO(and yes, I've looked.) I know it will add to the cost of housing, but municipalities need to do a much better job of writing building codes and enforcement.

As far as commercial development, retailers are building cheap boxes that have at best a life span of 25 years. Where will they go then? Newer suburbs, if suburbia hasn't died? Regardless of current downtown revitilization efforts, only a few cities in the south will support larger retailers in their core at this point. In 20-30 years, we will have an oversupply of rundown and high vacancy shopping centers. Nothing that will attract any kind of envy from other areas of the world.

Southern leaders need to wake up and try to correct the mess they've created. If they don't, in 20 years we'll have people leaving the area en masse such as the exodus from the NorthEast and Upper MidWest today. People then won't be jealous of the south, the south will be the "laughing stock" again...

[rnc]

the west coast hardly consists of the entire country. the reason these houses are "built better" is probably due to the fact that they are on a massive fault and codes call for it. and i find it hard to believe that these cheap shopping centers are only in the south, especially on the west coast. like i said earlier, i believe it's just a preconceived notion that the south is "cheap" because it's growing so fast. just because things are less expensive here, doesn't mean they aren't of the same quality. if you wanna spend $400k on a $200k house, by all means do it. but don't think that it's extra special because you dropped and extra $200k on it.

[satalac]

CA is an amazing state, but they invented sprawl and keep taking it to new levels. To act like this is a "Southern" issue is ridiculous. The Midwest and Southwest have just as much sprawl and "cheap" construction as the South. New England is the only area of the country that I've seen that does a good job of limiting sprawl.

[krazeeboi]

New England is the only area of the country that I've seen that does a good job of limiting sprawl.

[davidzLA]

To act like this is a "Southern" issue is ridiculous.

[monsoon]

CA is an amazing state, but they invented sprawl and keep taking it to new levels. To act like this is a "Southern" issue is ridiculous. The Midwest and Southwest have just as much sprawl and "cheap" construction as the South. New England is the only area of the country that I've seen that does a good job of limiting sprawl.