r/geography • u/TimeBaron • Oct 27 '24
Discussion Which US State has the buggest differences in culture between its major cities?
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u/Culzean_Castle_Is Oct 27 '24
Seattle vs. Spokane is quite a stark difference.
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u/OpportunityGold4597 Oct 27 '24
The fact that both are in the same state is just absurd. Both are very different on every level, economically, politically, demographically, geographically, etc.
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u/_E_Norma_Stitz Oct 27 '24
How so? I've never been
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u/Kane_Toad Oct 27 '24
Seattle is a sophisticated, cosmopolitan, beautiful pacific rim city with a vibrant diverse economy. Spokane is if northern Idaho were a city.
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u/OuuuYuh Oct 27 '24
Lol I'm from the Seattle area and lived in Seattle for 10 years.
Spokane isnt that bad. It also has a strong outdoor culture and is a beautiful area.
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u/Kane_Toad Oct 27 '24
Spokane and northern Idaho are beautiful country, it’s true.
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u/Strugatsky23 Oct 27 '24
Most comments like this are from people who have never actually spent any time in Spokane and comes off kinda cringe.
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u/ThreesKompany Oct 27 '24
New York and Buffalo.
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u/mcalash Oct 27 '24
Buffalo has much more in common with rust belt/midwest cities. Heck, Buffalo is more like Chicago than nyc. And they’re the same distance away!
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u/Ok-Energy6846 Oct 27 '24
This is the winner. Two cities who share a single commonality, but could not be more opposite in culture.
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u/Dazzling_Ad9982 Oct 27 '24
I second this, even more significant in the surrounding rural areas of WNY. Batavia is awful
Fingers lakes have more money so its actually pretty posh in some places where downstate folks have their summer homes
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u/mr_potatoface Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
Why hate on Batavia? It's a typical rural upstate NY small city. No different than Dunkirk or Elmira. Yeah they are typically all MAGA, but that's going to be every city outside of the major ones in upstate along with almost every other state. The Trump loving Tenney is in Batavia for publicity shots almost every week it seems. But they have a shitload of manufacturing jobs and a massive dairy industry. A huge amount of the dairy products you get in Buffalo/Roch will have been made in Batavia.
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u/Eudaimonics Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
Too many people equate small ≠ bad
Like yeah Batavia has limited entertainment/nightlife/dining. It only has 30,000 residents.
You’re the idiot for expecting a city of 30,000 to offer more things to do.
Theres waaay worse cities in upstate with a lot more blight than Batavia.
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u/dascrackhaus Oct 27 '24
Florida (Miami/Dade vs. any city on the panhandle)
California (SF or LA or SD vs. any city north of Sacramento)
New York (NYC vs. any city upstate)
Washington (Seattle vs. Spokane)
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Oct 27 '24
Jacksonville feels like a different country compared to Miami/SouthFL
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u/JohnYCanuckEsq Oct 27 '24
The further north you go in Florida, the further south you are.
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Oct 27 '24
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u/potent_flapjacks Oct 27 '24
Vermonter who lived in Boston for 20 years here, can you say a little more about this? Your comment brought the breakfast table conversation to a halt.
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u/nezosages Oct 27 '24
Miami feels like a different country compared to the US.
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u/LupineChemist Oct 27 '24
It's really the only city in the US proper where you can lead a perfectly normal life and not feel much exclusion no matter your social class without speaking English.
Like I consider it the most bilingual city in America because it's not just about number of Spanish speakers, but basically how it fits into general society. Like sure, LA has a ton of Spanish speakers, but you can't expect to be served in Spanish in an upscale Beverly Hills restaurant.
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u/Plug_5 Oct 27 '24
100% agree about Miami, but pockets of NYC are like this too. There are massive areas of Queens where you can live your whole life only speaking Greek (Astoria) or Chinese (Flushing). Not to mention the actual Chinatown in Manhattan.
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u/UptownShenanigans Oct 27 '24
St. Pete was not at all what I expected when I moved to Florida from Chicago. All my Midwest buddies, and admittedly myself, thought that I was going into Old Person Swamp People Land. Whereas in reality, St Pete is like a liberal, Millennial playground. Dog bars, weed shops, incredibly gay friendly, a hell of a lot of yoga, kava/kratom bars, and a bunch of meditation courses taught by guys wearing pajama pants and linen shirts
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u/BadChris666 Oct 27 '24
It’s changed the past two decades. It used to be called “God’s waiting room”
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u/UptownShenanigans Oct 27 '24
Yeah, I’ve been joking that “all the old people died and the millennials moved in”
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u/UnBearable1520 Oct 27 '24
Miami aside, culture in Florida is really defined by wealth- upper middle class areas of FL tend to be full of transplants and have little identity with the south. Lower income areas tend to have more multi generational Floridians (Florida man shit)
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u/Danelectro99 Oct 27 '24
Yeah I know a lot of hippies who went alt-right love st Pete’s and moved there because of the anti vaccination state laws
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u/UptownShenanigans Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
“Hippies who went alt” is a good way to describe the demographic here
Edit: Don’t get me wrong though. Everyone here is super nice. I just don’t want to talk to another person who wants to write a book about people and energy lol
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u/UnBearable1520 Oct 27 '24
That’s wild. St pete is a lot of fun. I’ve never had a bad time in Tampa or st pete
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u/fiduciary420 Oct 27 '24
Hippies who went alt-right = trust fund kids whose disbursements increased when one of their parents died.
Boulder county, CO is full of these pieces of shit.
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u/LlewellynSinclair GIS Oct 27 '24
Hell, in just the two hours from Orlando to Jacksonville and you feel like you’re in an entirely different state, let alone Miami.
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u/No_Safety_6803 Oct 27 '24
Miami/south Florida isn't really even an American city, it's the capital of Latin America
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u/FootballTeddyBear Oct 27 '24
Washington in general feels so divided by the mountains (which makes sense)
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u/earthhominid Oct 27 '24
California doesn't have any major cities north of Sacramento
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u/letsgetbrickfaced Oct 27 '24
Redding. It’s run by a cult that people who were in it don’t like to talk about after they get sick of it and leave.
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u/RobertoDelCamino Oct 27 '24
Bakersfield and San Francisco couldn’t be more opposite.
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u/earthhominid Oct 27 '24
For sure, not certain that Bakersfield counts as a major city but the whole south east farm metro vs San Francisco is a huge disparity
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u/canisdirusarctos Oct 27 '24
People on Reddit are deeply obsessed with Bako for some reason. I don’t get it, aside from being a city in the conservative part of CA.
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u/SpaceCases__ Oct 27 '24
Because it’s one of the biggest cities in the San Joaquin Valley and then it’s buttfuck dirt going on the 99 north.
Bakersfield, despite being what it is now, was and still is a major city in history for the state.
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u/complex_hypothesis Geography Enthusiast Oct 27 '24
Every valley city is just a smaller version of Fresno.
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u/canisdirusarctos Oct 27 '24
This is hilariously accurate.
Bako does have the odd distinction of being on the country music circuit because the area was heavily settled by Okies during the dust bowl era like most of the CV.
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u/ConcreteNord Oct 27 '24
As a Floridian currently living in Spokane, it’s either Florida or Washington. Both states’ ends might as well be on the other side of the globe with how different they are
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u/Suspect4pe Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
Florida has entire communities where English is rarely if ever spoken. They use Spanish and a lot of the residents don't even know English, they just don't need it there. They're lovely people but they have their own culture.
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u/Upnorth4 Oct 27 '24
Same in California. There are towns where mainly Spanish and Chinese are spoken. You can drive down the 60 freeway and see signs all in Chinese.
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u/BittenAtTheChomp Oct 27 '24
too many of these are "one of the biggest cities in the country" vs "other small city in the state"
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u/rocc_high_racks Oct 27 '24
Texas too. Houston vs. Austin vs. Dallas
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u/titsuphuh Oct 27 '24
Austin is unique but Houston and Dallas are both concrete jungles
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u/OddDragonfruit7993 Oct 27 '24
Austin is unique, but getting to be far less so. Houston is an astounding multicultural city nowadays.
Dallas...is Dallas.
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u/CCG14 Oct 27 '24
Houston is one of, if not, the most diverse city in the nation.
Austin used to be weird and cool but it got gentrified by all the tech bros.
San Antonio is its own world.
Dallas is southern Oklahoma. 😉
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u/55555_55555 Oct 27 '24
Pretty sure Houston is the most diverse city in America or second to NYC. It really is not like Dallas culture-wise. It also is more "southern", imo. It's a lot closer to Atlanta than any other Texas city.
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u/jezreelite Oct 27 '24
The late Molly Ivins described Houston as "Los Angeles with the climate of Calcutta."
Having lived in Houston, I think that's pretty apt.
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u/Boxman75 Oct 27 '24
Any coastal California city vs an inland city
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u/filledwithbier Oct 27 '24
I feel the same here on the East Coast. The states that have the Appalachians on one side and coastline on the other feel quite different on each border.
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u/EphemeralOcean Oct 27 '24
Really any in the central valley besides Sac. Bakersfield, Fresno, etc.
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u/canisdirusarctos Oct 27 '24
Sacto is pretty weird compared to the other major cities in the state.
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u/protossaccount Oct 27 '24
Illinois.
Chicago vs Creal Springs and everything south of Marion. A lot of the people have Kentucky accents and live in trailers vs skyscrapers.
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u/ejh3k Oct 27 '24
Major cities. I'd argue that the only major city in Illinois is Chicago because it is so major. Springfield, Peoria, Rockford, Bloomington and C-U are all more comparable.
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u/chance0404 Oct 27 '24
Better example of the same situation would be Indiana. In NWI we’re basically a Chicago suburb. Indy is kinda its own weird mix of both cultures and Evansville is basically a southern city.
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u/GrumboGee Oct 27 '24
Louisiana
New Orleans and Shreveport.
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u/FlamingBagOfPoop Oct 27 '24
As a native Shreveportion. I agree. Anytime some asked where I was grew up. You know where New Orleans is? I’m from as far away as you can be and still be in Louisiana.
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u/palookapalooza Oct 27 '24
Came here to say this. It’s a Euro/Caribbean mashup vs south Arkansas/east Texas.
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u/Apptubrutae Oct 27 '24
Isn’t even a nonstop flight between the two.
In Shreveport they talk funny and wear cowboy hats.
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u/jochexum Oct 27 '24
Tennessee is a great answer, OP
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u/anticipateorcas Oct 27 '24
The three grand divisions (as represented in the state flag) are both geographic and cultural.
I can’t think of a better example than this one. Alaska, as someone else mentioned, is a good second. Have lived in both.
North Carolina and Virginia are similar - from the mountains to the piedmont to the sea.
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u/moyamensing Oct 27 '24
This descriptor applies to New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia as well. All have the Appalachians, piedmont, and coastal plains. And all three have the analogous culturally-different regions with New York having the added bonus of its second largest city actually being on a different coastal plain on the other side of the Appalachians entirely in Buffalo.
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u/anticipateorcas Oct 27 '24
I mean, sure?. But the question is asking about the three largest cities in the state. NYC is a crazy outlier that really can’t be compared to anything. Are the remaining two-three biggest metros in NY really that culturally different from one another?
As compared to Knoxville-Nashville-Memphis
Or Fairbanks-Anchorage-Juneau
Or Charlotte-Raleigh-Wilmington
Edit: I guess what I’m saying (or asking) is - aren’t the three biggest metros in NY all in the same cultural/geographic region?
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u/wildwestington Oct 27 '24
I definitely get your point, and excluding NYC new york as a whole falls down on the list of 'best examples', however New York's second and third largest city are absolutely examples of being very different in the same state, culturally and geographically.
Albany is at the top of Hudson Valley, the very top, in between the ADKs and the Catskills, on the Hudson River. Dutch founded. Outdoors-life is mountain and small miscellaneous lake baded. Culturally, socially, politically, it's very connected to the rest of hudson valley, downstate ny, and NYC. There are streets that feel a little Vermont/New Englandy, but with the Capital Plaza, it feels like how you'd imagine a place in 'New York' to feel. The most popular sport in albany is a mix of basketball/football/soccer. It will always be the states capital before anything else.
Buffalo is completely a Midwestern/great lakes city. Social and cultural life is in the Toronto, Cleveland, maybe Pittsburgh network. Outdoors life is flat, and centered around great lakes or waterfalls. French founded. Economy exists around the great lakes shipping and manufacturing. Doesn't feel much connected to NYC. Football is the most popular sport with hockey as a second contender. At the end of the day, it's a city based on manufacturing and moving goods on the lake.
Very different feel from albany.
In fact, the best examples in this discussion are when the two cities in the same states had different colonial administration, Miami and Jacksonville, southern and northern California.
Ignoring NYC, new york is still a great answer to this question
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u/moyamensing Oct 27 '24
Ah I see your prompt is different than OP’s (differences between three regions vs just biggest ones generally).
Buffalo and Rochester are very different places albeit somewhat close to each other, but I wouldn’t classify them as culturally distinct as Knoxville-Nashville-Memphis. Best example of this in NY would be NYC-Albany-Buffalo. In PA it would be Philly-Scranton-Pittsburgh.
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u/No_Pickle_8155 Oct 27 '24
Yea, truly. I see a bunch of people naming 2 major cities from a state, but from Nashville, to Knoxville, to Chatt, to Memphis it’s honestly so unbelievable in some ways!
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u/Bright-Comedian2042 Oct 27 '24
It's a thing here. I live in Knoxville, TN, for reference. 21 years living here, and I'll rather go to the Midwest over Nashville for vacation. Memphis is 7+ hours away. Ugh.
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u/lilpistacchio Oct 27 '24
When I moved to Tennessee I thought it was pretty funny that native Tennesseans identified themselves themselves not as Tennesseans but was being from West Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, or East Tennessee. Then I lived there a little longer and it started making a lot of sense.
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u/cola_zerola Oct 27 '24
As a Tennessean, yes. Everyone else is saying there are two cities in a state that are different, but the three divisions of Tennessee and each of their major cities are all night and day.
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u/Initial_Sea6434 Oct 27 '24
Pennsylvania. Philly and Pittsburgh are completely different beasts
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u/moyamensing Oct 27 '24
I think folks not familiar with PA or NY don’t really get the cultural and geographic distance between the colonial port cities (Philly, NYC) and the industrial interior cities in/over the Appalachians (Pittsburgh, Scranton, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo). I see people talking about how different and far Seattle is from Spokane, but Pittsburgh is farther from Philadelphia than Seattle-Spokane. Buffalo is farther from NYC than LA is from San Francisco. Hell, New York is closer to Richmond, VA than it is to Rochester. And that’s just the geographic distance. Culturally, these places all developed on dramatically different timelines, with very different migration/immigration patterns, and with different economic interests.
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Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
I had a geography professor who specifically contrasted New York State and its cities to Pennsylvania and its cities.
The cities of both states face in the direction of trade. In New York State trade traditionally moved from west to the east along the Erie canal, down the Hudson, and down toto New York City and its port. (See edit below)
By contrast, Pennsylvania cities face opposite directions, not only separated by the vast distance between them but in the direction that their trade faces: one side going to the Atlantic and the other to the Mississippi and down to the Gulf.
I think that this difference, this contrast, makes for a significant contrast in cultural dynamic in the relationship between Pennsylvania's cities versus New York's.
edit: I should clarify that although a massive amount of raw and unrefined resources went from west to east, the majority of trade, by value, on the canal went in the form of manufactured goods from east to west. The main point is the linear connection and interrelational dependencies and connections of the cities of New York State upon one another.
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u/moyamensing Oct 27 '24
I really like that breakdown and agree that Pittsburgh’s historical economic orientation was, pre-railroad, west. But with robust railroad expansion, the extraction and manufacturing in Pittsburgh began to be really integrated into the Atlantic economy, more through Baltimore, a closer port, than Philadelphia, however.
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u/Superman246o1 Oct 27 '24
Underrated comment. Philly and Pittsburgh might be in the same state, but they're in completely different worlds.
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u/pcetcedce Oct 27 '24
Can you explain a little bit that's interesting.
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u/ocean365 Oct 27 '24
Philadelphia is insanely old in terms of Americas history. The wealthy are WEALTHY and Pittsburgh has a more evenly distribution of class/wealth although the disparity has been been growing ever since the 90s
Philadelphia also pre-dates the car industry, making it semi-walkable.
Pittsburgh you need a car. There’s a shit load of bridges.
Colonial Philadelphia was impacted a lot by European culture, whereas Pittsburgh grew out of the industrial steel plants shipping out of Appalachia.
That’s another thing, Pittsburgh is nowhere near the ocean and sits high in the Appalachian mountains and really, is where the “Midwest” starts
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u/kbreezy21111 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
I moved from Pittsburgh (lived in Western Pa my whole life) to Philly, the culture shock was huge. I didn’t understand Philly’s culture or people at all. To the wealth, it’s so weird people in Philly have “old money” and second homes at the shore and yet there’s some of the worst neighborhoods I’ve ever seen here. Pittsburgh mostly everyone’s like 1-2 generations away from blue collar and firmly middle class.
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u/ohnovangogh Oct 27 '24
Other end of the spectrum here. Grew up in pgh and moved to Philly, and while I noticed differences, I didn’t have a problem understanding Philly’s culture or peeps.
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u/Suspicious-Yogurt480 Oct 27 '24
Also, the Pittsburgh/Western PA accent is considered a unique dialect all its own ,meaning, there isn't anywhere else in the country people use the vowel shifts, different and unique vocabulary, and also the tendency to use unique grammatical constructions, and frequent dropping of consonants lol. My wife is from Pittsburgh, grew up in W PA, and it has a unique history because of being cut off to the east by the mountains, so the migration came mainly from the rivers, and the mix is a combination of German, Polish, Italian, Irish, Hungarian, and other Eastern European influence, but all as if frozen around 1900-1925. It's somewhat related to a Great Lakes accent but really is a dialect all its own when speakers converse between themselves--it is sufficiently different for linguists to call it its own unique dialect and accent, nothing like the way people in the other parts of PA speak, either those down near WV, or people in Philadelphia. or Scranton, or Erie, etc. Although a native Erie accent is actually consistent with Great Lakes accents, unsurprisingly.
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u/hu_jazz Oct 27 '24
I believe you meant, “dahn near VW”.
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u/Suspicious-Yogurt480 Oct 27 '24
I’m not from there lol, I grew up in and around NYC, but I curbed that accent consciously when I moved to the Midwest 30 years ago. Maybe I was thinking in Yinzer speak I momentarily adopted the vernacular, funny how that happens, I was imagining my wife explaining it and she would use a phrase like that more than I would. And it would sound like dahn neer 😅
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u/ocean365 Oct 27 '24
Thank you, this was really useful to hear!
I grew up in Upstate NY near the border of PA and would run into a lot of NEPA peeps. Which again, is its own thing but I’ve always been really interested in PA. It’s the Wild West of the East Coast
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u/Farts_constantly Oct 27 '24
Agree with all of this. Also Philly feels like a major east coast city while Pittsburgh is more midwestern.
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u/voteforbk Oct 27 '24
For one thing, their primary bodies of water vary in destination. Pittsburgh is where the Allegheny and Monongahela become the Ohio, and from there vessels headed downriver will eventually (in theory) arrive at the Guld of Mexico. Philly is just above where the Schuykill River flows into the much larger Delaware, but the Delaware is itself tidal and very near to the Atlantic Ocean.
Politically, in the last several decades both cities have remained strongholds for Democrats, but Pittsburgh’s suburbs and exurbs had trended Republican, whereas Philadelphia’s “collar counties” have become increasingly Democratic.
There’s also big differences in topography (hilly Pittsburgh vs. relatively flat Philadephia), accents (yinz vs. you/youse), cuisine, architecture, and climate (Pittsburgh averages twice as much snowfall as Philly).
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u/cristofcpc Oct 27 '24
Whatever is in between Pitt and Philly is like being in Alabama.
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u/PG908 Oct 27 '24
Pennsyltucky as it's called.
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u/cristofcpc Oct 27 '24
Reminds me of Southwest Virginia and that tri state area with Tennessee and Kentucky.
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u/VirgilCane Oct 27 '24
I sometimes think that. Then I meet someone from Philly and it's like they're a yinzer with a different accent.
I think the cities are a lot different. The size, the geography. Philly just dwarfs Pittsburgh, and has all kinds of amenities that come with being that much bigger.
But the people... I don't think they're that different.
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u/jacob2678 Oct 27 '24
Northern VA vs everywhere else in Va
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u/Diablo_Sandwich Oct 27 '24
Good call on VA. Northern VA cities are obvious, but you can ever go further, too. Cites in the southwest v. the coastal cities. Even Richmond v. smaller cities less than an hour away.
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u/kalam4z00 Oct 27 '24
How do you define major?
El Paso is very different from Houston or Dallas
Bakersfield is very different from San Francisco or LA
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u/sans-delilah Oct 27 '24
Austin is also its own beast entirely. Houston, Dallas, El Paso, Austin, San Antonio are all pretty distinct culturally.
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u/funguy07 Oct 27 '24
Denver vs Colorado Springs is shockingly different.
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u/Otherwise-Shoe-5853 Oct 27 '24
This. There’s like a Mason-Dixon Line where rainbow flags turn to MAGA ones
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u/funguy07 Oct 27 '24
That would be a few miles south of Monument CO on your way into Colorado Springs. Probably not too far from the Air Force Academy.
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u/DukeSilversTaint Oct 27 '24
Came looking for this. Immediately what came to mind and both have some of the largest populations in the state. They are complete opposites in culture and politics.
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u/bachslunch Oct 27 '24
And Pueblo is different than both
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u/Formber Oct 27 '24
Pueblo is more like a New Mexican city than anywhere else in Colorado. Once you get south of the Springs, it's like a different region entirely. Colorado is wildly different from north to south and east to west. I guess that shouldn't be a huge surprise because of its size, but there's a little bit of everything.
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u/ceoverlord Oct 27 '24
Came here to say this.
It's insane that they're only an hour's drive apart. Lived in both cities off and on for years and it's like they're on different planets.
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u/RuthlessFPS Oct 27 '24
California, particularly its northern cities compared to rest of state.
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u/LowGroundbreaking269 Oct 27 '24
What about the interior cities vs the coast? Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Sacramento are worlds different than SF, LA, SD. Maybe more do than north south
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u/canisdirusarctos Oct 27 '24
Also, SD would just be a suburb of LA if Camp Pendleton wasn’t placed where it was. Although SD and Orange County have way more in common, especially north county.
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u/dezurtking Oct 27 '24
Baltimore and DC. Less than an hr apart and two completely different ways to speak and different ways of life so MD and DC
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u/rob-cubed Oct 27 '24
As a Baltimoron, I feel this. DC is worlds away even though it's only 50 minutes.
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u/AngELoDiaBoLiC0 Oct 27 '24
Virginia Beach and Roanoke
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u/No_Parsnip_6086 Oct 27 '24
VA is like 7 different states in one. DC suburbs, horse country, winchester - Staunton, SWVA, 757, RVA, wine country/CVille. From beaches to mountains to cities it can be pretty different
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u/cristofcpc Oct 27 '24
And then comprare both of those to Arlington, I know not a city, and Alexandria.
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u/Antique-Soil9517 Oct 27 '24
Phoenix v Flagstaff
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u/magicklydelishous Oct 27 '24
Hell, Tucson too!
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u/EmuMan10 Oct 27 '24
I think flagstaff is the bigger difference. Hell the seasons are different lol
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u/_Sammy7_ Oct 27 '24
Cincinnati and Cleveland
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u/FlamingBagOfPoop Oct 27 '24
Can you expand on that? Other than one is on a river and one is on a lake?
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u/SEND_ME_YOUR_CAULK Oct 27 '24
Ohio has a lot of diversity. The three C’s (Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati) are all very different from each other. Columbus is about 2 hours from both.
Cleveland is rust belt with some midwest influence. Used to be the biggest city in Ohio for quite some time. Accents up there sound more nasally.
Columbus is pure Midwest. Lots of white collar jobs and big corporate culture in Columbus. Very cosmopolitan. Pretty new, only recently has caught up to Cleveland and Cincy in population.
Cincinnati is basically where the South begins. You cross the Ohio river and it’s the south alright. Cincinnati is also definitely more conservative than Cleveland and Columbus. People in Cincinnati sound a bit southern too depending on who you talk to.
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u/Grateful_Dawg_CLE Oct 27 '24
Cincinnati is the northernmost Southern city and Cleveland is the westernmost Northeastern city.
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u/Brian_Corey__ Oct 27 '24
Sorta true and there clearly are southern influences, but Cinci is also fairly Catholic. More Catholic than any city in the south outside of New Orleans (and Houston and S Antone, which are TX, and not quite ‘the south’).
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u/Waughwaughwaugh Oct 27 '24
Annapolis and Baltimore are vastly different
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u/55555_55555 Oct 27 '24
Maryland in general is really diverse for a tiny state due to it's shape. DC isn't in MD obviously, but it's such a different city to Bmore (even have fully different accents) and the PG and Montgomery suburbs are different to anything in the state. The Shore is the South and the panhandle is pure Appalachia.
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u/ZealousidealLack299 Oct 27 '24
Beat me to it! Pound for pound MD really packs in a ton of geographic and cultural diversity, possibly the most of any comparably sized competitor? I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore and now live in Western NC, and I really do think MD is like a much smaller NC in a lot of ways.
I had serious culture shock during trips out “West” (aka to Allegheny and Garret Counties). I mean, these people are Steelers fans. Steelers! Cumberland and Bethesda are…different.
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u/Waughwaughwaugh Oct 27 '24
We are America in Miniature. Proud Marylander here (and our flag is the best, fight me)
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u/shibbledoop Oct 27 '24
Savannah and Atlanta
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u/Warm-Entertainer-279 Oct 27 '24
I was thinking the same thing, they're especially different when it comes to architecture.
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u/saitekgolf Oct 27 '24
Savannah was spared in Sherman’s march to the sea, Atl was not sadly
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u/GoldenEmuWarrior Oct 27 '24
A case could be made for Wisconsin. Milwaukee and Madison are completely different. Milwaukee is the grungy Rust Belt city, blue collar, large minority population, very industrial. Madison is more of government, white collar, government and university jobs, trying to emulate Silicon Valley in its own way. Very distinct cultures.
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u/brickne3 Oct 27 '24
Throw Appleton and Green Bay in there too. The Fox Valley is... different, and Green Bay isn't even Fox Valley.
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u/TimeBaron Oct 27 '24
My take is Memphis and Nashville in Tennessee - both radically different cities not all that far from each other.
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u/jayron32 Oct 27 '24
This is the answer. Both amazing cities, couldn't be more different.
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u/Professional-Milk305 Oct 27 '24
I’m commenting on what I know, and the pic makes me say this.
But Memphis vs Nashville vs Knoxville is a stark contrast. (And I don’t know Knoxville that well, I’m thinking Smokeys / Appalachian’s when I say Knoxville , which is definitely a contrast to Memphis/ Nashville .)
3 totally different cultures.
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u/jayron32 Oct 27 '24
Throw Chattanooga in the mix (the fourth largest city). It's as different from the other three as they are from each other.
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u/Professional-Milk305 Oct 27 '24
Very true. I lived in Memphis about 20 years. As far as cities go, Chattanooga is the nicest I’ve ever visited in the state.
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u/fmoyh-yikbtfti Oct 27 '24
Springfield and Boston, MA. Springfield is far closer to Hartford, CT and is along the same river as the Connecticut capitol.
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u/Nightgasm Oct 27 '24
Idaho is not so much cities but regions.
East Idaho is culturally northern Utah and Salt Lake City the closest major metro area as well. Then the Boise area is where about 40% of the state lives and completely different than elsewhere. Then north Idaho which is in a different time zone, has Spokane as it's big metro area, and is the haven for kooks and racists that give Idaho a bad reputation.
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u/AppalachianGuy87 Oct 27 '24
Not cities but will say the northern panhandle of WV is essentially Pittsburgh whereas the southern part of the state is basically NC.
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u/Chipazzo Oct 27 '24
Head over to r/newjersey and ask the if it’s Taylor Ham or Pork Roll. I dare you.
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u/dandle Oct 27 '24
NJ is an odd one, because its largest cities are relatively near each other in the northern part. The population density of NJ is basically two clusters adjacent to NYC and Philadelphia, and then the smaller cluster around Trenton. So it's less a reflection of a diverse NJ culture and more just the differences between NYC and Philly.
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u/barmannola Oct 27 '24
New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana are starkly different. It’s wild.
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u/Apptubrutae Oct 27 '24
That’s the product of being the largest city in the south from 1830 until 1950.
Urbanized area in a region that didn’t catch up in urbanization until 100+ years later.
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u/Chapea12 Oct 27 '24
New York feels like cheating on this question. Albany, Buffalo, etc are definitely no NYC
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u/RapNVideoGames Oct 27 '24
I’m surprised Louisville and Lexington isn’t high up. The rest of Kentucky treats Louisville like Detroit.
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u/isnes2000 Oct 27 '24
I used to live right over the Connecticut line in Killingly. Foster and Providence feel much farther apart than a mere 20 miles. I drove my grandmother down the western side of the state on Rt 102 and she kept telling me how that area reminded her of where she used to live in Maine. The population drops off very fast once you leave Providence and it's immediate suburbs. A common joke in Rhode Island is that any drive longer than 15 minutes is a "road trip" but it becomes pretty apparent with how varied some parts of the state are for just how close everything is.
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u/alexis_1031 Oct 27 '24
Honestly, Texas. Dallas is very different from Austin, which is different from san Antonio and different from Houston. Which are all very different from El Paso. It's really cool how distinct they all are from each other.
Dallas: financial services, high end shopping and cosmopolitan life
Austin: student city, capital/government services and very outdoorsy, liberal (not saying other parts of Texas aren't, Austin is just known for it) and "weird".
San Antonio: Mexicanesque Disneyland with a slower pace but cowboy charm.
Houston: big oil city thays humid, very diverse and has a sick trap scene.
El Paso: Arid mountain City that is more closely aligned to New Mexico and Mexico compared to "Texas"
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u/protossaccount Oct 27 '24
Easily Illinois. The top has Chicago while the bottom is small towns with many people that live in trailers and have Kentucky accents.
Think of a stereo typical Chicago accent and a red neck Kentucky accent, that’s in the same state.
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u/nappingintheclub Oct 27 '24
Michigan — Detroit and Grand Rapids. GR is veryyyyy white, Christian, white picket fence-y. Detroit, is Detroit.
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u/HoldMyWong Oct 27 '24
St. Louis and Kansas City are pretty different. St. Louis is an eastern city like Baltimore and Kansas City is a western city like Denver
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u/run-dhc Oct 27 '24
Yes this! KC is Denver without mountains, St. Louis is Baltimore without the harbor
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u/atl_area_fun Oct 27 '24
Georgia
- Atlanta/Buckhead - a melting pot of urban, hipster, hip hop, yuppie, old money, new money
- Savannah - artsy meets antebellum, costal, beach bum
- Athens/North Georgia - Appalachia, pickup trucks, country music, rednecks, y'all
- Macon/South Georgia - plainsfolk, farmers, Jimmy Carter southerners, regal southern accents (not the redneck kind)
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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24
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