What I mean by regionalism is people from a specific state, district, or county feeling a sense of superiority over other regions and holding stereotypes about them. They dislike being mistaken as being from that region. In India, it’s an issue—North vs. South, Hindi vs. other languages, migrant laborers from certain states seeking work in other states, leading to animosity from people in those regions, considering some areas as backward, uneducated, and religious extremist, etc. Politicians often use the regionalism card. So, my question is, are there similar issues in the USA?
Edit- I just wanted to add that most people do these things only on the internet. They don’t bully anyone in real life. Well, apart from politics.
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The biggest divide with the most tension is urban vs rural
>What I mean by regionalism is people from a specific state, district, or county feeling a sense of superiority over other regions and holding stereotypes about them
Take your pick with Texas. Houston and Dallas have plenty of snarky things to say about each other. Austin is scorned by everyone, including Austinites. People tend to leave San Antonio alone.
In Michigan, you had a semi-divide between the areas east and west of Lansing. The UP is its own thing entirely.
Downstate Illinois has *plenty* to say about Chicago. Wisconsin hates Illinois as a whole and has a nice little nickname for them.
Connecticut was interesting. You could get a good prediction of whether someone was a Yankees or Red Sox fan based on which side of Hartford they lived.
Sure but its like sibling rivalry.
Plenty, and down plenty of lines. Urban vs rural is a huge tension, but there’s also a ton of state vs state tensions, and even regional vs regional.
Freud’s narcissism of small differences at work
Absolutely. East coast seems to have the worst of it from what I can tell. The midwest is flyover states. The south is racist, backwater bumpkins. The west coast is a pale comparison to the importance of the east coast.
In Oregon, its a meme and sometimes more than just a meme to shit on Californians. There’s plenty of negative stereotypes about them. And in Oregon there’s a sense that we’re part of Cascadia, which actually extends into Canada – so its not just state pride.
You’ll find plenty of examples of that sort of thing. But also, I’m not sure how serious it really is. I’ve met southerners who hide their accents and don’t tell people where they’re from because they feel like they’re being legitimately discriminated against, but for the most part I don’t think its serious.
NJ vs the other 49
The South has had a chip on its shoulder since the Civil War.
Friend, there’s regionalism in *states*. It’s cheating a bit, but take California. You got Los Angeles against Orange County and San Diego. Los Angeles against the Bay Area. NorCal vs. SoCal. Central California against NorCal and SoCal. And that’s scratching the surface.
I love new england over all other parts other country but i don’t think poorly of people who are from other regions (i think poorly of other people in general).
Anyone not from the south will proudly shit on the south
We literally fought a civil war because of regionalism (and slavery).
I would advise you to check out [this topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/181ap2z/is_it_common_for_americans_from_some_states_to/) from two weeks ago. [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/181ap2z/is_it_common_for_americans_from_some_states_to/kab0mvl/) is the top rated comment.
I’d say Texas and Florida are the big ones – people who live there think they’re some sort of extra special royalty and everyone else in the country is horrified and would be at least slighly upset if they were accused of being from there.
[Some](https://www.nationhoodlab.org/a-balkanized-federation/) might say so.
Yep
New York has stereotypes about and loves to hate New Jersey, and some people in New York City act like NYC is all there is.
>feeling a sense of superiority over other regions and holding stereotypes about them.
Of course not. New Englanders don’t think we’re better than everyone else…
…
We know it 😛
This is my secret conspiracy theory on why the NFL exists: to create a capitalistic way to segregate people and give it flair.
Texas and Oklahoma have a sibling rivalry.
Yes. The US fought it’s bloodiest war against itself. North vs South. The rivalry and some tension is certainly still there. Along with several other examples of regional standoffishness
There’s North Jersey (sides with New York) and South Jersey (sides with Philadelphia) and the mythological Central Jersey.
Eastern (Philadelphia) vs. Western (Pittsburgh) PA.
Northern Virginia (Union occupiers) versus the rest of Virginia (Confederacy).
In Indianapolis, we dislike anyone from Carmel.
Yes. Many states such as Texas, Illinois and New York have 1 or 2 large, Progressive cities that are at odds with the Conservative rural areas of the rest of the state. That’s the main one, but there are other mild tensions between east/west, north/south and blue state/red state.
Oh boy yeah. There’s a noticeable divide between Upstate New York and NYC, but then you also have a divide between the different sub-regions in Upstate.
You see the regional rivalries come out with things like food and sports teams a lot.
Who has the best burger, best pizza, best sandwiches. That kind of thing.
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. It’s seen a lot in sports like when the two teams play together, it’s “The Battle of Pennsylvania”
Eastern Massholes basically see Western Massholes as Canadians.
Yeah Northern California vs Southern California
Yes, at various levels and degrees
Biggest: Contiguous vs Alaska/Hawaii (and to a lesser degree territories) – not too much tied to this, but noncontiguous tend to be treated as doing their own things
East vs West – mostly a climate divide, as the West is drier and has more drastic landscapes and the East is more humid and has more lush landscape (also the East is more interconnected with way more populated rural areas)
Northeast, Midwest, West & South: the large general “regions” of the US-there’s a low level of regional pride to these (South generally being highest), but they more have loose general traits associated with them with lots of leeway
subregions like Southwest, Northwest, Mountain, Pacific, Great Plains, Great Lakes, Upper South, Southeast, Deep South, Mid-Atlantic, Appalachian, New England: tends to get a bit more pride than the general region (except generally for the southern ones, pride tends to be for the South as a whole or a further sublevel compared to these), still multi-state regions, starting to get more noticeable “better than you” vibes from some.
states: Outside of some exceptions like Texas, there’s not much pride here, and while there’s some state specific stereotypes, for the most part, they’re often less strong than the subregional or some well-known intrastate ones (generally it just slightly colors the subregional association)
Intra-state is usually more drastic than state if a person is familiar with the intra-state stereotype. This is where urban/rural divides get more prominent. Some, like California, are extremely well known across the US. Some, like [Tennessee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Divisions_of_Tennessee), are extremely well defined geographically, but most aren’t. [Others](https://southernspaces.org/2005/regions-alabama/) aren’t well known at all outside of their states, but have pretty drastic consequences (Part of the reason why one of the few things this particular state is known for is an intrastate rivalry is due to that few of the subregions are known generally and they don’t line up well for making a overall homogeneous image. So stereotypes tend to be pulled from the larger interstate regional levels).
Just wait until you find out about the American civil war
Definitely. We have north vs. south, east vs west, etc. even within states we have this rivalry, like northern vs southern California or eastern vs western Oregon. A lot of people think their state/part of a state/group of states is better, some more strongly than others (looking at you, Texas, California, and New York City).
That said, it’s all usually friendly and not violent or anything like that.
In NC people hate Floridians. In CO people hate Texans and Californians.
I am an unabashed New England Supremacist so there’s one for you OP
a lot of us are just very very attached to our specific origins. For example, I was born in East Charlotte, and when I was young I had opinions about people from South Charlotte. People here will stereotype you by neighborhoods that rub up right next to each other.
Most people don’t take it seriously. It’s just like, oh that neighborhood is old money, that one is granola, that one is new money, that one is artsy, that one is weird… etc.
Extrapolate that to cities, states, regions, countries, continents etc.
New York State vs that tiny Island in the south east corner.
Northern VA and the rest of the state.
Lol …. I’ve literally heard people say “I’m not from Louisiana …. I’m from New Orleans ….” And look at my tag or whatever …. I went out of my way to specify I was from SOUTH Louisiana god forbid anyone confuse me with the wack a doos up in North Louisiana….. So yes, there is regionalism …. statealism … parish/countyalism …. whatever lol
We all hate everyone that’s not exactly like us and wasn’t raised exactly like us …
Upon meeting someone in new orleans …. “Where did you go to school?”
Translation: “what socioeconomic bracket do I need to place you in?”
I am sad to hear that you mean in terms of superiority and discrimination. There is regional pride and regional cultures, envirnment, resources, geography, demographics, history, and disagreement about politics, but no, no informal caste system.
What stereotypes there are stem from good natured ribbing unless they are political, in which case there is heated, serious disagreement. But there is no subjugation of a region by another
For sure. Pretty much everyone outside the South shits on the South.
Texas thinks they’re better than everyone. I even heard the claim that the Texas flag is allowed to be the flown at the same height as the U.S. flag. This isn’t true at all.
I certainly look down on the South. Most rural areas, really. Hate me, but I’ll be honest about it.
I invite those dwelling in my neighboring state of Nebraska, who are not currently involved in interspecies coitus, to fornicate with sheep.
P.S. your silly state is only known for corn, and we produce far more.
Coastal elites look down on everyone who doesn’t live on the coast. It’s very frustrating.
Pittsburgh is better than Philadelphia or West Virginia
Everyone thinks they are better than Ohio
Everyone actually is better than Indiana and Mississippi
North vs South is extremely similar in America to India, but it goes the other way round. Their north is our south, and vice versa
I’m up personal experience you’d have a hard time not finding regionalism. New Jersey has a feud with every other state in the union, not to mention enjoys fighting between regions within the state. Pennsylvania feuds with its neighbors a bit, and, at least where I’m at, occasionally likes to bicker by county
Chicago vs the rest of Illinois is so real. I have absolutely no connection with my home state and almost solely identity with the city
Midwest? More like midBEST
A lot of states like to blame all their problems on Californians moving there.
Is their regionalism in the US – yes clearly. Large coastal states, shared history in South, Pacific Northwest chill. A great book about it is called 11 nations and tracks the different immigrant groups that set rules for different parts of the US. There are limits to the theory of course but it’s a great snap shot.