Living In The South

From the archives.

Q. How are people in the South different from the rest of Americans?

A. I moved from NYC to Atlanta in 1995 in advance of the Olympic Games. I was sick and tired of the hard work it takes just to survive in the Big Apple. Plus I was ready for having my babies.

The first and most bracing difference is that the cost of living in Atlanta is very low as compared to Boston and New York City where I had lived before, and Los Angeles, where I am from. A new house cost about 1/3 as much there.

I expected not to find fresh groceries and seafood. I was very wrong. I could get Thai cuisine delivered and found multiple excellent sushi restaurants. Kroger stores were immaculate. I expected grungy Piggly Wiggly. Nope.

There were trees everywhere. Lush. Quiet. Relaxing. And so people too, talked slower, talked about family. Wanted to know how you were feeling. THEN they’d talk business. It’s a habit I learned and still keep to this day.

Football, golf, tennis. All people talk about. The average person does not talk about politics, they talk about what their family does and how to run a house. They expect parallels primarily because most businesses are not mega corporations as they are in the Northeast. So a careerist attitude doesn’t particularly help, especially considering the low cost of good housing.

The South is a lot more class conscious and race conscious. What you do in the South in the middle class is to keep yourself head and shoulders above the lower class which is more prevalent and dispersed. There are particular ghettos, but there are also lower class suburbs that are very close to more upscale suburbs. So finding a good babysitter is much more difficult in southern suburbs. Living is much more networky than hierarchical. In NYC you don’t need to care, you grow a shell, you signify with your clothing. In the South that doesn’t work so well, you are expected to be friendly and polite and engage everyone on a personal level. These things are negotiated on a more personal level in the South.

The South is not so cosmopolitan. Overacheivers leave. East coasters come to settle down. So there is kind of a native insecurity. Nobody wants to be considered a hick, although there are bold and brassy rednecks all over. So people do not want to be anonymous, they want to engage their personalities in a family friendly kind of way. If you become rich and or powerful, you have no more need to show off. It’s done. People from the coasts who consider themselves big shots in a particular way will find themselves surprised to see that nobody cares. In other words, in the lower strata of society, everything matters. But once you’re making six figures or better, then additional status on top of that doesn’t matter much at all. IE, no flashy cars like Porsches matter, but there’s a big difference between an Altima with or without flashy rims.

One problem that I didn’t have to deal with was school. (I moved back to Cali in 98). Basically public schools suck. Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte are all three legendarily horrid, all the dysfunction you would guess. Private schools suck in a different way in that the most wealthy families run roughshod. So I avoided the calamity of having my kids with ‘the accent’ or the arrogance.

Redneck radio is quite a phenomenon, as is all local media. As I said about cosmopolitanism, most people stick to family and church values and don’t try to struggle with attempts to comprehend the sophisticated nuances of international affairs, and the other kinds of arcane curiosities found when ‘All Things’ are considered. You have enough problems dealing with rednecks saying ‘hold my beer’. But the worst mistake you can make is assuming people who aren’t sophisticated are not smart. A Southerner will nail you every time. A Southerner is much more likely to work on being a good neighbor at a constant, reliable level, than to be ignorant of his neighbors and collect fancy wine. The South doesn’t change quickly and nobody really wants it to. So there is not this trendy chase so much. Who is going to win the Masters this year? Did Georgia Tech beat UGA or not? Did you bag your limit? There’s not a lot of possibilities.

I think the South is truly built for people and not for corporations. I think people who never live there do not quite understand that. Midwesterners should get it, especially people who live in towns with rivalries like Kenosha and Racine. They are exceptionally proud of things that people in the rest of the nation don’t talk about or don’t care except maybe once a year. Middle class status and respectability are at a premium and in those slower economies it’s very tough to overachieve. You work harder at being civilized because the temptation is always there to not care.

The great things about the South are self evident. The South is really all about people. It’s about food. It’s about family. It’s about staying put and making do. It’s about having nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. So character counts for a lot more. Consequently you get unforgettable ordinary people, you get incredible food and music. I’m thinking about New Orleans.

Texas is different. Texas is always different.