Is America Becoming Homogenized?

The South where differences were once so great that tens of thousands of boys and men died to protect its antiquated agricultural society based on slavery; is becoming more like the rest of America. Is that possible? Is it good for the nation and the future? Will other regional differences and charms be lost?

A study recently showed a growing identification with sameness in the country from sea to shining sea. Those regional differences, sometimes charming, seem to be being lost in the movement to the sunbelt, the urbanization of the country and the influence of TV and, dare I say it; the internet.

Alan G. Breed wrote recently for the A.P. from Cary, N.C. on the Definition of South, Souther is Changing. His article can be found at Southern Identity.

He quotes a 69 year old Vernon Yates of the Yates Grocery and Farm Supply as saying," "It's all gone," Yates, pausing for another spit of tobacco juice, says of the Southern town of his youth.

""Everything is completely different from what it used to be."

Things are indeed changing in the South. And so is the notion of what it means to be "Southern."

In this most maligned and mused-upon of American regions, the term conjures a variety of images. Magnolias, front porch swings and sweet tea for some; football, stock cars and fried chicken for others; lynchings, burning crosses and civil rights marches for still others."

The question is also put that America has named this rebellious and often violent region the "Solid South", the Old South and the New South."

Is the direction of homogeneity in the TV leveled modern world toward a "No South"?

An AP poll found that, by 2030, 40% of the US will be living in what was once the distinct region known as "The South".

One sociologist from North Carolina thinks that the demographic changes do not mean that there will not be a "Southerner" merely that such a being will have "a different kind of meaning."

The writer asked if the qualities that were, in the past, attributed to the South such as people being more hospitable, with tighter family ties, more tied to religion and have "...identifiably 'Southern' traits..."

Article Author: Howard Dratch

Howard writes on science, books, movies and news for Blogcritics and on his own blogs from the border of North and Central America.

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