Border dwellers: These questions are for you

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not enough room in the title bar for all I want to ask.

As I was driving down into Alabama today I got to wondering about the residents of Tennessee and Alabama, (and by extension those who live near the border of any political entities), who live within x-number of miles from the border:

  1. How far are you (in miles) from that border?

  2. Do you feel as much a part of your territory (county, province, state, country, continent, whatever has a border that you’re near to) as others who live closer to the center of that region?

  3. How far from the border do you think somebody needs to live before this issue goes away?

  4. When you live closer to a community in the adjacent region than the nearest one in your own, how does that affect your sense of belonging to your own region?

Feel free to add other questions or to make other observations about the issue(s).

2

Resident of a small town on the Ohio River here. West Virginia in the other side.

  1. Less than a quarter mile from the border. I can be in West Virginia in 10 minutes walking and two driving.

  2. Given our geographic isolation from the rest of Ohio it’s a solid fact that the City of Marietta feels unwanted and not a part of the larger state. But at the same time we’ve little interest in becoming Mountaineers. The city looks, college-football-wise, to Ohio State and the Buckeyes. WVU gets very little play here.

  3. As I said, we’re isolated. But I suspect that Athens, about 40 miles away and closer to Columbus doesn’t feel the same sense of isolation. The college has to help that enormously.

  4. About 10 miles down the river is the city of Parkersburg, WV. It’s about four times our size and has other communities nearby and economically dominates the area. It’s where locals go for the mall and such. Heck, the Department of Commerce considers us all one market for their calculations. But the two cities rarely acknowledge that fact.

3

I am from Huntsville, AL, so I grew up on the exact border you were wondering about. Growing up, you couldn’t by alcohol in Alabama on Sunday but you could in Tennessee, so what it mostly meant was that there was a good excuse to take a small road trip on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

4

Thanks much, Jonathan Chance, for those answers. I sense you have already had the thought before.

I have always lived close to the center of the state and I confess to having a sense of “differentness” from other parts of both states I’ve lived in. In Central Alabama it’s hard to feel part of the same state as Mobile, Huntsville, Birmingham and surely the “border cities” like Phenix City, Ardmore, Atmore, Eufaula, Red Bay and Bridgeport.

I don’t think I’m alone either in the sense that Memphis, Chattanooga, and the tri-cities (Kingsport, Bristol and Johnson City) are less likely to feel they’re Tennessee places as Nashville, Jackson, Knoxville and the more “inland” places.

Since I’ve never had that border-town experience, I’m really curious how that works. So I thought I’d ask.

5

Huntsville is where I went! To pick up Zoe at her friend’s place. I have been there many times as a kid and we even honeymooned at Monte Sano. But, at least for me, Huntsville never felt like a border town, in spite of how much of an “other part of the state” it felt when I was in the Montgomery area.

I know exactly what you mean about the silly laws in days of yore. In fact, one of the weirdest places I’ve heard of straddles the TN-KY border. There’s a line down the middle of the store. You can get the cheaper goods from one state or the legal goods from the other, just by crossing the line. (That place may no longer exist, and I never was there myself, but I would bet there are such places of business all over the map.)

6

I went to college in Tallahassee, Florida. The city is very close to the Georgia border. However, everyone considered themselves Floridians. Of course, Tallahassee is the capital of Florida. I did drive up to Georgia several times just to cross the state line. That was a big deal for 18 year old me!

We did have one tv station that was located in Georgia.

7

  1. About 3 miles from the Indiana/Ohio border.

  2. I think most people around here would say they feel like a part of Ohio, albeit a largely ignored part of the state. We don’t do anything dramatic up here most of the time so there’s little reason to notice us.

  3. I think the issue has a lot to do with where your nearest ‘big-city’ television news and news papers originate. If your media exposure is largely from another state/country, it does affect you. Our news is ‘area news’ and 'in Ohio, they are calling for…", and we often joke that the weather stops at the state line, as TV forecasts aren’t nearly as detailed and “ACCURATE!” “ON THE SPOT!” as they are across the border. Luckily the NWS isn’t prejudiced against us furriners.

  4. I feel like an Ohioan, but at the same time I identify with the larger metro area in Indiana simply from being exposed to their issues my whole life, and from the fact that it’s far more convenient to shop there, go for entertainment there, than it is to go to a similarly-sized city in Ohio. The larger metro area doesn’t identify with us, though - we often get this question when doing business in Indiana: “You’re from Ohio? How long did it take you to get here?” (um…20 minutes?)

8

I’m from Northern Virginia and currently live in Washington DC. When we were house shopping, we were looking in both DC and Northern VA as Southern MD would be too far of a commute.

  1. I am less than ten miles from either VA or Maryland. I was coming from a point in MD to DC and cut through VA to avoid traffic lights and make it faster.

  2. DC is too small for it to make a difference. Living in Northern VA, I always felt that it was very different from the rest of the state and almost like it didn’t belong.

  3. I really don’t know. I suspect it depends on where the local news is based out of.

  4. I feel like I am from the DC Metro area. I would consider moving to either MD or VA if my commute was reasonable and it made sense for me. Most of my friends live in VA and rarely venture into MD so that may influence my decision if we ever move.

9

Not a border dweller, but I hope I may chime in:

My home state of NSW makes an interesting case study. The capital city, Sydney, is located about as far as you can possibly get from any state borders (the closest would be eight hours’ drive). However, once you cross those borders into other states, those states’ capital cities are closer to the border. This means that for a couple of hundred kilometres inside New South Wales on all three sides (fourth is ocean), people feel culturally more in tune with the neighbouring state, often resenting Sydney and even calling for border relocations. People on the North Coast have to deal with Sydney for a lot of government stuff, but they will go shopping in Brisbane (Queensland capital), send their kids to university or boarding school there, follow that city’s sporting teams, and often pick up the interstate radio and TV broadcasts. In the south, they treat Melbourne (Vicotria) the same way (to the point of having local football fields laid out for Australian Rules rather than rugby League). In Broken Hill in the far west, they look to Adelaide (South Australia), and often even refuse to adopt Sydney’s time zone!

Of course, here in Sydney, we just look on these people as hicks. :smiley:

10

I’m not a native here so my impressions may not mean much but …

Here in St. Louis, Missouri, the greater metro area is the largest in the state. It’s also right on the border with Illinios. Over the river in IL there is the rusted-out hulk of East St. Louis and a few small towns which have recently grown into bedroom communities (e.g. Edwardsville, Collinsville); the rest is rural.

The MO folks feel like 100% real MO-ers & ignore the IL side almost completely. The only thing it’s well known for is a couple of concentrations of nudie clubs. Any really good stag bar-crawl through the city ends over there. Other than that, IL is pretty much out-of-sight out-of-mind for MO folks.

Meanwhile, the majority of the IL folks living in those towns commute to MO for work. They’d be the ones with the interesting attitudes.

Most MO businesses within 40 miles of the border have some IL residents working there. There is often a good natured rivalry about who lives on the wrong side of the border, usually referring to taxation & such.

My non-native take is that the tax burden is almost identical, just distributed differently between income taxes, property taxes, and nuisance fees. Which ensures that each side can claim they’re the better place just by concentrating on one aspect & ignoring the others.
The other major metro area in MO is Kansas City, which also straddles a state border: MO/KS. That one is less lopsided, with a lot of the recent growth being suburbs in KS. In feel & attitude, KC & STL are very different. Folks talk of STL as the USA’s westernmost Eastern city & KC as the easternmost Western city. Having grown up in the real West & having visited KC a bunch, I can see what they mean.

In St. Louis we tend to think of MO as 3 distinct entities. Good ol’ traditional STL, scruffy KC, and the unwashed “out counties” full of ill-shod illiterate ill-tempered but heavily-armed yokels.

The KC folks think of shiny KC, rotten old STL, and the unwashed out counties full of ill-shod illiterate ill-tempered but heavily-armed yokels.

The unwashed out counties think of themselves as the true salt of the earth, Honest God-fearing People® while STL & KC are just corrupt crime holes full of welfare sucking (insert alternate term for non-white people).

As you can imagine, our state legislature is good for a laugh, but is not real effective. Especially after you notice that the out counties have the vast majority of the seats while STL+KC have the vast majority of the population & provide the vast majority of the tax revenue.

This turned into a bit of a hijack but I think it’s still relevant to the big question of residents’ identification with their state’s “identity”, whatever that means.

11

A very interesting post there, LSLGuy, and very much in the spirit (see OP) of

Do you have any questions to extend the scope of the discussion? If so, by all means add them.

I see from your comments that perhaps counties, when adjuncts to a major metro area, need to be excluded from discussion. Outlying counties, maybe not. I say that because the Nashville metro area (and most larger towns I know of) extends across several counties and even if those counties have their own tax structure, law enforcement, schools systems and other such departments and agencies, they are really more closely tied to the core city (or town) due to common news reporting and entertainment (including sports) attractions.

However, if you’re in such a county and it doesn’t fit the mold of “just an extension of the big city” or “bedroom community,” maybe your ideas would help in the overall search for understanding of the issue.

In the Nashville area I suspect that Williamson County to the south, with Franklin and Brentwood as somewhat standalone status towns, and Sumner to the northeast, with Hendersonville and Gallatin with similar autonomy, and perhaps others I’m less familiar with, may have more of a dual sense of belonging. The small town feel of those outlying towns plus the “right next door to Music City” feel probably provides long-time residents with a split personality as it relates to the issue. Newcomers, probably less so until they are accepted into the smaller community’s society.

12

I live very near the WI border (and not that far from the IA border). I work in WI.
What bothers be is searches that look by state rather than zip code. So I’m finding stores (or whatever) in Duluth when La Crosse, Eau Claire and even Madison are closer.

All the TV stations are WI stations (even though may have thier antenna - and in the case of ABC thier actual station - in MN). This was very frustrating during the recent Wi Supreme court election - zillions of ads but I couldn’t vote for/against either one of them.

Since I was born in WI and work there and vacation there and my sisters live there I guess I consider myself a Wisconsonite who just happens to live across the river.

Brian

13

I grew up in Nevada about 2 miles from the California state line. (still live darn close to the border)

We HATE California, and all that it stands for.

14

I’m very similar to N9IWP. But opposite. I live in WI and live less than a mile from the MN border. We are considered part of the Twin Cities metro area, and as such all the newspapers and TV news are from the cities. Most people who live in my town commute to MN for jobs. I definitely feel more a part of the Twin Cities area than a part of WI and do most of my shopping there. I am also a Viking fan and will never root for the Packers. I’ve noticed it seems to be about 50/50 Vikings fans vs. Packers fans here. I would guess that once outside commuting distance from the Twin Cities things change dramatically and it becomes more “Wisconsinish”.

15

There’s a website somewhere about borders between European countries. Some of the borders pass through busy commercial districts (though generally of small towns), and you can see the language on the signs change from one block to the next.

Unfortunately I can’t remember the URL.

16

The other difference for us is we have four distinct sections of the KC metro area: KC MO, KC KS (home of the speedway, Cabela’s, and a huge discount mall), Overland Park, KS (by far where the money is, also very very Republican), and the Lee’s Summit/Blue Springs section of the area which IMO is closer to typical MO attitudes than the rest of KC.

I agree. I am not originally from here (from the East coast) and while I don’t catch the east coast vibe from STL, I think that’s the attitude STL would like to project. And KC works hard to avoid being considered the second cousin to STL but really, it’s a cow town. I was tickled when we started running the cattle through the streets to celebrate that.

The biggest difference I see in the KC metro area is that public schools within urban KC are really not very good. People who can’t afford private schools will move to Overland Park, KS or out to Lee’s Summit or Blue Springs, MO because the schools are really that much better.

17

I live in southern New Mexico, about 20 miles from the border with Texas, and about 25 miles from the border with Mexico.

If you go to Santa Fe, you will get a lot of NEW MEXICO!!! thrown in your face. They call it “cultural heritage”. I call it “tourist trap”.
On the other hand, I am certainly NOT a damn Texan.
Growing up near the US/Mexico border, I have always been surrounded by immigrants. I have heard lots of tales of the “old country”, warts and all. Further north, I think a lot of Americans have a rather romanticized view of Mexico. Most of my countrymen don’t realize just how nice it is to be a yanqui. So, living on the border made me more USA that most USAians.

It’s where all the damn tourists come from. :smiley: Like I said, I am not a damn Texan.

18

Michigander here. I live about 43 miles from Canada. It’s a straight shot from Detroit via tunnel or bridge. I visit Canada so rarely that I don’t consider myself practically Canadian by any means… though we tend to run across a lot of Canadian currency, and you will find many stores accept the coins (at least, they did when I was younger… I’ve noticed an increasing refusal to do so lately.) I have a very strong Michigan identity; I’ve lived here all of my life in at least 13 different towns and I think I’d feel completely Michigander even if I were 2 miles from the border. I have friends who used to go into Canada on the weekends to party and their regular visits didn’t seem to affect their Michigander/US identity much.

19

Not currently, but …

  1. Formerly lived in Indiana, at one time, about 15 miles from Michigan.

  2. All of our news sources covered both Indiana and southern Michigan but were mostly based out of South Bend, so it was more of a regional feel as opposed to the Indianapolis or Fort Wayne stations and papers with the Indianacentric focus.

  3. I don’t really know, but I suspect distance to area news sources and markets play a large part.

  4. Growing up, I always felt closer to (and was closer physically) the regional “big towns” of Fort Wayne or South Bend than I did Indianapolis.

In more recent experiences, one of my cousins lived in Portland, TN. Whenever I would visit from Nashville, if we went shopping or out to eat from there, we usually went to Bowling Green, KY. It was closer, didn’t have traffic issues to get there and usually less expensive.

20

I grew up in Pennsylvania about 10 miles from the Ohio border. I felt 100% Pennsylvanian. Our television came from Pittsburgh, our roads completely sucked, and you couldn’t get alcohol in convenience or grocery stores.

I went to college in Ohio, about 25 miles from home. It felt very much like a different state, what with the flat, grid-oriented pothole-free roads, lack of larger market television and radio stations (couldn’t pull in the Pittsburgh ones there), and readily available alcohol.
Most amusing was all the people who thought I must be from very far away since I was from another state. Meanwhile there were other Ohio-born students who grew up six hours away on the other side of Ohio. The mental PA/OH border is strong.