Laura Caton_David (love2write@earthlink.net) from 208.53.203.195 at 09/25/00 09:50AM
comment
    The central values of southerness appear to be almost static. We can't change the geography, we can't change the temperatures and weather, and we can't change our history. However, we are redefining what it means to be a modern southerner. Population and technology are pushing southerners in new directions and some of the changes are painful. Agriculture is taking a beating and it hurts to see all the farms (including the one I grew up on) bulldozed under and subdivided. Cities like Atlanta and Nashville are bursting at the seams. People complain that many of these cities are losing their identity, that there is not much difference between them and Chicago or New York. I argue that there is something different about these southern cities.

We still have sweltering summers when a sultry blues tune just seems to automatically float through your mind—even when you’re sitting in rush hour traffic. The words of the great writers and historians of our region constantly bring the past back into the focus, reminding us of the battles of our ancestors to tame and cultivate the land. That the south is a thriving, productive, rich part of the country is a testament to these early settlers’ dreams. These cities are a monument to the power of the south, not the degradation of it.

The south is changing and there is no way to stop it. But I believe that its overall identity as a unique region will not change. We will always be different. We can’t help it. As long as we have poets and writers reminding us of Beale Street, of the early Appalachians and the Cherokee, of the great earthquake that formed Reelfoot and changed the mighty Mississippi, of the Civil War and the struggles for Civil Rights, then we will always be the South.