[ecshafer]

I totally disagree on your assessment of East coast culture, unless you are only spending time in basically wealthy, old money, blue blood type places. Which considering you mention polo and rowing, that is probably the case. The working class parts and middle class people in the East Coast don't name drop, and believe in more of having made it themselves.

[mitchellst]

Yes, there's inherently some stereotyping here. Any proposed detail will be subjective and find counter-examples. But for anybody who has crossed these lines, the core point is pretty undeniable: regional cultures are distinctive. Not everyone will feel like they belong in all of them. The differences matter.

I also don't mean to say there's some rank list of better and worse cultures. I've definitely been places I wouldn't want to go back to (howdy, west Texas) but that's subjective, to a point at least.

Totally fair about the selection for east coast blue bloods, though. Here's my subjectivity: I left my home in Idaho at age 15 and went to one of New England's oldest boarding schools. (and I've been hopscotching these regional lines ever since.) I've spent other time on the east coast, too, but that definitely formed my early notions of it.