Incidentally, I think a lot of those people who deny any Southernness of DC ignore the Black presence in DC which is quite New South-like imo (both conservatives and liberals seem vested in this "DC is culturally northeastern" argument). PG County is much more like suburban Atlanta than anything in New York or Boston.
I've asked quote a few people in the DC area this question - do you consider Washington to be a Southern city?
The answers are split on both generational grounds (older people say "Yes" sometimes, younger people uniformly say "No") and on racial grounds (much of the older/middle aged people who say "Yes" are black).
Black Washington still has Southern character that it has kept ever since the Great Migration days (people forget that many of Washington's black residents are descended from migrants from the Carolinas and Deep South, not descendants from the DC metro area).
But the most affluent parts of the city that people like me (white, college-educated young professionals) live in do not feel Southern and not populated by people who think they're Southern.
Wouldn't this be more of an argument for DC
not being Southern? While plenty of black migrants did move to Southern cities, the Great Migration is usually thought of as a South-to-North movement. Probably a majority of Detroit residents (in city limits, that is) have roots in the Deep South, but I've never heard anybody call Detroit even slightly Southern.
This isn't to argue that there's nothing at all Southern about DC, I just don't think that's the best way to show it.
