The Move South

TEXAS AND FLORIDA NOW HAVE LARGER POPULATIONS THAN NEW YORK.

No doubt it’s mostly a generational thing that I only sample American Idol. A lot of the singing is way too much over the emotional top for my tastes, and much of it sounds like tortured yelling to me. However, I do sample the program, and I did watch it more when it would feature a night of standards from the Great American Songbook. That’s was when I could really tell whether which of the  kids could actually sing, and some definitely could, in my view.

The thing I noticed most when I sampled it this week is that all four of the finalist are from the South. (As you probably know, the winners are finally determined by viewer voting.) That could mean that it really doesn’t matter from which section of the country a contestant comes, and there is reason to believe that is now the case. However, it is interesting to note that the South is now the most populous section of the United States. A Google search reveals there are now more than 114-million people living in the American South.  California is the most populous state; however, Texas and Florida now come in second and third, both ahead of New York. My own state of Georgia is now 8th in population.

A check of internal  migration in the United  States shows that up until 1861, when the Civil War started,  the move was from the east coast to the west. From 1861 to 1929, when the Great depression started,  from rural areas to cities in the North and South. From 1929 to 2009 generally from the Northeast to the South and West.

No doubt there are a number of reasons for the population shifts; however, weather certainly has to be at or near the top. Northerners fleeing the cold simply could not take the long hot summers of the South. That changed with  the advent of air conditioning. So, probably the number one reason for the shift to the South is the advent of air conditioning.