I think people from the west have a completely different point of view about just about everything than the folks on the right southern part of the country.
Yeah, the U.S. is one country, but the cultures in different regions are significantly, sometimes vastly, different. There are the big things, like how conservative or liberal an area is, but there are lots of less obvious differences like how people drive and how strangers interact with you.
I'm from the Mid-Atlantic and living in the SF Bay area now (where drivers do so with incompetence and strangers act like they're your best friend.) After a few years of it, I've come to conclude that it ain't my cup of tea. I lived in the LA area (where people park their cars on the freeway¹ rather than drive and where strangers act like they're your agent) for a short stint in the mid-nineties and I liked that even less.
It seems to me that there is actually some significant cultural divergence even between the LA and San Francisco areas despite the relatively short distance between them. I imagine that I'd find the Southeast to be a new experience just as I would the Midwest, New England, or any number of other areas. (Texas would likely be the weirdest though.)
1. That probably explains why so many there spend more on their cars then their homes... they spend more time in their cars.
-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";