What is "Southern"?

I came across this interesting article a few days ago, "Definition of South, Southern Is Changing." I question the authenticity of the polls, because the polling sample would have to be pretty large to give a trustworthy projection. Pointing out a difference of seven percentage points is meaningless when a poll of typical size (several hundred people) can have a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 or 4 percent.

May I put this to my readers for discussion: how do you all ("youse all"? "y'all"?) in the South feel about all us Yankees moving down? Ironically, it's often to escape all the oppressive taxation we've brought upon ourselves, because we keep re-electing the same tax-and-spenders (Democrats and Republicans alike). I say "us" and "we" because, though I did live for my first seven years in the Philippines and then 17 years in the western U.S., my father was always a Yankee, and I was raised one. "New Yorker" is not appropriate, because I'm not of the city and likely never will be. Nightfall in Manhattan is a wondrous thing, but it's so nice to come home to the quiet of Westchester.

I myself wonder what "New Yorker" means today when so many young women, born and raised in the city, talk just like the stereotypical Valley Girl. TV and movies have certainly done much to blur distinctions between regional accents, though there are always exceptions. One of my best friends is as Bronx-sounding as they come, and she'll still "axe" me something, for example. Conversely, one thing that's rubbed off on me is a too-infrequent tendency to say "How are ya?" (emphasis on "are") instead of what I used to say, "How are you?" (emphasis on "you").