I could easily take a plausible position that people within the same town have so much difference between them that trying to lump regional characteristics together is meaningless. Since you don’t, apparently you’re OK with some reduction.
There's more variation on the street I live on today, than between MA and CA taken as a whole.
I'm not sure what I "don't" in your comment above, but clearly my intent is not clear, so I'll restate:
(Parts of) MA and CA have a lot of similarities. Some of the places physically between them are very different.
You may disagree. If so, you are surely measuring by a different metric than I am, or have not seen the places I've seen. But that's all I intended to say.
It doesn't really seem like you've understood what I've said either, then: I'm saying is that there are essentially two American cultures, the urban one and the non-urban one, and these two parallel national cultures have almost entirely subsumed what were formerly much more varied regional ones. Anyway, you're being glib about how much I must not know about the various other states since CA and MA are "so similar" as if Los Angeles is just like Bakersfield or a California farm town, so it's no less facile.
