regionalism in american, good or bad?

Just a personal observation but i have noticed on several topics lately a variety of opinions expressed leading me to conclude that we often extrapolate and then generalize what america is from a reference made of our own regions (myself included). i often think of the east coast from Boston to Washington D.C. as people who barely recognize that they are not in toto america. this is most likely my own bias however, i do see others every bit as myopic as I.
Despite the renaissance of regionalism, despite the ever-growing sophistication with which we can study and measure regional characteristics, many discussions of region, popular and academic, seem to revolve around an extraordinarily persistent set of assumptions. One assumption is that regional identity is, at heart, an inheritance from the past, a moral and intellectual "heritage" that, if it is to endure, must be preserved from the ravages of modern life. To many people, it appears that there was a time in the past when each region was most fully itself: the Old South, the Old West, pristine New England. Since then, we are told, there has been a relentless adulteration and watering down of these places by the forces of modern life.
Another assumption is that the North, South, and West naturally developed out of variations in the American landscape. Regional differences in people appear to be reflections of regional differences in land and climate. Americans tend to think in nature metaphors--cold, rocky New England creating cold, rocky New Englanders; hot and humid Dixie creating hot-tempered men and dewy women; the big skies and wide-open spaces of the West creating independent men and self-sufficient women. When people warn of the demise of regions they usually couch their warning in images of landscapes lost, of battlefields desecrated, of paradise paved. To lose distinctive features of the land is to lose the depth and salience of region, most of us assume. Any thoughts?