There's a fun and real conversation to be had around his premise. Part I of a thoughtful, educated response...
Pre-emancipation, the only "big cities" in the South were Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans...
Two of those cities, DC and Bmore, are still big cities, but aren't considered southern anymore the way they were 200 years ago; the national perception of these cities shifted in the mid-20th century...
The other three cities, there are people who will debate you about how southern Norfolk is today, but more importantly, none of the other three cities are considered "big cities" today. Another 20th-century evolution, was that we started measuring cities by metropolitan population rather than just city population, and neither Nfk, Chuck Town or Nola, are in the Top 45 metros. So they are a long way removed from "big city" status, though Charleston and New Orleans enjoy a tourism/entertainment reputation...
Pre-emancipation, the North had plenty of big cities. NY, Philly, Boston, St Louis, Chicago, Cincy, Buff, Albany, Providence, and a bunch of cities that are now either annexed by larger cities (like Brooklyn was a separate city), or are today considered small (Salem, Mass was one of the biggest cities in the US pre-emancipation). The "big city" North vs the mostly rural, small city, agricultural south is a stereotype rooted in truth, and while the South being thought of as a rural backwater with no big, unique cities is mostly evolved from now, the historic perception of the South still plays for some people...
The 15 largest cities/metros/markets in the South today, are:
DFW
Houston
Atlanta
Miami
Tampa
Orlando
Charlotte
San Antonio
Austin
Raleigh-Durham
Nashville
Jacksonville
OKC
Louisville
Richmond
All of which are among America's 45 most important cities today, which is a significant juxtaposition from just barely 160 years ago. Maybe the most remarkable illustration of this, is that NONE of these cities were "big cities" prior to the emergence of the big Texas cities in the 1950s and 1960s.....a century post-emancipation.
So for many Americans of all backgrounds, the idea of the South evolving into sophisticated big city from slow country landscape is, at best, 70 years old, and at worst, some of these cities like the Carolina cities, Jacksonville, Orlando, are just growing into that recognition here in the 21st century...
Simply put, if you grew up before the year 2000, it's hard to shake some of these archaic stereotypes. I'm 35, I only knew about the Carolina cities growing up because I was into sports. The Panthers went to their first Super Bowl when I was 14 but I didn't think of Charlotte as a "big city". I was into the Baron Davis/Jamal Mashburn Hornets a few years before that...
Orlando was only the place All That and other Nickelodeon kids shows taped at, and had Disney World. The image of Orlando in my mind wasn't a big city...
Neither were Nashville, Richmond, San Antonio, Austin, etc. And I'm only 35, the guy in this video is probably a good decade older than me. He references the 80s and 90s in the video, so let's say he was born in '79. Him coming to Charlotte and Durham in the 80s and 90s, is a marked difference from what Charlotte and Durham are today. Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham have all literally doubled their populations today, from what they were 30 years ago in the mid-90s. They and all the "new" southern cities have grown the same way the "old" big cities of the North grew centuries ago: mass migration, leasing industries, and international immigration....
The big cities of the North dominated the landscape of American cultural norms for 300-330 years. It's just the South's turn now, and given we only really 50 years into the South's run, it's probably gonna last awhile and the ramifications of it are gonna be hard for alot of older people to swallow...