"This is not speculation, it is firsthand knowledge"

Which translates as "your opinion", not fact.

"But of the two cultural backgrounds, I'll give you three guesses which one I hear routinely bad-mouth the other more frequently"

I don't know about you, but I always here "country" people bad-mouthing big city life. I do not hear it the other way around, in fact most "city" people seem to respect the country for the pleasures. It may be me, but I have never heard "Northerners" mock "southern" culture.

Now, as for those lazy West Coast people... that is another story.