In my opinion, air conditioning saved the South. For several months out of the year, the heat and humidity can be brutally oppressive down here. In the time before A/C, many people (given the choice) decided it was better to freeze their ass off in the North than to sweat it off here.

That changed with A/C. It made a blazing hot summer much more bearable and many people moved down here (myself included) as a result. Still, it didn’t totally eliminate these issues…