It's true that there are people from all over the country in California, but believe it or not, we natives really do have a unique accent. I found that out when I lived in England. When I first arrived there, I couldn't believe that every Brit I talked to, knew immediately that I was from California.
It was quite a reality adjustment for me, as I'd always felt that we Californians had sort of a bland, nothingburger accent. Thing was, I just couldn't hear it because I'm from there.
The point in my previous post about my wife's accent, is that she hadn't lived in the area that set her accent since she was a small child. West Palm Beach, Florida (where she grew up) is populated by people from all over the country, so the typical Southern accents are kind of washed out.
Nowadays, my wife's natural accent isn't as pronounced as when I first met her, but I think that has a lot to do with her spending the last fifteen years on the phone with our urbane clientele. When she gets on the phone with a real Southerner, you should hear her voice change. It's really interesting to listen to.
He started by telling me that (depending on the annexing of townships any given year) that Phoenix often times is larger in area than the city of Los Angeles. He told me that he measured it once by driving from one corner of Phoenix to the furthest away corner of Phoenix and it was something like 90 miles from point to point.
Because of the huge area he wondered why Phoenix did not have different accents like New York City does.
Then he asked me. "Did you ever notice how they speak like they're from Brooklyn in New Orleans?"
My eyebrows raised. "yes, I did. Why is that?"
He explained that there was once some kind of plague and many people died and they ended up importing a lot of Catholics from New York City to replenish the Catholic church in new Orleans and that's how the accent got there.
Not sure how true that is, but that was his explanation.