hmmm... the physical locale is based on the topography in Knox County, with the kind of ridges that take a mile of road to go up 50 feet, and the red-orange clay that gets scraped away when the road is widened, and the newcomers to the area that build right under the ridge that only has kuszu holding back the landslide.... They don't know it's not the landslide that will eat the house, but the kudzu....

There's also a history of a population made up of road racers decended from whisky runners and police (sometimes in the same branch of the family) and the kind of people that can navigate in space well because they already have to give driving directions in three dimensions.