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Curious where you get the idea that regional accents are gone. If you travel around much in the US you'll hear many different regional accents. I have relatives from the west coast, mid-west, south and east coast (we're spread around) and each region has an easily recognizable accent. Some more pronounced than others, but still very much alive.

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I've noticed this more in Belgium Flanders. A region of a postage stamp country compared to the US where accents/dialects often weren't even fully mutually intelligible over distances that weren't so great.

This homogenization was first pushed trough education and such but it remained among the more rural folk (in as far as rural exists in such a densely populated region) but now media and migration are rapidly killing it off.

In my experience I don't notice any difference in accent between the east coast and west coast. The only regional accent I notice in many native english speakers is southern. All other accents seem to be cultural (AAVE, ESL) or dying (older generations have it, younger ones don't).

Having lived for a long time on each coast, this is not my experience at all. Each region has a rich accent.

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