Why is inital /ŋ/ considered hick-ish? There seems to be a habit of dropping /ŋ/ initials in topolects/dialects for fear of seeming like a redneck.

Consider:


Canto: 屋 nguk1 vs. uk1 [the new ABC Cantonese dictionary only gives the uk1 even]
Southwest Mandarin: 欧 ngou1 vs. ou1 


Some claim this is 老派 vs. 新派 but from my experience it's been considered 土 vs. 洋.

Why does the /ŋ/ initial give people a hillbilly-type feeling?
I noticed that there's a tendency to drop initial /ŋ/ in Wu (Shanghainese), but I always ascribed it to the proximity of the word to Mandarin:

我 
Mandarin: wo3 
Wu: (吾) ngu34
外 
Mandarin: wai4 
Wu: nga53

Whereas it is clearly voiced when it occurs in more language-specific words or single syllables (obviously):

硬 
Mandarin: ying4 
Wu: ngang53 
五 
Mandarin: wu3 
Wu: ng34
鱼 
Mandarin: yu2 
Wu: ng34