The question of whether where you live can influence who you are as a person would depend largely on many factors like your background culture and training, convictions, acquired set of values, level of spiritual awareness, your determination, prevailing circumstances and how well you can cope with heat of trials. In this piece I would try to show both sides of the argument and site some examples to justify my points.
Lot was not influenced by his environment
Lot, Abraham's nephew (Gen 19:1-36) raised his family in Sodom until the time God decided to destroy the city because of their sins. Anal intercourse is called sodomy today because it originated from Sodom. Lot had lived long enough with his uncle to have been indoctrinated in Abraham's spiritual inclinations. He held the laws of God so dear in his heart and taught same to his daughters. It was a commendable feat that Lot was found righteous and having ruled his household very well, was also able to raise two daughters who remained virgins even when they had grooms-to-be in Sodom. Lot was not influenced by the custom of Sodom, and it appears his daughters were not either.
Lot's wife was influenced by the environment
Well, right in the same household, it appears that Lot's wife was influenced. Some people believed she was a native of Sodom and so was already depraved before Lot married her. But this was unlikely, and the Bible did not tell us where Lot got his wife from. One can only infer that with Lot's firm belief in the laws of God as taught him by Abraham, he would have also known that God frowned at inter racial marriages between His chosen people and other nations. Though it was only spelt out in the Mosaic Law that came later in the age but it appeared Abraham knew about it for he made his servant to swear an oath that he would not take a wife for Isaac among the Canaanites where they sojourned but he would go back to his native land to get a wife. So I believe Lot married a relation as well, but one who was not as spiritually matured as to resist the lure of Sodom's wealth and sinful pleasure. She looked back against the Angels' warning, a sign that she was reluctant to live the sinful area. Background and convictions were the problems here. She was influenced by the environment
Lot's daughters lost out in desperate situations
Still on Lot and his family, we read that they escaped to the city of Zoar, also a very sinful place but which the angels spared because of Lot's insistence to go there. He had to quit Zoar again because of the prevailing wickedness in the place but not without a blemish. His credit points dipped seriously when these same chaste daughters of his got him drunk with wine in order to have a chance to rape him to get offspring through him. What had suddenly gone wrong? One guess is that his darling girls must have been influenced by the life at Zoar; another one is that they were already polluted while they were still in Sodom but had no opportunity to show it because of Lot's firm grip. When they got to the cave that finally became their abode, the girls feared that their generation would become extinct since there were no men to marry them and put them in the family way. So they committed incest because they couldn't see a way out of their desperate need.
What is certain is that when desperate situations come upon a person, convictions that are not deep-rooted in the heart floats and evaporate with heat of the moment. The superstructure of determination cannot stand when foundations of convictions collapse.
Ruth got convinced and left the evil-filled Moab
Ages later, Ruth a Moabitess and progeny of one of the daughters of Lot and therefore an offspring of incest, married Chilion son of Naomi and Elimelech who were Bethlehemites. This couple must have inculcated Godly values into their children's upbringing. Ruth was influenced by these good values because she naturally was a compassionate person and she made up her mind to live with the values. With her strong determination, even the risk of never having another man to marry her after her husband died did not deter her. She also knew fully that she might be saddled with the care of another old widow for life but that was just like ice under the heat of passion she had for the God of Israel. Her pagan background gave way to her acquired convictions and determination to live a new life.
Three Hebrew men determined to please God in Pagan Land
The story was also told of the three Hebrew young men who were civil servants in Babylon during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. They were Judaists who had the following laws of God etched on the tablets of their hearts: You shall have no other gods before me You shall not make for yourself a carved image and You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. (Ex 20: 1-3) Now it pleased the king, at the instance of his advisers to erect a golden image and to decree a national worship for thirty days with a penalty of roasting in the furnace for defaulters. If you don't think that situation was desperate enough I suggest you try your microwave oven.
However, the king was sufficiently shocked when the men preferred to roast in the fire. They said "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. (Dan 3:16-18 emphasis mine)
Were they in desperate circumstances? Yes they were and nothing could be more dreadful other than heat of hell itself. Did they shift ground and get influenced with paganism of Babylon? No. Their background culture, high spiritual awakening and strong convictions and determination to please God sustained them.
Contemporary Examples
In Africa, we have a culture that prepares the mind of children to accommodate (if need be) and cater for their parents in old age when they may not be able to earn their living again. There is an adage that says The old rabbit is breastfed by her young ones. It is always a shameful thing to see a family where old parents still have to labor to earn a living when they have grown children of working age. Taking one's parent or even an elderly relation to old people's home is not in African culture but I am not condemning those who do that. Because of this, many Africans in Diaspora are in the practice of bringing their growing children back home to live and learn this culture before taking then back so that these children will not disappointment them in the future when they (the parents) are old and need support. This is because such children have no background training in African culture and therefore have not built any set of values in it. The parents in the other hand who grew up in Africa are already acculturated and are not influenced by western culture, at least the ones in question.
We have heard stories of innocent people who were falsely accused and sentenced to spend time in prisons and later came out as criminally minded. Yet some hardened criminals spent time in the same prisons and came out slain in the spirit and determined to live a new life out of prison. It all depends on the inner man.
Final word
The heart of degenerate man is desperately wicked and deceitful. When he becomes born again he gets a new heart from God. This heart, King Solomon counsels, should be guarded with all diligence for out of it comes the issues of life If a man can take these three steps, even if he were to go and spend time in hell itself he would not be badly influenced.