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New England States


MadVlad

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I just read an article in the Hartford Courant about the 6 New England States and how, despite their relatively small sizes, they compete and want to retain their own identity, even in the face of losing business' and people. Interesting, and I'd like to hear all your thoughts....

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Hope I wrote this post right, I'm trying hard to stay within the parameters set on this forum, and still link a newspaper clip. If I did it wrong, send me a PM and I'll edit it however you like....

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I agree that by working together the New England states are far more powerful. Cooperation is the only way to go.

I'm with you. Despite any harsh words that I've posted here one way or the other, I have a definite loyalty to any New England State/City over any non New England State/City. Anything that makes the region do well, in any area, is good for us all, in my opinion.

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Interesting article, thanks for telling us about it. I didn't know that Massachusetts' population is dropping.

It's not a significant drop (I think last year the bureau estimated roughly 5,000 residents had moved out), but it is shocking none-the-less. I don't know about any other places in the state, but the Springfield suburb of East Longmeadow, where my aunt and uncle live, is experiencing a pretty significant boom.

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I'm with you. Despite any harsh words that I've posted here one way or the other, I have a definite loyalty to any New England State/City over any non New England State/City. Anything that makes the region do well, in any area, is good for us all, in my opinion.

Same here. I'll rip on other New England states from time to time, and even say I'm glad to be a part of the NYC mega-metro...but deep down, I'm proud to be a New Englander and hope we can pull together to keep this region as highly regarded as it is. :wub:

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Moving from Long Island to Connecticut I really have begun to treat New England like one state. And in the same way that I rip on people from Buffalo and Rochester as not being real New Yorkers I rip on other NE states...but I'm still an intensly proud New Yorker and really, really love upstate (especially Ithaca) no matter how much I call the people who live in upstate hicks (not to say we don't have our fair share of hicks on long island).

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Moving from Long Island to Connecticut I really have begun to treat New England like one state. And in the same way that I rip on people from Buffalo and Rochester as not being real New Yorkers I rip on other NE states...but I'm still an intensly proud New Yorker and really, really love upstate (especially Ithaca) no matter how much I call the people who live in upstate hicks (not to say we don't have our fair share of hicks on long island).

People from the Island think everyone else is a hick.

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  • 3 months later...

i don't see new england thriving as one state. each state has a very different identity from the rest, even though they are so small. that identity attracts people to those states. loss of that identity would probably hurt the states more than it would help them.

you've got the yuppies of CT, the hippies of VT, the hicks of ME, the rednecks of NH, RI'ers are in a class of their own. and then there's MA, which is still different. regardless of these being generally stereotyped and looked down upon terms, it attracts people. you'd think VT and NH would be similar, but they're so different (complete opposite in fact... hippies in VT, conservatives in NH, cities in the north of VT, cities in the south of NH, and just look at their shapes).

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  • 1 month later...

See I'm thinking the other way here. No way you're going to separate these states from their sovereignty. But what about creating a sort of super-regional governing body? OK, so I doubt that would be constitutional. Or if not a governing body, at least an advisory committee? The New England Commission, or something like that? If nothing else, it would get us (as states) seriously thinking about our condition of being in the same boat together, and that (IMO) would be a step in the right direction.

Historically, we NE'ers have been very divided. But in the future, I hope we begin to see each other more in terms of our (many) similarities and less in terms of our several dissimilarities. And I really don't see any further use for the latent (and sometimes not-so-latent) hostility we bear towards one another.

Or as someone once said, can't we all just get along?!? :rofl:

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For the most part, no one in this area realy wants to be that closely tied economically with each other

I know. Which is the way it's always been here in NE. Since we first got to this continent nearly 400 years ago, the singular goal of New Englanders has been to get away from each other as much as possible.

It doesn't have to be that way. It's certainly not in our best interests.

- that kind of dilutes identity as well as not allowing each region to focus on their own strengths. Plus, one of New Englands key advantages is it's localness - the last think they need is to start thinking in large generalized chunks - that would take away from the individual city centers and promote more sprawl.

I disagree. I think we would tend to create more sprawl the way we are -- segmentized, redundant, insular. But maybe that's just me.

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I agree, we have too many regions that spill across state lines not to be talking to each other formally. Boston-Nashua-Manchester, Boston-Providence, Worcester-Providence, Providence-Fall River-New Bedford, Springfield-Hartford, Portsmouth-Kittery...

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Perhaps the splits aren't really drawn in the right spots, for instance Southern Mass perhaps belongs more to RI than Mass, or the NH seashore, hich seems to be there only to give NH a bit of shoreline.

I agree, the political boundaries are dysfunctional.

But aren't you worried that if we were on entity, that it would promote even more of that blending and creating, for instance, just a big sprawl between Providence and Worcester? What would force there to be any difference between them? What would jkeep the government structure from becoming too large and small towns loosing control to county development?

Am I worried about sprawl? Well no, but that's because the sort of organization I'm envisioning would exist expressly to combat that sort of thing. As part of its stated purpose, it would look to contain sprawl, promote better transit connections, support economic diversity and attract new business to the region, and to make all of these things work while trying to preserve as much as possible the various local character traits that exist. Basically, to make New England more efficient, more plugged in, more environmentally friendly. In a word, to make New England more coordinated.

Would there inevitably be some blending? Probably. Eventually. But what the hell, you can't turn on your TV or radio or open a newspaper without being mainstreamed, so I'd say that's probably a bigger threat to New England-y quaintness than a regional council would be.

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