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What state would you find more appealing? Though it can be discussed, try to focus less on NYC/Boston influence and more on the state's own merits and the cities and towns within.
Urban areas
Suburbs, towns, and rural parts
Scenery/Recreation
Infrastructure, Highways, & public transit
Food & Culture
Economy
Education
The better package overall
Urban areas
Today - Rhode Island
Potentially - Connecticut
Suburbs, towns, and rural parts
Suburbs - Connecticut
Towns - Connecticut
Rural areas - Connecticut
Scenery/Recreation
Scenery - Coastline/water - Rhode Island
Scenery - Hills and Mountains - Connecticut
Hiking - Connecticut
Boating - Rhode Island
Ocean Swimming - Rhode Island
Infrastructure, Highways, & public transit
Infrastructure/Highways - needs work, especially I-95
State Parkways - Connecticut
Metro North - Connecticut
Food & Culture
Food - Rhode Island
Culture?
Economy - Connecticut
Education
Primary/Secondary - Connecticut
College - Connecticut
Better Package overall - Connecticut
When I went through the list, I am surprised to see Connecticut win most of the categories, especially if you break it down further into subcategories like I did, but most people voted for Rhode Island. Obviously a lot of this is debatable, like food or culture, but some it is not, like mountains and hills - Connecticut simply blows Rhode Island away in that area.
Again, what is surprising to me is that so many people voted for Rhode Island. Both states are nice but Connecticut simply has more of most categories, like classic small New England towns, farms and hills. I have a feeling people are seeing Rhode Island as a place to vacation, such as on a sailboat in Narragansett Bay while not doing the same for Connecticut.
Urban areas
Today - Rhode Island
Potentially - Connecticut
Suburbs, towns, and rural parts
Suburbs - Connecticut
Towns - Connecticut
Rural areas - Connecticut
Scenery/Recreation
Scenery - Coastline/water - Rhode Island
Scenery - Hills and Mountains - Connecticut
Hiking - Connecticut
Boating - Rhode Island
Ocean Swimming - Rhode Island
Infrastructure, Highways, & public transit
Infrastructure/Highways - needs work, especially I-95
State Parkways - Connecticut
Metro North - Connecticut
Food & Culture
Food - Rhode Island
Culture?
Economy - Connecticut
Education
Primary/Secondary - Connecticut
College - Connecticut
Better Package overall - Connecticut
When I went through the list, I am surprised to see Connecticut win most of the categories, especially if you break it down further into subcategories like I did, but most people voted for Rhode Island. Obviously a lot of this is debatable, like food or culture, but some it is not, like mountains and hills - Connecticut simply blows Rhode Island away in that area.
Again, what is surprising to me is that so many people voted for Rhode Island. Both states are nice but Connecticut simply has more of most categories, like classic small New England towns, farms and hills. I have a feeling people are seeing Rhode Island as a place to vacation, such as on a sailboat in Narragansett Bay while not doing the same for Connecticut.
Of course ct has more suburbs..it’s bigger..I’d say providence being better than any ct city plus R.I. having a coastline that attracts people all over the country..not just New England..I’d say that’s mostly why it’s winning..Connecticut’s hills and peaks are not necessarily a national draw
When I went through the list, I am surprised to see Connecticut win most of the categories, especially if you break it down further into subcategories like I did, but most people voted for Rhode Island. Obviously a lot of this is debatable, like food or culture, but some it is not, like mountains and hills - Connecticut simply blows Rhode Island away in that area.
Again, what is surprising to me is that so many people voted for Rhode Island. Both states are nice but Connecticut simply has more of most categories, like classic small New England towns, farms and hills. I have a feeling people are seeing Rhode Island as a place to vacation, such as on a sailboat in Narragansett Bay while not doing the same for Connecticut.
I think I acknowledged most of what you find in my own piece-by-piece assessment, and I think I too put Connecticut ahead of Rhode Island in the majority of categories, yet I too picked Rhode Island.
And as I also said, I think it may have something to do with Rhode Island's principal city and its environs (Newport is in the Providence metropolitan area). When you combine a livelier city with a gorgeous ocean and bay and some really solid smaller cities around it, the fact that Hartford's suburbs and Fairfield County outclass Cranston or Woonsocket matters little. Mountains vs. ocean is a matter of preference, and I guess the people voting here like the ocean better than they do the hills.
It's telling IMO that you listed Connecticut as the potential winner in the "Urban areas" department. I can tell you that when I was in college, Providence too was a pretty drab place. Both states have had the same amount of time to heal their cities' wounds. Rhode Island did it. Connecticut didn't. That I also attribute to Connecticut's suburban character. Rhode Island doesn't have that character.
I think I acknowledged most of what you find in my own piece-by-piece assessment, and I think I too put Connecticut ahead of Rhode Island in the majority of categories, yet I too picked Rhode Island.
And as I also said, I think it may have something to do with Rhode Island's principal city and its environs (Newport is in the Providence metropolitan area). When you combine a livelier city with a gorgeous ocean and bay and some really solid smaller cities around it, the fact that Hartford's suburbs and Fairfield County outclass Cranston or Woonsocket matters little. Mountains vs. ocean is a matter of preference, and I guess the people voting here like the ocean better than they do the hills.
It's telling IMO that you listed Connecticut as the potential winner in the "Urban areas" department. I can tell you that when I was in college, Providence too was a pretty drab place. Both states have had the same amount of time to heal their cities' wounds. Rhode Island did it. Connecticut didn't. That I also attribute to Connecticut's suburban character. Rhode Island doesn't have that character.
I agree with everything you say and you make some good points. But because Connecticut does offer more when you really think about it, I keep coming back to this idea that at least some people voted based on stereotypes of the two states. You know that Connecticut is basically a giant wealthy suburb while Rhode Island is primarily seen as a vacation area.
I live in Suffolk County (Long Island and Brooklyn Plantations ), both these states are my neighbors so I really have no skin in the game. But I am still surprised by the lopsided vote.
For instance, I know that Connecticut has areas like Candlewood Lake, Squantz Pond, the Appalachian Trail and the Housatonic river that reminds me of Upstate New York or Pennsylvania. Connecticut has winding rural roads, stone walls, village greens, town commons and the classic white churches and is especially attractive in the fall. While Rhode Island has these things, she simply has less of them. And while not the same as the Rhode Island coastline, Connecticut has an attractive coastline herself.
I am not trying so much to knock Rhode Island but instead to say that I think that Connecticut is underrated.
Quality>Quantity. Providence is better than anything CT has or probably can ever have. CT functions as a suburb of NYC. Its purpose is a bedroom state with a few small urban clusters for the NYC suburbanites. I'm sure it wasn't always like that, but as NYC's dominance and importance grows, people keep moving further and further out into CT for that idyllic suburban/exurban lifestyle.
RI doesn't function as a suburb of any state. It was able to put its strengths and energy into Providence instead of figuring out how to attract NYC suburbanites.
The same of CT can sorta be said about NJ, but NJ always had extreme urban/economic centers like Hudson County and Newark. CT doesn't have that. NJ focused itself on being an extension of NYC, but has the better bones of the 2 states to compete in the 21st Century urban revitalization.
I definitely think RI has a better sense of self-purpose than CT. I'm not an expert on either, it just seems that way to me. It has its own identity with its own premier city that has its own suburbs and more people are drawn to RI for its water/beach culture.
I don’t know if Fairfield County is a good representation of the rest of the state.
I’m pretty sure that the New London/Mystic area at least isn’t a bedroom community for New York.
Second statement first: No, it's not.
On to the first: Half of New Jersey is not a suburb of New York either. (Though about a third of the part that isn't is a suburb of Philadephia.) But the New York commutershed tends to dominate the state and color its character in the eyes of many. (You can find landscapes in New Jersey's northwest corner that will remind you of Connecticut. Those and the cornfields in the far southern part of the state get drowned out by the suburban noise.)
If one is, as I did too, claim that the state is "suburban in character," then it matters little what city those suburbs are attached to: Fairfield Countians sure don't vote in New York State.
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), both these states are my neighbors so I really have no skin in the game. But I am still surprised by the lopsided vote. 
