[JViello]

Originally Posted by bstnguy

I think NYC has enough tunnel and bridge folks coming from Fairfield County. Hartford needs to create it's own economy. If it wasn't for Insurance Companies, what would Hartford area have?

Yep...that's it. Hartford is just a couple insurance companies and nothing more. You got us.

I'll just ignore, Hamilton Sunstrand, Pratt and Whitney, Otis Elevator, Carrier, UTC Fuel Cells, Sikorsky Aircraft, Kaman Corp, Colt Firearms, Northeast Utilities, The Stanley Works, Gerber Scientific, ING Financial, ESPN, ADVO Inc (the nation's largest direct-mail marketing company...1.1Billion Revenue last year) and all the cottage companies that serve them on TOP OF all the MASSIVE multi-billion dollar insurance companies in this region.

I'd actually be interested in comparing the corporate presence in Hartford to Boston. I bet this "small city" would give you a run for your money or take you to school in that regard.

And we still get to enjoy Baaahston in a short drive without dealing with your daily traffic or home prices.

Cheers!

[skytrekker]

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An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response

[Rich Lee]

Originally Posted by JViello

Yep...that's it. Hartford is just a couple insurance companies and nothing more. You got us.

I'll just ignore, Hamilton Sunstrand, Pratt and Whitney, Otis Elevator, Carrier, UTC Fuel Cells, Sikorsky Aircraft, Kaman Corp, Colt Firearms, Northeast Utilities, The Stanley Works, Gerber Scientific, ING Financial, ESPN, ADVO Inc (the nation's largest direct-mail marketing company...1.1Billion Revenue last year) and all the cottage companies that serve them on TOP OF all the MASSIVE multi-billion dollar insurance companies in this region.

I'd actually be interested in comparing the corporate presence in Hartford to Boston. I bet this "small city" would give you a run for your money or take you to school in that regard.

And we still get to enjoy Baaahston in a short drive without dealing with your daily traffic or home prices.

Cheers!

This continues to confuse me. I thought the original poster was talking about Hartford proper - not the metro - in his comparison to Boston. His post was titled, "How to fix Hartford." It seems that the "metro" is invoked to come to the city of Hartford's defense when the discussion was about the city. By throwing in another 56 towns (the remainder of the metro), we're now talking about 33.7 percent of the state.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by Rich Lee

This continues to confuse me. I thought the original poster was talking about Hartford proper - not the metro - in his comparison to Boston. His post was titled, "How to fix Hartford." It seems that the "metro" is invoked to come to the city of Hartford's defense when the discussion was about the city. By throwing in another 56 towns (the remainder of the metro), we're now talking about 33.7 percent of the state.

He said:

If it wasn't for Insurance Companies, what would Hartford area have?

And I didn't include 56 towns. Just the closest to the core of downtown. If I included the entire metro, the list would grow a lot.

Besides, most of what I posted ARE headquartered in Hartford proper anyway. (You might want to see who is under the UTC umbrella, they are in the gold building - that would be located in downtown Hartford. )

For a city its size, Hartford is a corporate powerhouse. That's the truth no matter how anyone tries to spin it.

[uconn99]

If it wasn't for Insurance Companies, what would Hartford area have?

That is funny. You obviously have no clue. Like JViello said, there is much more to the Hartford metro area than insurance companies. In fact, I would think Hartford has the most fortune 500 companies in the country for a city the size of Hartford. Providence doesn't come close, and Stamford is well behind and basically a NYC add on. Geez, Hartford has more corporate presence than cities 3x the size, Phoenix to name one.

I work for the largest low voltage distributer in the country and many of the products we sell come from the Hartford area. Smaller companies that sell security products, fire products, access entry and cabling solutions are all based in the Hartford area. There is no shortage of these small companies which contribute a large portion of GDP in the area.

Did you not notice the large financial presence Hartford has? The Hartford, ING (North America's HQ for retirement services), Lincoln Financial, Cigna Financial, Met Life, the list goes on. ING and Met Life moved out of downtown but are still in the immediate area.

And on top of that, GE isn't far down the road in New Haven, IMO the Hartford-New Haven-Springfield area should be one metro.

[netdragon]

I grew up in Glastonbury, and it's a mix of middle class (generally closer to the center) and upper middle class: largely lawyers, doctors, private business owners, and managers. There are some upper class as well and some mansions, especially near East Glastonbury and Diamond Lake.

Like the other person mentioned about Boston, the same kind of thing is true in metro Atlanta. There are 3 bedroom townhomes with no more than a sliver of land for $600k-$800k in the edge city I live in.

Now, as far as the Glastonbury town government goes, it has a pretty large tax base -- closer to a lot of cities with over 50,000 people -- and is pretty well off.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by uconn99

And on top of that, GE isn't far down the road in New Haven, IMO the Hartford-New Haven-Springfield area should be one metro.

Well said but for accuracy sake, I do believe GE is headquartered in Fairfield.

On a side note, I had to chuckle yesterday with this thread in my mind as I was technically in Avon, but on the W Hartford line on the Avon mountain ridge taking care of a client.

The home was 7400sf not including the two 2500sf "cottages" on property, 96 acres of land, on a 3/4 mile long private road attatched to the Heublen property with commanding views of both sides of the valley. (Hartford and Farmington river valleys).

The town has it valued at about 4.5 million dollars.

If I said the name of the homeowner who has been key in a lot of the city development you would all say "OH really?! - he lives THERE? Huh..."

The property doesn't show up on Zillow and you would never find out who owns it unless they told you...lots of that type of thing around here. Believe me. My business takes care of and I am known to the "elite of the elite" who don't shop on the internet or phone book and see it all the time.

From my point of view, it really warps my sense of reality sometimes when I see just how much money and influence there really is in this metro.

Sometimes I go back to my modest home in Manchester and it takes a good 30 minutes to absorb and process it all. ($85,000 worth of drapery in ONE ROOM anyone? How about a custom made runner for the main entrance measuring about 4'x12' for $25,000 a "MUD RUNNER"...yea it's like that.)

No, no money or influence around here. None.

[JayCT]

Several years ago I read that if you removed affluent Fairfield county, Connecticut would still be the fifth wealthiest state in the country. This means that there is a lot of parts of the state that are wealthy other than just Fairfield County. You can't have that kind of money and not have people who are "upperclass". Jay

[TENN24]

glastonbury is considered upper class by many standards...the average family income is about $120,000. You also have to keep in mind the populations in each town you're comparing, because larger populations skew the median income.
Also CT's richest towns are richer than MA's. Greenwich? New Cannan? Darien? Westport? Wilton? Weston, CT? on and on and on the list goes

[netdragon]

Connecticut is mostly wealthy, not rich. Aside from Greenwich and a few other areas, it is mostly middle and upper middle class people in almost every town. That's partly because almost the entire state is suburban. Areas like Greenwich are balanced with some extremely poor urban areas. Connecticut lacks the large stretches of rural poor and working class areas that many other states have and has a large number of middle to upper middle class versus the poor, making it more balanced than most states. There's still more poverty than there should be in Connecticut, but I'm talking in general.

The unfortunate thing is the concentration of poverty in urban areas. Like other areas around the country, Connecticut can improve upon that by re-introducing the middle to upper class back into the inner city with more improvements like what went on in Hartford, but with more of a focus towards city-wide neighborhood improvement (like around Trinity) once the anchors like Adrian's Landing are complete.

Originally Posted by TENN24

the average family income is about $120,000.

Average family income of $120,000 is upper middle class. That's two people with a $60k salary.