[Seattle's Best 28]

Essex CT. One of the most beautiful towns I have ever seen.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by Seattle's Best 28

Essex CT. One of the most beautiful towns I have ever seen.

Wait, you just said this about the people of CT:

And it's not that people here are "reserved", please, spare me. They're plain snobby. If you don't have money, they don't like you. If you have more money than them, they either love you or are bitter toward you, depending on what you can do for them. If you make the same income as your neighbor, it's all about keeping up. I can't believe that people don't see this. Puhlease.

Now it's the most beautiful towns you have ever seen?

Keep thinking about it...you'll catch on to our way of life soon enough. Your close!

[Seattle's Best 28]

Originally Posted by JViello

Wait, you just said this about the people of CT:



Now it's the most beautiful towns you have ever seen?

Keep thinking about it...you'll catch on to our way of life soon enough. Your close!

Uhm, I can think a town is pretty and dislike the attitude of people in it. That's what I feel about the state of CT as a whole!

[pompeyhollow]

Originally Posted by JViello

Good points. I find it amusing when people think television is real and set out to find what they "created". Hello, it's a movie studio, and the people are acting. lol

I find it amusing that you're so quick to dismiss that there may be a *shock* town that looks like a movie set out there. I've seen many towns similar to Stars Hollow in other states, so knock knock!--they exist.

I pride myself on knowing exactly what I want in a town and looking for it. I ask the question, I get answers... and then I analyze the evidence that's been given to me and make an opinion of my own.

Just because I asked if there was a "real" Stars Hollow out there, doesn't mean I expect literally everything in the show to happen in that town, including the way they decorate the town during certain seasons.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by pompeyhollow

I find it amusing that you're so quick to dismiss that there may be a *shock* town that looks like a movie set out there. I've seen many towns similar to Stars Hollow in other states, so knock knock!--they exist.

I pride myself on knowing exactly what I want in a town and looking for it. I ask the question, I get answers... and then I analyze the evidence that's been given to me and make an opinion of my own.

Just because I asked if there was a "real" Stars Hollow out there, doesn't mean I expect literally everything in the show to happen in that town, including the way they decorate the town during certain seasons.

I don't disagree with that...BUT,

I wasn't talking about you, but the person mentioned in the post I quoted whom was over the top in that regard..

An apology wouldn't hurt.

[wavehunter007]

Originally Posted by pompeyhollow

I find it amusing that you're so quick to dismiss that there may be a *shock* town that looks like a movie set out there. I've seen many towns similar to Stars Hollow in other states, so knock knock!--they exist.

I pride myself on knowing exactly what I want in a town and looking for it. I ask the question, I get answers... and then I analyze the evidence that's been given to me and make an opinion of my own.

Just because I asked if there was a "real" Stars Hollow out there, doesn't mean I expect literally everything in the show to happen in that town, including the way they decorate the town during certain seasons.

Some how I know this will cause an uproar…but:

There is this totally absurd image of Connecticut and people who live in Connecticut thanks to moronic Hollywood shows like “the Gilmore Girls” and because a handful of movie stars live in western Connecticut because they want proxmity to NYC.

Connecticut, especially in and around the bigger cities (Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford) and the towns/cities outside NYC… are as contrasting (rich and poor) as anywhere in the USA. It is true that many of Connecticut’s suburbs outside of NYC are some of the wealthiest zip codes in the USA…at the same time the 4th (Bridgeport), 6th (Hartford), and 13th (New Haven) poorest major cities (over 100,000) in the USA are in Connecticut. Will you come across a snooty person in some wealth neighborhood in Greenwich, sure…..just as you would in Palm Beach or Orange County, CA or any another affluent areas that ring big metro areas. Snootiness has no geographic home base… except maybe money.

Does the fictional life and town of “Stars Hollow” exist in some small quite town up in northeast or northwest Connecticut? Maybe. However, after you spend a short time here and drive around, whether in a rough gang infested area of Hartford… an old decaying industrial district in some mill town in the Naugatuck Valley…or sit watching a knot of old seaman who sit drinking in a crumbling clam shack in southeast Connecticut …you realize there are plenty of places in Connecticut that look nothing like “Stars Hollow. Do people get up each morning in some small little country town and go to work in an old Hotel? Maybe a few do. However the demographic reality is that a vastly greater number of Connecticut residents live in suburban/urban environments… get up each morning and get on congested I-95, I-91, or I-84, or get on a commuter train… and go to work in an in downtown offices or in a factory.

The point…I would take what you see on TV… with a grain of salt. Maybe even a lump of salt.

[kidyankee764]

wavehunter -

Sounds like you haven't been to Shelton in quite awhile. Or Seymour or Ansonia. It's quite the area of interest and hardly "decaying." Well, maybe just downtown Derby.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by wavehunter007

the 4th (Bridgeport), 6th (Hartford), and 13th (New Haven) poorest major cities (over 100,000) in the USA are in Connecticut.

I alluded to that last week when we were discussing the proposed '09 state budget. Going by those stats, you would think that these places would be like Detroit, Memphis, Newark, Etc. But, they aren't of course. Why? Because the state gives them massive, massive funding. I'm still not convinced that it's a wise use of our income tax dollars. If the state hadn't been so hell bent on maintaining Bridgeport as a welfare/cheap labor pool, it could have really turned itself around over the last 10 years. Another opportunity down the crapper for at least another decade..

[pompeyhollow]

Just to clarify, I am not looking for a town that IS Stars Hollow. I do not expect you to help me find a town where I can meet the local diner owner and fall in love. Or buy products with Hello Kitty stamps on the bottom, or work at an Inn, or be Lorelai/Rory Gilmore myself.

What I was asking, was if there was a town very aesthetically similar to Stars Hollow, and one that has that same sense of community pride.

Extra points if the town has a "square" and a gazebo. Small enough that many people know your name, and kept in good condition.

[wavehunter007]

Originally Posted by Stratford, Ct. Resident

I alluded to that last week when we were discussing the proposed '09 state budget. Going by those stats, you would think that these places would be like Detroit, Memphis, Newark, Etc. But, they aren't of course. Why? Because the state gives them massive, massive funding. I'm still not convinced that it's a wise use of our income tax dollars. If the state hadn't been so hell bent on maintaining Bridgeport as a welfare/cheap labor pool, it could have really turned itself around over the last 10 years. Another opportunity down the crapper for at least another decade..

Having a bit of a background in planning/demographics… I can tell you its much more than that:

The main problem in Connecticut is fiercely independent towns and very little regional cooperation among cities/towns. Despite the myth created by real estate agents…what sells a house in most towns… is the school system and family safety. Families in Connecticut are really in the same spiraling suburban bidding war for a good school system and a safe area as other high cost areas (NYC, California…etc). The result is you end up with very affluent towns…and many more - distressed towns. I think the massive funding you see... is just the State's way of keeping the economic apartheid going.

In town A… there are $800,000 houses, a top school system, it’s safe, and filled with professional folks driving around in BMW’s (think Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Lyme, Simsbury). Only 10 miles away… In town B, there is a crumbling housing stock, vast ghetto areas, the school system is bad, it’s dangerous, and beyond those who work in the immediate downtown offices (and live in these outlying wealthy areas)…few economic opportunities (think Bridgeport, Hartford, New London, Norwich, New Haven). In fact, the numbers for poverty in Connecticut are heading in a new direction – rural poverty. There are some isolated areas in east-central and northeast Connecticut that are starting to become areas that are rural…but poor with drug and social problems. Drive around the Norwich area and you’ll realize your not in Connecticut anymore but in a documentary film .

When you look at some of those cites you mention (Detroit, Memphis, Newark), from the data I have seen…places like Bridgeport, Hartford, New London, Norwich…on a per capita bases, blows the doors of them in crime and drug/gang problems. Some of the most dangerous urban areas in the United States are in southwest Bridgeport and the south end of Hartford. The Newhallville section of New Haven just a few years ago, had a higher rate of drug related murder than Compton, CA (per capita). Connecticut is becoming more and more a place of stark contrasts in lifestyle and environment: In one group of towns, kids are playing soccer on a green field safe in suburbia …while 10 miles away the police battle drug gangs with automatic weapons.

I don’t know what the answer is…but that’s reality in 2009 in the State of Connecticut.