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I have been looking at some demographics lately and it appears to me that the rural Northeast is quickly becoming the oldest part of the country in terms of average age.
How severe do you think out-migration is for most areas of the rural Northeast. It seems like Upstate New York is aging extremely fast, rural Pennsylvania, rural Massachusetts, and rural Maine. Maine is now the oldest state in the country- even outpacing Florida. What can these states do to keep younger people. A revision in business tax policies, perhaps? What else?
Young unmarried people tend to be more drawn to big cities than other kinds of people. Maine and Vermont don't really have any cities of over a 100,000 from what I can tell. Yet the Northeast is full of large cities.
You see this though with many rural areas. It's just in many of the other rural areas people can find a big city in-state. West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming also come out among the top ten oldest states. Fargo seems to be the biggest city in any of those states.
Granted there's Pennsylvania. It has big cities, but is still tied with Florida for median age. This could be the economic problems or the perception of them.
Another possibility is fertility rates and religion. Montana and Wyoming are highly secular for Republican/Red-States. North Dakota and West Virginia aren't, but the Northeast is relatively unchurched as a whole. In the US at least irreligious people tend to have less children therefore pushing the median age up. Again though this doesn't explain Pennsylvania which has a fairly strong religious element. (They elected Kathy Dahlkemper, one of the few to win up North and be backed by "The Democrats for Life of America.")
Some city in Maine will probably be the Seattle of the East coast in the future.. you never know.
Time can only tell.
I mean this country is contently growing and a lot of the Mid-Atlantic is stuffed full, but look at the mountain west, deep south, and upper New England! There's so much room to grow it's not even possible to think how this country might look.
Some city in Maine will probably be the Seattle of the East coast in the future.. you never know.
Time can only tell.
I mean this country is contently growing and a lot of the Mid-Atlantic is stuffed full, but look at the mountain west, deep south, and upper New England! There's so much room to grow it's not even possible to think how this country might look.
most of the mid atlantic states are not stuffed full, just by the ocean it is,
Having just graduated from college and relocated from NEPA to NoVA I can safely say that this trend is not likely to be reversing itself anytime soon in Pennsylvania. Scranton recently had a primary election for its next mayor, and not one of the three frontrunners knew what the "Brain Drain" meant. One of them got "bold" and said that the incumbent mayor's policies were a "drain of his brain," and then the next challenger said that as well. The incumbent finally starting gloating, thinking he had "nailed" the answer, but he, too, was wrong! When I pointed out how terrible it is that our own politicians don't care about retaining educated youths in Metro Scranton, I was told, essentially, "it's not a big deal."
People in PA whine "there's no good jobs." They fail to realize that the bleeding of well-educated and intelligent people OUT of PA has led to a huge intellectual void that no high-tech, high-paying employer will be wishing to rush in to fill when they will have to invest greatly in training the existing workforce or relocating others from different areas. People in NEPA lined up for job applications at Sallie Mae for positions that paid a salary of $20,000. When talk of a new Wal-Mart rears its ugly head, more people SUPPORT it than attack it for all of the "high-paying jobs" it will bring. As long as people in much of PA are content to watch NASCAR, swig cheap beer at dive bars with a "pack 'a smokes in da pocket", and consider high school football to be prime entertainment there's not going to be much chance of economic revival.
A part of me wants to move back to Wilkes-Barre, PA at some point, but after getting a taste of the GOOD parts of NoVA I don't know if I want to trade those for the bad parts of NEPA again.
Many people of child bearing age move from the rural northeast to places like the Carolinas and Florida. Many are looking for jobs. The economy, especially in parts of the steel and coal belt in Pennsylvania, is not the greatest. West Virginia also has a high median age and low birth rate with similar economic conditons.
Some city in Maine will probably be the Seattle of the East coast in the future.. you never know.
Time can only tell.
I mean this country is contently growing and a lot of the Mid-Atlantic is stuffed full, but look at the mountain west, deep south, and upper New England! There's so much room to grow it's not even possible to think how this country might look.
And I pray that never happens, that instead Northern New England remains rural and less populated.
The reason people leave these areas is because of a lack of jobs...in VT, leftist politics have created a terrible economy. No jobs, high taxes, regulations on everything...a business would be crazy to move to Vermont. Yet outside of the cities where it's mostly "flatlanders" (Burlington, Brattleboro, etc.) the people (real Vermonters) are somewhat conservative. At least, not leftists anyways. Not Southern style conservative either. I guess you'd call it more a libertarian ideology of sorts but not quite. We should have formed a new "Green Mountain Boys" group to drive out the hippy invaders in the 60's and 70's.
In Maine there exists a similar situation. Leftists, mostly outsiders, in the more populated Southern parts (Portland, etc.) have severely harmed industries such as logging with their ideas they force on the rest of the state...Northern Maine is like an entirely different state than Portland and its surroundings...and there's even a small secession movement to do just that which creeps up now and then, make it a seperate state because of a dislike of the liberal politicians from the south. Maybe someday it'll happen.
This could partly explain some things. Until 1992 Vermont pretty much always went for the Republican Presidential candidate. (The exception being Goldwater) They were one of only two states, the other being Maine, to never go for FDR.
The explanation I'd heard is that they were moderate Republicans and the party move too Right for them. That's probably part of it, but I wondered if there was more.
This could partly explain some things. Until 1992 Vermont pretty much always went for the Republican Presidential candidate. (The exception being Goldwater) They were one of only two states, the other being Maine, to never go for FDR.
The explanation I'd heard is that they were moderate Republicans and the party move too Right for them. That's probably part of it, but I wondered if there was more.
Yep, there's more. It wasn't a Southern type religious right conservative to begin with but an anti-big government attitude. Then the state was invaded by hippies in the 60's and 70's (and later in the 80's through the present, non-hippies but very liberal people from NY, MA, NJ, etc.). The Northeast Kingdom is still relatively conservative, less outsiders. They find themselves far less welcomed in Northern VT. Most Vermonters were non-confrontational though and essentially allowed them to take control of the state. Now many can't afford to stay in their homes, children can't find work, etc. Hindsight is 20/20 as the saying goes...
And I pray that never happens, that instead Northern New England remains rural and less populated.
The reason people leave these areas is because of a lack of jobs...in VT, leftist politics have created a terrible economy. No jobs, high taxes, regulations on everything...a business would be crazy to move to Vermont. Yet outside of the cities where it's mostly "flatlanders" (Burlington, Brattleboro, etc.) the people (real Vermonters) are somewhat conservative. At least, not leftists anyways. Not Southern style conservative either. I guess you'd call it more a libertarian ideology of sorts but not quite. We should have formed a new "Green Mountain Boys" group to drive out the hippy invaders in the 60's and 70's.
In Maine there exists a similar situation. Leftists, mostly outsiders, in the more populated Southern parts (Portland, etc.) have severely harmed industries such as logging with their ideas they force on the rest of the state...Northern Maine is like an entirely different state than Portland and its surroundings...and there's even a small secession movement to do just that which creeps up now and then, make it a seperate state because of a dislike of the liberal politicians from the south. Maybe someday it'll happen.
It was so funny when I visited Vermont and talked to the locals. Some of the locals resent the flatlanders (mainly New Yorkers). Even if you read the Vermont forum, you get the same feeling. It's just interesting to read about states in the same region having those types of conflicts.
I remember seeing anti-northern rants on bumper stickers in Florida, but I also saw a "Don't Jersey Vermont" (I think that's what it said) while in New England. Interesting.
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