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Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,536,583 times
Reputation: 6253
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ki0eh
Read what I wrote again, the implication is that the barns change about 50 miles in.
Private residential wells in PA are only regulated to the point that a licensed well driller needs to report them to the PA Geological Survey. There are no qualifications to become a licensed well driller. No 5 gpm minimum or coliform test as in NY state.
My in-laws were heard to say "redd up" last week, and come to think of it, served sweet tea too.
Sorry, I'm cranky. But you know what I mean. Pennsylvania is not that different from NY. Not the same way that a state further away would be.
You can have sweet tea anywhere these days. I can go get some from Dunkin Donuts right now in fact, if I wanted to. I was just using that in my sarcasm.
Anyway I want to clarify that I keep saying similar, not exact. They are not the same descriptors. Of course there are small differences. State laws are different everywhere so that's not really a fair category to base this on.
Mennonites and the Amish are something PA and NY have in common. Topography. Scrapple. Strong urban/rural divides. Crippling poverty hidden among rich people. Climate and forestry. Hunting is very popular in both states.
If I were to drop you totally blind into either Centre county PA or Otsego county NY I guarantee it'd take you a while to figure out which one you were in. Assuming you didn't see a road sign or ask somebody straight up.
If I were to drop you totally blind into either Centre county PA or Otsego county NY I guarantee it'd take you a while to figure out which one you were in. Assuming you didn't see a road sign or ask somebody straight up.
For that binary choice, I could probably tell you right away if given a soil auger, or if we were on a wooded hillside. Probably if I saw an old farmstead, too.
I'd probably have a tougher time distinguishing Otsego County from Sauk County, WI, though.
I am starting to think that PA is not really like the other Northeast states such as all of New England, NY, NJ, DE, and MD. While it shares some traits with these neighboring NE states, it in some respects is closer in character to adjoining West Virginia and OH.
It's always funny when someone tries to compare and contrast Pennsylvania with another state or set of states. Perhaps it would be better to try to find some things that are uniquely Pennsylvanian. Having lived in two of the states mentioned - West Virginia and New York (yes, upstate), I agree that there are similarities, but I would argue that it's more rural versus city. My small town where I grew up in Lower Delaware was similar to the small town I live in now near Allentown. We ate scrapple growing up, as did my relatives in South Jersey. In fact several brands of scrapple are made in lower Delaware.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,536,583 times
Reputation: 6253
Quote:
Originally Posted by ki0eh
For that binary choice, I could probably tell you right away if given a soil auger, or if we were on a wooded hillside. Probably if I saw an old farmstead, too.
I'd probably have a tougher time distinguishing Otsego County from Sauk County, WI, though.
Didn't you and I used to agree that PA and NY had a lot in common? Have you changed your mind or are you just giving me a hard time for laughs?
It's always funny when someone tries to compare and contrast Pennsylvania with another state or set of states. Perhaps it would be better to try to find some things that are uniquely Pennsylvanian. Having lived in two of the states mentioned - West Virginia and New York (yes, upstate), I agree that there are similarities, but I would argue that it's more rural versus city. My small town where I grew up in Lower Delaware was similar to the small town I live in now near Allentown. We ate scrapple growing up, as did my relatives in South Jersey. In fact several brands of scrapple are made in lower Delaware.
Your point that we can probably find some "uniquely Pennsylvanian" things in other states is well taken, and as long as there are Amish in Indiana and Ohio, very true.
Jeez, even our politics can't be said to be "uniquely Pennsylvanian." I hear that they engage in much the same behavior in Chicago and Springfield (Ill.) But maybe the way we go about it is indeed uniquely Pennsylvanian.
I do, however, like to map my native Missouri and my adopted Pennsylvania onto each other. There are a bunch of surface comparisons that are very easy to make - so easy, in fact, I'll bet you can make them.
PA is a rust belt state. The rust belt states are West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. All face the same problems economically and people desiring the same government fix to perk up their dying cities and towns
The entire Northeast and Midwest are aptly called the "Rust Belt," it's just that the media obsession with the states that you've mentioned as a result of this past election masks the fact that places like Upstate New York, urban New Jersey, urban Connecticut, and frankly any city in Massachusetts not named Boston, have similarly suffered from deindustrialization and severe loss of blue-collar jobs.
I know some refuse to recognize that they subscribe to ridiculous oversimplifications and stereotypes about each state and their actually complex socioeconomic characteristics.
The fact of the matter is, despite our ever-exagerrated cultural nuances and our absurdly contentious political environment, the vast majority of the country is more similar than it is different.
The entire Northeast and Midwest are aptly called the "Rust Belt," it's just that the media obsession with the states that you've mentioned as a result of this past election masks the fact that places like Upstate New York, urban New Jersey, urban Connecticut, and frankly any city in Massachusetts not named Boston, have similarly suffered from deindustrialization and severe loss of blue-collar jobs.
I know some refuse to recognize that they subscribe to ridiculous oversimplifications and stereotypes about each state and their actually complex socioeconomic characteristics.
The fact of the matter is, despite our ever-exagerrated cultural nuances and our absurdly contentious political environment, the vast majority of the country is more similar than it is different.
Your point about New England experiencing deindustrialization is correct, but it took place there earlier: textiles, which were one of the industries that kept many in Massachusetts and New Hampshire employed, fled to the South during the Depression. Boston was in an economic funk from then until about 1960, when the computer revolution finally sparked that region's resurgence. It was at about that time that the industries that populated southern New England (Connecticut and Rhode Island) left. Maine lost its principal industry aside from logging a little later.
Still, I don't recall anyone using the term "Rust Belt" to apply to the New England states. And keep in mind that there are two distinct Midwests, with the Mississippi River forming the rough border between the industrial one and the agricultural one. The division is not totally neat - there's significant farming in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, and Missouri has significant industry - but generally speaking, the term "Rust Belt" also does not apply to the states of the Central and Upper Plains, which are also considered Midwest states.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,536,583 times
Reputation: 6253
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott_Holiday
PA is a rust belt state. The rust belt states are West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. All face the same problems economically and people desiring the same government fix to perk up their dying cities and towns
You're missing some states there.
New York for one. As long as I have lived here it's been a rust belt state. Buffalo, Elmira, Rochester, Syracuse, so on and so forth.
You can find abandoned rural factories just rotting out in the woods all over NY, and especially in the western half. In fact just south of where I live there's an old husk of a small factory that has been sitting empty since before I was even born. Sitting next to a cliff just into the trees, not far from the road.
I feel like people are desperate to generalize and dismiss NY state.
It's not all butt-hurt liberal, it's not all wealthy, it's not all urban and it's certainly not all NYC. This is part of why up here we're so eager to divide upstate into a new identity and get rid of downstate and its garbage. We're tired of being ignored and lumped into that culture and being held down by its extreme liberal politics.
We're a part of the rust belt. We're the northern fringes of Appalachia. We're the eastern most state that has anybody claiming to be Midwestern (it's true, this happens). NY is huge and diverse and not just like New England or just like Canada or just like NYC.
I mean heck, people even try to knock NY out of the mid-Atlantic region! We're part of that too.
As for the other states you're missing; Illinois. Missouri. The northern edges of Kentucky. I can't believe you left out Illinois but included Wisconsin?
St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, these cities ring a bell? Rust belt cities.
Also, New Jersey and New England were once considered rust belt as well. They've shown far more recovery and have fallen away from the identity considerably, but some places are still obviously connected in some way.
In general the entire north suffered the de-industrialization that led to the term rust-belt. Areas further inland (in and west of the Appalachians) just never recovered fully and still sit stagnate.
(agreed with your general characterization of New York as a "Rust Belt" state; hell, even New York City deindustrialized. It's just that everything else filled the hole there.)
As for the other states you're missing; Illinois. Missouri. The northern edges of Kentucky. I can't believe you left out Illinois but included Wisconsin?
St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, these cities ring a bell? Rust belt cities.
Also, New Jersey and New England were once considered rust belt as well. They've shown far more recovery and have fallen away from the identity considerably, but some places are still obviously connected in some way.
In general the entire north suffered the de-industrialization that led to the term rust-belt. Areas further inland (in and west of the Appalachians) just never recovered fully and still sit stagnate.
I'd quibble a bit with including Missouri in that list, despite the presence of both St. Louis and Kansas City in the state. (There's another thread here that includes a chart that shows that Kansas City actually fell further in the ranks of US city economies than St. Louis did, and the city has a sizable industrial sector too.)
Generally speaking, the states west of the Mississippi are usually classed in the agricultural Midwest, the presence of industry in any of them notwithstanding. By contrast, Illinois and Wisconsin both get tossed into the Rust Belt despite having sizable agricultural sectors.
However: Missouri is actually just about the entire country in microcosm, so you can probably slap any label you want onto it save "coastal." I bristle when people call it a Southern state, yet it has parts that are as Deep South as anything you'll find in Mississippi or Alabama.
Still, I don't recall anyone using the term "Rust Belt" to apply to the New England states.
That's precisely the point, though. The media obsession with its narrow caricature of the "Rust Belt" neglects the regional history of deindustrialization ACROSS the Northeast AND Midwest.
Yes, Pennsylvania is in more of a deindustrialization transition compared to, say, Massachusetts, which as you say began a transition much earlier. But deindustrialization is deindustrialization, and no state, not even top-ranking tech economy Massachusetts, has completely recovered its cities.
And were it not for the NYC metro, the economies of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut would be completely abysmal (similar to how Philly is one of the few areas keeping PA afloat at this point).
But no, let's have more cliche New York Times features about jaded former steelworkers in Johnstown or laid-off manufacturing employees in Sheboygan, when it's clearly counter to the East Coast Establishment narrative to highlight the very similar struggles of folks in Trenton, Poughkeepsie or Waterbury.
Last edited by Duderino; 12-06-2016 at 07:16 PM..
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