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One thing Illinois has going for it is extensive agriculture, which is still a very important part of the national economy, and also seems to bolster the economies of small towns to some degree.
Last month I drove I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, and seeing nothing but farmland to every end of the horizon was amazing.
The main reason is geography. CT has no large cities. It is almost entirely suburban spawl that is sandwiched between Boston and NYC. This means that about 1/3 of the state is basically an exurb of NYC and 1/3 of the state is an exurb of Boston. The rest is barely a metro area because Hartford, the capital, only has about 130,000 people, which means that is has a small economy and little influence. My hometown was about 2 hours from NYC, and about 90 minutes from Boston. This sounds good on paper, except, who is going to drive 2 hours on a regular basis into the city?
The reality is that even though it has proximity, the larger cities are not really accessible easily, and they are in different states, so even if they were, they wouldn't contribute to Connecticut's economy. NYC and Boston are too close for CT to even have its own professional sports teams.
The "rough urban centers" you heard about are only small cities without much density that would practically be considered large towns if not for their crime rates.
Connecticut is also terribly cold for most of the year. The cold is more tolerable if you live in a cool urban area like Boston with plenty to do, or if you live on a beautiful mountain in Vermont out in the country, but if you live in a plastic suburb that is not walkable at all, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, the cold is really depressing.
The lack of a good city means lack of jobs for young people, so there is a brain drain because CT's young adults all want to leave for exciting cities with job prospects. So, there is really unexciting nightlife because there aren't lots of young people with money to spend. These young adults don't return later on in life either.
Sure, there are pockets of wealth in Southwestern CT, and some of those towns are pretty nice, but they don't help CT's economy because lots of them work in NY, and the ones who don't still feel more connected to NY than to the rest of CT. I personally don't see any way back for Connecticut's economy.
Hartford may suck but it sucks for nightlife not for lack of jobs
The affluent areas of Chicago are booming at the moment as the city is drawing in people from all over the country who want to experience a European style walkable lifestyle. Corporations are moving to the city from the suburbs and other states. There are new condos and apartment buildings going up everywhere. The population is not growing much since it is mostly poor people who are leaving the west and south sides.
I'd say CT and NJ are neck and neck... IL is becoming more and more of a hole each day
CT and NJ thrive off of NYC but CT has a significant amount of billion dollar hedge funds... so once they get rid of their governor and have new leadership, I think it'll thrive.. Same with NJ. Both crappy governors.
The main reason is geography. CT has no large cities. It is almost entirely suburban spawl that is sandwiched between Boston and NYC. This means that about 1/3 of the state is basically an exurb of NYC and 1/3 of the state is an exurb of Boston. The rest is barely a metro area because Hartford, the capital, only has about 130,000 people, which means that is has a small economy and little influence. My hometown was about 2 hours from NYC, and about 90 minutes from Boston. This sounds good on paper, except, who is going to drive 2 hours on a regular basis into the city?
The reality is that even though it has proximity, the larger cities are not really accessible easily, and they are in different states, so even if they were, they wouldn't contribute to Connecticut's economy. NYC and Boston are too close for CT to even have its own professional sports teams.
The "rough urban centers" you heard about are only small cities without much density that would practically be considered large towns if not for their crime rates.
Connecticut is also terribly cold for most of the year. The cold is more tolerable if you live in a cool urban area like Boston with plenty to do, or if you live on a beautiful mountain in Vermont out in the country, but if you live in a plastic suburb that is not walkable at all, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, the cold is really depressing.
The lack of a good city means lack of jobs for young people, so there is a brain drain because CT's young adults all want to leave for exciting cities with job prospects. So, there is really unexciting nightlife because there aren't lots of young people with money to spend. These young adults don't return later on in life either.
Sure, there are pockets of wealth in Southwestern CT, and some of those towns are pretty nice, but they don't help CT's economy because lots of them work in NY, and the ones who don't still feel more connected to NY than to the rest of CT. I personally don't see any way back for Connecticut's economy.
Uh.... CT has way more than "pockets of wealth". The gold coast is the single wealthiest cluster of towns where the 1% is the wealthiest 1% in the nation. It's "uber wealth"...
Can I choose none of the above? All these places will eventually go bankrupt. Just TERRIBLE fiscal mismanagement in these states. Their government has failed them all.
Can I choose none of the above? All these places will eventually go bankrupt. Just TERRIBLE fiscal mismanagement in these states. Their government has failed them all.
Yep.... but CA has bounced back (kind of). If they can... I think CT and NJ definitely can. IL, I don't know... it's a very depressed state.
CT and NJ have their central Northeast location going for them...
The main reason is geography. CT has no large cities. It is almost entirely suburban spawl that is sandwiched between Boston and NYC. This means that about 1/3 of the state is basically an exurb of NYC and 1/3 of the state is an exurb of Boston. The rest is barely a metro area because Hartford, the capital, only has about 130,000 people, which means that is has a small economy and little influence. My hometown was about 2 hours from NYC, and about 90 minutes from Boston. This sounds good on paper, except, who is going to drive 2 hours on a regular basis into the city?
The reality is that even though it has proximity, the larger cities are not really accessible easily, and they are in different states, so even if they were, they wouldn't contribute to Connecticut's economy. NYC and Boston are too close for CT to even have its own professional sports teams.
The "rough urban centers" you heard about are only small cities without much density that would practically be considered large towns if not for their crime rates.
Connecticut is also terribly cold for most of the year. The cold is more tolerable if you live in a cool urban area like Boston with plenty to do, or if you live on a beautiful mountain in Vermont out in the country, but if you live in a plastic suburb that is not walkable at all, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, the cold is really depressing.
The lack of a good city means lack of jobs for young people, so there is a brain drain because CT's young adults all want to leave for exciting cities with job prospects. So, there is really unexciting nightlife because there aren't lots of young people with money to spend. These young adults don't return later on in life either.
Sure, there are pockets of wealth in Southwestern CT, and some of those towns are pretty nice, but they don't help CT's economy because lots of them work in NY, and the ones who don't still feel more connected to NY than to the rest of CT. I personally don't see any way back for Connecticut's economy.
This is odd - when's the last time you've been to CT?
I'll give you that 1/3 of CT (though, about 50% of the population) is suburban NYC - but it's not an "exurb". It's suburbs. Nobody drives to NYC from CT; they take Metro North. From Stamford, which is the major Metro North hub, it's a 40 minute commute to midtown Manhattan. That's nothing when it comes to commuting in major metro areas. Heck, that's even closer than commuting to Manhattan from some other parts of the city (Flushing, Staten Island, etc). So I find it laughable the you say the city isn't "easily accessible" from Connecticut - if that were the case, Metro North wouldn't be the most used commuter railroad in the country. Hartford, which is an actual exurb of both NYC and Boston, is also a pretty significant metropolitan area with lots of insurance and finance jobs. The Hartford metro alone has $1m+ residents and is one of the wealthiest in the nation. That's not insignificant.
You're also forgetting that southwestern Connecticut is considered "Wall St-north", and has the third largest hedge fund concentration in the WORLD, after NYC and London. The amount of money hedge funds bring into southern Connecticut is insane, and is the reason the 1% in Connecticut is the wealthiest 1% of any state or MSA. It's not because of jobs in NYC; it's because of multi-billion dollar hedge funds in Greenwich/Stamford/Darien/New Canaan/Westport, etc.
Re: weather - CT is not "terribly cold most of the year". We have approximately two months of daytime highs the 30s and 40s. From March to December, statistically, you have average highs from about 50*. From May through October, average highs are in the 70's at the lowest. So, again, you're wrong, unless you think under 65 is "terribly cold".
There is a "brain drain" in CT, largely because the suburbs aren't "cool" for early 20-somethings. When they settle down in their early 30's, though, guess where they move?
It also escapes me how you can feel that living in a walkable area somehow makes the cold more "tolerable". That means you'd have to bundle up and walk in it just to go to the store. I'd think it would be a lot easier to auto-start your SUV with heated seats and steering wheel. YMMV.
Anyway, many of your opinions on Connecticut in 2017 are outdated and downright false.
There seems to be a lot of unfamiliarity with Illinois as it's not all about Chicago. Agriculture is evolving and manufacturers like John Deere and Caterpillar which are both based in Central Illinois are opening up new technologies which go beyond manufacturing. The IT sector is also gaining a lot of traction around Champaign-Urbana in collaboration with the University of Illinois. Overall Illinois possesses the 17th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP and is headquarters to 34 Fortune 500 companies, so it's hardly the economic failure some are alluding to.
There seems to be a lot of unfamiliarity with Illinois as it's not all about Chicago. Agriculture is evolving and manufacturers like John Deere and Caterpillar which are both based in Central Illinois are opening up new technologies which go beyond manufacturing. The IT sector is also gaining a lot of traction around Champaign-Urbana in collaboration with the University of Illinois. Overall Illinois possesses the 17th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP and is headquarters to 34 Fortune 500 companies, so it's hardly the economic failure some are alluding to.
A lot of the CT/NJ economy is NYC based, which is thriving... I don't think IL can compete with that.
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