New Jersey vs Connecticut vs Maryland vs New York vs Florida vs Massachusetts vs Pennsylvania (map, population)
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It's great. But, if I were to live in DC area I would just live in VA. I don't see anything overly great about Maryland that you can't find in NJ MA CT. Its a good, solid state, but I just get the "why live in MD when you can just live in NJ MA VA" feeling.
Nothing wrong with it, probably eye level with every other state. Personal preference for me. Again, to me MA MD CT NJ are some of the best of the bests... It's hard to beat the 4
I find that Maryland has a pretty poor reputation amongst most Americans, especially online, despite it having one of the top QOL of any state by most metrics.
I find that Maryland has a pretty poor reputation amongst most Americans, especially online, despite it having one of the top QOL of any state by most metrics.
I ski in the winter and do salt water things in the summer as my lifestyle. I've had a season pass at a Vermont ski resort since the mid-1980s and a vacation home since 1993. I've always owned a boat. I'm a suburban person who wants fairly easy access to large city things like a good international airport, a symphony orchestra, world class health care, etc but I don't want to live in a congested area. I telecommuted for a decade+ and now no longer have the nuisance of having to work and my fiancee telecommutes. I won't live anywhere I can't catch a morning flight to London-Heathrow so I can get to Europe without an overnight in an airplane. That's BOS, JFK, EWR, and IAD. O'Hare as well but that's not part of this thread.
With my lifestyle:
#1: MA. in the Massachusetts South Coast or Cape Cod within 20 minutes of the canal anywhere between Westport MA at the RI line and Woods Hole. Good ocean with superb sailing. Boston in an hour-ish off hours. My zip code isn't congested. Bourne and Falmouth on the wrong side of the canal have summer congestion problems until they replace the Bourne Bridge.
#2: NY. I could replicate my lifestyle 100% in New York but Westchester/Nassau are something of a cesspool and Suffolk is a pretty painful trip to skiing. I have plenty of friends who do it every weekend. It's off budget but with 4x my net worth, I'd love to have a small city pied a terre.
#3: NJ. I've had north Jersey girlfriends. I'm familiar with "down da shore" and the drive up to the ski resorts. It has serious congestion issues and it's more beach-oriented than sailing-oriented.
#4: CT. I've lived in Connecticut three times in my life. My mom lived in Guilford for a while while I was metro Boston. No major airport. Long Island Sound isn't great sailing.
#5: MD. I've sailed the Chesapeake a number of times. I could live around Annapolis. Skiing would be airplane from BWI which is less desirable. Nonstop to LHR on a morning flight is a really awful IAD drive even though it's only 60 miles.
#6: PA. Mid-Atlantic Ski Hell (MASH). PHL doesn't have a London-Heathrow morning flight. Landlocked unless you count the Delaware River at Philly. I had a girlfriend with a beach condo in Brigantine next to Atlantic City so I'm familiar with that from Philly. I've skied Blue Mountain. Awful! In my early 20s, a company was closing their New England site and wanted to transfer me to a suburb west of Philly. Nope. Doesn't fit my lifestyle at all. My mother is Pennsylvania Dutch so I'm familiar with west and northwest of Philly. I changed jobs.
#7: FLA. Doesn't meet the skiing lifestyle requirement at all. My father was retired in Longboat Key and owned a condo there since I was young. The summer is awful. There's rarely much wind for sailing. Not my thing at all.
I do think race is a big part of it. In addition, cities like Baltimore have a very negative rep nationwide. I think overall many people simply just don't know much about Maryland. I've had this discussion with friends recently, but Maryland (and DC to a lesser extent) is not represented in popular media much at all and the governments/people tend to be insular and don't promote themselves much. Growing up, all I really knew about Maryland was Baltimore and crabs. So people may just be overlooking Maryland for that reason.
It's a shame that Pennsylvania gets knocked for negative perceptions of Central PA (which, admittedly is far from perfect, but offers much more as far as amenities than folks give credit for), and similarly Upstate NY.
Both regions have their fair share of "Rust Belt" and "backwoodsy" types, but something tells me that if towns like these--which is honestly just a sample of what you can find across each state--were located in rural New England, they'd be far more appreciated by outsiders. These types of towns are truly gems, with lovely scenery to boot. If they were suburbs of large metro areas, their real estate would be in very high demand for sure:
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