Upstate New York vs NYC

[chopchop0]

That's like asking whether you like apples or oranges.

Seriously, they are completely different in every respect you can think of. Urban vs. rural. Natural landscapes vs. skyscrapers/dense urban population.

[MN55]

Da Bills

[upstatepridetshirts]

Hey Coolhand, hello from a fellow Roman! I have lived here for 4 years now, and in Utica a couple years before that. I have spent most of my life in "upstate" NY. I grew up in Steuben County, and we lived so far in the boonies that I thought of Corning as "the city"; Elmira was "the Big City"! Yes, I was a naïve backwoods hick!

People in the rest of the country have no idea we exist. I was visiting my brother in Oregon a couple of years ago and we got chatting with a waitress, and told her we were from New York, and she was amazed as we regaled her with tales from our childhood about milking cows, building a treehouse, etc. I figure she had an excuse--she was quite young and hadn't traveled much, she said the furthest East she had ever been was Mt. Rushmore. But I lived in New Jersey for a few years, and I don't know what their excuse is as they BORDER on us and still don't know we exist! I tried to explain to folks I met in NJ that I was from "Western New York" and they thought I was talking about a town in New Jersey (right across the river from NYC) called West New York. The best I could get out of them was "Umm...is that somewhere near Syracuse?"

So anyway, I have found a creative outlet for expressing my frustration with this confusion of identity. Check this out: UPSTATE PRIDE T-Shirts.

[murksiderock]

^^^you're spot on!

When I tell people I used to live in Elmira, people look at me like I'm crazy. I was in Albany for four months, and Albany's name recognition is hit or miss, 50/50. Most people have heard of Syracuse (although I seriously met one girl who never had), so the simplest explanation is that I was "in a town near Syracuse", although that isn't even accurate!

When people hear "New York", unless you're talking to a fellow Upstater, their mind only registers one thing: The City...

For what its worth, I'd choose Upstate over The City 100 times out of 100. Not a native, but most def a proud Upstater...

And the definition of Upstate differs depending on region and whom you talk to. Me? Everything south of Albany/Capital Region is "downstate". Albany metro begins "upstate", and the Lower Hudson from Kingston to Poughkeepsie, while New Yorkers call that "upstate", has much more in common with NYC than Albany or Syracuse, for instance...

[risotto11]

That's why this poll is absurd. There is a singular NYC experience by there is no singular NYS experience as white plains is not that similar to buffalo or Rochester

Originally Posted by garmin239

Rome or Utica may be like that, but not the bigger population areas. Rome and Utica do not equal all of upstate. I rarely run into people who don't like NYC. It's a great city and most people recognize it as that.