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Politeness and calmness may be a connected to where you live in CT. I'm down in the lower Connecticut River valley and it doesn't get much more laid back than this. Polite- you better believe it. Adults hold doors for people. Teenagers hold doors for people. Never takes more than 30 seconds to have someone let you into traffic if you're driving. People say hello when you're walking - heck, people walking wave to people driving down their streets.
It doesn't get much more small town Americana than around these little, pretty towns. Lots of genteel, very old money, lots of very middle class folks just quietly going about their lives. Much less rat race, much less trying to keep up with or surpass the Jones'.
Politeness and calmness may be a connected to where you live in CT. I'm down in the lower Connecticut River valley and it doesn't get much more laid back than this. Polite- you better believe it. Adults hold doors for people. Teenagers hold doors for people. Never takes more than 30 seconds to have someone let you into traffic if you're driving. People say hello when you're walking - heck, people walking wave to people driving down their streets.
It doesn't get much more small town Americana than around these little, pretty towns. Lots of genteel, very old money, lots of very middle class folks just quietly going about their lives. Much less rat race, much less trying to keep up with or surpass the Jones'.
It's true. I love that area. Old Saybrook is a world away from, say, Darien.
Politeness and calmness may be a connected to where you live in CT. I'm down in the lower Connecticut River valley and it doesn't get much more laid back than this. Polite- you better believe it. Adults hold doors for people. Teenagers hold doors for people. Never takes more than 30 seconds to have someone let you into traffic if you're driving. People say hello when you're walking - heck, people walking wave to people driving down their streets.
It doesn't get much more small town Americana than around these little, pretty towns. Lots of genteel, very old money, lots of very middle class folks just quietly going about their lives. Much less rat race, much less trying to keep up with or surpass the Jones'.
I don't know about all of that. The CT River Valley is my paradise but it's not as laid back as small down South Carolina. I beg to differ that people say hi when walking past you, and stop to let you in. The reserved, New England culture is very much alive in Essex.
I am from CT. Moved away back in 98 because I thought Mr. right was somewhere else. Long story short, I am stuck in NC because of an a**hole. I also lived in SC for 3 years and I can say from my experiance, there is no place like home (CT). Yes, there are small pockets of places around in the south that may be nice and have nice people, but from the places I have lived in (all mountain area), I have not really found that many. I have found very judgemental people and hypocrites. They preach about how you have to go to church and all and how they are better then you because they do go, but then come home and get drunk. My ex is nothing but a drunk and drug addict who onlys cares for his self. He does not care about our kids and giving them a better life. Now, not all people in the south are this way, but my ex is not the only person I have met and yes, I know there are drunks and drug addicts in CT as well.
When I worked in a factory, I actually had people tell me that maybe if I went to church I would have friends. Friendship should not be based on wheter ot not I go to church. When I moved to SC, I was greeted by this " Hi, I'm so and so. Wlecome to the neighborhood. So what church do you go to? Oh you should come to mine. It's so wonderful." I had people over for my son's birthday party and one couple could not talk about anything other then their church and God this, God that. It was a huge turn off to my other guests, who were very happy with their own church, but was not trying to recruit people at a freaking kid's birthday party.
Moving from CT was the biggest mistake I have ever made and I reget it everyday. The only thing I am thankful for are my kids. I miss CT and the things that are there to do. I live in Asheville, NC right now and the rents here are much more higher then in a lot of places in CT. This past summer I had a guy in SC make a comment to me saying "Oh, well, if you live in Asheville then you could afford a $400 a night hotel room. " We have to have at least 3 incomes just to afford a dump of rent here. I could move else where, but I have to deal with my ex who the courts gave 50/50 custody to, even though he is a drunk and drug addict (I even had pictures to prove it and witnesses). I also miss my family and well I have to say education is better in CT then in NC or SC.
All in all you will find rude snobs, no matter where you go. I have my reasons for why I love CT and think it's the best. I also have my reason for hating NC and SC (I have found others who agree with me about these places as well). It all boils down to the person and what experiance (if any) they may have. My sister, who has never lived in another state then CT, trys to talk me out of moving back, but she has no clue about what it is like in other places or being away from family.
However, I always urge them to Google Bridgeport, Waterbury, New London, New Haven, New Britain, Derby, Meriden, New London, etc. just to get the full picture.
I hear you. So many people assume that if you are from CT you live a lifestyle akin to the one depicted in movies like Home Alone (that Litchfield County ginourmo Colonial boulevard-street styled existence). Uh no, some of us live in little houses with tiny yards and long commutes that don't end at Wall Street.
Sometimes it is an issue of small town living. Small towns are small towns, no matter where they are. My family lived in a rural CT town for about 45 years and were considered outsiders pretty much. From what I have heard from folks who have moved to small towns across the USA, this is generally the attitude in small towns toward newcomers. Relocating and being accepted is a generational thing, meaning YOU won't be accepted, at least not fully, but your children will start to be. Even though we were born and raised in that town, my sibling and I were tolerated and more included but NOT really considered natives. If I had stayed in that town/region, my children would indeed be considered native. That was my experience, and others have said this has happened to them in other parts of the USA.
Having said that, I do find that the Upper Midwest culture is far more friendlier to outsiders, and in daily life. I have found Southerners to be most unfriendly to outsiders, actually. They were nice to our face but didn't want to include anyone not from the South. We were still damn Yankees to them. To pals of mine, this even happened among city people with whom they had much in common, so it is not exclusively a rural phenomenon.
As for the differing cultures or attitudes here in the USA, well, sometimes I want polite and friendly, rather than reserved and unfriendly. Maybe our family met the wrong people. The people we met in CT were quite bigoted and didn't bother to hide it much. It wasn't just about race, but also about European ethnicity as well. This was quite surprising, and alway seemed so out of date. They also looked down on the rest of the nation as beneath them. Now, of course not ALL the people we dealt with were like that, but enough were so that I was glad to relocate when I could. Unfortunately, this was our experience. I'm sorry if this offends some readers, but that is how it was. This is what shaped my attitude toward CT and NE in general.
And I always feel so welcome in the upper Midwest. Too bad the Winter there is so miserable!
the midwest is a laidback, friendly area. i find many parts of the south friendly too, had many many friends from the south.
you northerners have a bad attitude toward the south, even 160 years later, that is close to 2 centuries.
Never met more hostile, unfriendly people than
many people I've met in Connecticut though...they're hateful to people.
they won't ever talk to you if you live next door or nearby..
they scream at you & threaten you for simply walking
down a public street, yet will come trespass on your
property too.
Some parts are nicer...think the shore near New London isn't too bad...but the suburbs east of Hartford, except for Glastonbury, forget it.
You don't even want to shop or walk there..
Are there any nightclubs east or north of Hartford where
people are friendly?
I meet such snotty people in Connecticut all the time.
It's so nice to travel out of this state!
Last edited by RockNRollRocks; 01-04-2013 at 08:42 AM..
Home Alone was filmed in the north suburbs of Chicago.
I think what he meant though is that the stereotype of CT is that it is all areas that are similar to the Home Alone neighborhood, even though it's a different geography. As a very large northern city, metro Chicago is not that much different from the coastal Northeast, though I grant being in the upper Midwest (albeit on the southern end of it) may make for a few differences. But (to give an example), unlike what was said by a later poster about the rest of the upper Midwest, one way in which metro Chicago is similar to here is what I'll call (as someone else described in a different way) "ethnic bigotry".
Quote:
Originally Posted by nu2ct
But, there are racial tensions in CT and it is MUCH more segregated. I was shocked when I first saw the huge swaths of minority neighborhoods in New Haven. In SC there are black neighborhoods but white neighborhoods are not far away. CT is 3 cities that are mostly minority and the rest of the state is bedroom communities and towns that are mostly white.
That's because in southern New England through DC for the most part the city boundaries are quite small and only include the truly "urban" area, with the most extreme cases being some of the CT cities (Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, Hartford) that are only 10-20 sq. miles but have almost if not above 10,000 people/sq. mile population densities (similar to almost every one of the top 10 cities in population except for NY City which has much more) and a ton of "suburbs" bordering it compared to similar size cities in the south (for example, Jacksonville, FL includes almost the entire metro area in it's civic bounderies with almost no "suburb" towns). This produces a lot more obsession with and both racial and socioeconomic segregation of school districts up here.
In reality I think the black vs. white neighborhoods are actually quite close in the Northeast, if not even closer to each other than in the south and ditto for jaw-dropping sudden changes in socioeconomics. Think about Trumbull bordering Bridgeport for example. Or my hometown of Mt. Vernon, NY in southern Westchester is heavily "ghetto" but the northern part borders one of the richest suburbs in the entire tri-state area, that of Bronxville, and as such even within the city it goes from "gangsta" to "middle class" in less than a mile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayCT
Or wishing they did not leave. I have been to other states and considered moving to them for a job opportunity but I never found anywhere with a better overall qualitity of life. Then again, that is just me and a lot of people I know. Jay
In my post from last month in which I mention a brother-in-law who moved to NC for his job, he grew up in Westchester and also lived in suburban Boston for about a decade and loved being in both (except for the high cost of living). His wife grew up in upstate NY (but relatively close to NYC) and they met in Massachusetts as she too lived there for her job at the time. They both feel exactly the way you described.
the midwest is a laidback, friendly area. i find many parts of the south friendly too, had many many friends from the south.
you northerners have a bad attitude toward the south, even 160 years later, that is close to 2 centuries.
Never met more hostile, unfriendly people than
many people I've met in Connecticut though...they're hateful to people.
they won't ever talk to you if you live next door or nearby..
they scream at you & threaten you for simply walking
down a public street, yet will come trespass on your
property too.
Some parts are nicer...think the shore near New London isn't too bad...but the suburbs east of Hartford, except for Glastonbury, forget it.
You don't even want to shop or walk there..
Are there any nightclubs east or north of Hartford where
people are friendly?
I meet such snotty people in Connecticut all the time.
It's so nice to travel out of this state!
I am unsure what you are trying to say about the suburbs east of Hartford and Glastonbury. Either way I do not agree. Yes there are snobby people in the state but it is no worse than others. most of the towns east of Hartford are very nice and have very nice people. I really do not know what you are talking about but you are clearly judging everyone by the actions of a few. Jay
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Totally agree
