[RoundTableKnight]

Remember most of the people you see in twitter/facebook comments who b**** about CT all day long end up sticking aroound. They're just all talk because they are probably upset with their own personal lives but yet the taxes are the blame. And then there's the ones who b**** about CT all day and actually pull the trigger and leave would find something to b**** about in their new state because they just love to b****. Taxes may be lower in coastal FL but you're also paying triple for your homeowner's insurance. You pay for it either way no matter where you go.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Cape Cod is wealthy? Since when? Some of the vacation home owners are wealthy. There are some wealthy retirees. The usual local professional people and business owners that exist anywhere are wealthy. Sandwich is the only town on the Cape with a median household income over $80K and even there, per-capita income is only $38K so it's dual income pushing the number up. Bourne barely breaks $70K median household income. Everything else is lower. The Cape is a largely a service sector economy.

I drive through Killingly quite a bit. Windham County CT has a per-capita income of $28K. Trump country. Other than on the immediate coast, New London County isn't wealthy. Like anywhere in the Northeast Corridor, the rural places away from the jobs and the failed cities are anything but wealthy.

You’re forgetting the affluent suburbs of Hartford, the Litchfield hills and the CT river valley/shoreline. Lots of wealthy people. Take away FFC and CT is still pretty affluent. The same cannot be said for MA.

Oh and Greenwich/Darien are also Trump country and they are some of the wealthiest towns in the world. Your point?

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Until they marry, pop out a kid or two, and need the gold plated school system. They then flee to those boring suburbs. That's how it worked in the 1980s and 1990s when I was Boston-centric. Pregnant automatically meant you bailed out of Back Bay/Beacon Hill and bought a single family home in the best town your could afford. I don't see that anything has changed. None of us had any interest in living in a boring suburb when we were in our 20s. The Millennials are moving to the suburbs just like all the previous generations for the same reasons.

A lot of people having kids in NYC seem to be making a go of staying in NYC though the city is very large so there's a ways out from Manhattan one can go without leaving the city. That being said, most of that would not be suburban compared to most actual US suburbs.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Cape Cod is wealthy? Since when? Some of the vacation home owners are wealthy. There are some wealthy retirees. The usual local professional people and business owners that exist anywhere are wealthy. Sandwich is the only town on the Cape with a median household income over $80K and even there, per-capita income is only $38K so it's dual income pushing the number up. Bourne barely breaks $70K median household income. Everything else is lower. The Cape is a largely a service sector economy.

I drive through Killingly quite a bit. Windham County CT has a per-capita income of $28K. Trump country. Other than on the immediate coast, New London County isn't wealthy. Like anywhere in the Northeast Corridor, the rural places away from the jobs and the failed cities are anything but wealthy.

All of Connecticut's counties have median household and family incomes greater than the US averages. Windam County's per capita income is only slightly less than the US average but the household and family incomes are well above. Even New London County is higher has pretty high income levels. As Kidyankee noted, Connecticut's affluence is not just limited to Fairfield County. Jay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._capita_income

[allanny13]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

Oh and Greenwich/Darien are also Trump country and they are some of the wealthiest towns in the world. Your point?

Let's not confuse affluent Connecticut Republicans with "Trump country".. all wealthy primarily Republican towns in FFC went for Clinton in 2016.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by allanny13

Let's not confuse affluent Connecticut Republicans with "Trump country".. all wealthy primarily Republican towns in FFC went for Clinton in 2016.

Ding ding ding

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by JayCT

All of Connecticut's counties have median household and family incomes greater than the US averages. Windam County's per capita income is only slightly less than the US average but the household and family incomes are well above. Even New London County is higher has pretty high income levels. As Kidyankee noted, Connecticut's affluence is not just limited to Fairfield County. Jay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._capita_income

So $28K median per capita income in Killingly is wealthy? I guess beater pickup trucks with Confederate battle flags is the new symbol of wealth.




I'm not saying that Connecticut isn't stuffed full of people with 6 figure incomes. I'm saying it's not a uniform distribution. Those people self-segregate and largely keep the riff-raff out with zoning. The places that are socioeconomically mixed like West Hartford have astronomically high property taxes. An object lesson to the leafy suburbs with the gold plated public school systems.


This is hardly unique to Connecticut. You see the same thing in East Greenwich or Barrington RI, or any of the high end Boston 'burbs.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

So $28K median per capita income in Killingly is wealthy? I guess beater pickup trucks with Confederate battle flags is the new symbol of wealth.




I'm not saying that Connecticut isn't stuffed full of people with 6 figure incomes. I'm saying it's not a uniform distribution. Those people self-segregate and largely keep the riff-raff out with zoning. The places that are socioeconomically mixed like West Hartford have astronomically high property taxes. An object lesson to the leafy suburbs with the gold plated public school systems.


This is hardly unique to Connecticut. You see the same thing in East Greenwich or Barrington RI, or any of the high end Boston 'burbs.

According to CERC, the median household income for Killingly is $60,548 which is $8,000 more than the US average. Hardly poor. And while there may be a few people driving beater pickups with confederate flags around, it is not really that common. Jay

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/c...ingly-2018.pdf

[missionhill]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Until they marry, pop out a kid or two, and need the gold plated school system. They then flee to those boring suburbs. That's how it worked in the 1980s and 1990s when I was Boston-centric. Pregnant automatically meant you bailed out of Back Bay/Beacon Hill and bought a single family home in the best town your could afford. I don't see that anything has changed. None of us had any interest in living in a boring suburb when we were in our 20s. The Millennials are moving to the suburbs just like all the previous generations for the same reasons.

The school issue may have changed a bit in Boston, at least, which has some well regarded elementary schools and high schools, and isn’t any longer in the immediate aftermath of the busing trauma as it was in the 1980s. There was definitely a back to the city movement in the 60s and 70s and among Gary Hart’s Yuppie generation of the 80s but I think now the indicators are stronger for cities. Then it was Back Bay and Beacon Hill for the smart set, now it’s those plus a dozen other neighborhoods in the city and another dozen or two in adjacent cities. Kendall Sq, Seaport, Longwood Medical Area and Fenway were sleepy in the 80s, not any more. Even though the technologies today allow you to work anywhere the demand for good locations in New York, SF, DC, Boston, LA, Seattle, etc. is incredible, not to mention the red state cities like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami. The hot industries today favor cities over suburban areas—for connectivity, exchange of ideas, intellectual capital. The environmental issues do too— people can have a much smaller carbon footprint in the city than elsewhere. Metropolitan traffic is a serious disadvantage for a suburban lifestyle in a way it wasn’t in the 80s. New York City is now so successful that the schools aren’t an issue any more; Manhattan and Brooklyn have great public schools in all the neighborhoods the professionals want to live in. Boston isn’t there yet but it will be; Cambridge is there and Somerville not far behind.

Where does this leave Hartford, New Haven? Different cities, different stories. The Hartford metro’s affluence and big economy will help the city recover in the long run. Quality of life in the Hartford metro remains very affordable, an advantage for Connecticut in retaining/growing its businesses. In New Haven the universities are the key.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by allanny13

Let's not confuse affluent Connecticut Republicans with "Trump country".. all wealthy primarily Republican towns in FFC went for Clinton in 2016.

Except in the primaries, which is indicative of how people feel about national politics. Greenwich and darien both voted red.

Anyway, it’s laughable to compare CT’s poorest rural town to the rest of the state as a whole.