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Because it is a utterly different style of government one (Towns) has each community dealing independently with its problems (there are 352 town in Massachsetts)
Vs a distinctly regional approach (about 15:1 ratio between MA towns to MD Counties)
There are over 500 municipalities in NJ. Most have their own governments, police departments, school systems, and fire departments, etc. Most people use north and south (Jersey) to describe where they live at the simplest, followed by the town. I only mention my county for reference. As far as county importance... well, the most I see my county doing is keeping county parks clean. Otherwise, my town holds power.
There are over 500 municipalities in NJ. Most have their own governments, police departments, school systems, and fire departments, etc. Most people use north and south (Jersey) to describe where they live at the simplest, followed by the town. I only mention my county for reference. As far as county importance... well, the most I see my county doing is keeping county parks clean. Otherwise, my town holds power.
Yes that makes NJ Northeastern and distinct from MD and the rest of the South in MA there is 0 area that is unincorporated, MD has people who live "in the county" and belong to no city or town infact the US census bureau classifieds New England towns as MCDs the same classification given to counties in the south to give you an idea of how different the situation is.
And due to the prominence to the Town over county governance the northeast has the most prominate display of direct democracy compared the representative republican government in the rest of the country on local scales.
Yes that makes NJ Northeastern and distinct from MD and the rest of the South in MA there is 0 area that is unincorporated, MD has people who live "in the county" and belong to no city or town infact the US census bureau classifieds New England towns as MCDs the same classification given to counties in the south to give you an idea of how different the situation is.
And due to the prominence to the Town over county governance the northeast has the most prominate display of direct democracy compared the representative republican government in the rest of the country on local scales.
I don't believe NJ has any unincorporated areas, either. Oddly enough, this is something I think about. I try to imagine being in a more empty state and being "in between towns" or something, where the land is just empty, part of nowhere but the county/state. I believe everywhere in NJ is an incorporated municipality. In my area at least, it is like this. We don't really have any areas that are unincorporated, we are far too dense. It is hard to imagine myself being somewhere that is unincorporated. Here, you're always in a town or city. Towns border one another like states do - one after the other. 500 municipalities is a lot for such a small state! We have more than California.
NJ is predominantly made up of cities, towns, townships, and boroughs. I honestly don't even know the importance of our counties. I know we have a board of chosen freeholders or something at the county level in my county but counties hold little power.
I don't believe NJ has any unincorporated areas, either. Oddly enough, this is something I think about. I try to imagine being in a more empty state and being "in between towns" or something, where the land is just empty, part of nowhere but the county/state. I believe everywhere in NJ is an incorporated municipality. In my area at least, it is like this. We don't really have any areas that are unincorporated, we are far too dense. It is hard to imagine myself being somewhere that is unincorporated. Here, you're always in a town or city. Towns border one another like states do - one after the other. 500 municipalities is a lot for such a small state! We have more than California.
NJ is predominantly made up of cities, towns, townships, and boroughs. I honestly don't even know the importance of our counties. I know we have a board of chosen freeholders or something at the county level in my county but counties hold little power.
If you don't know anything about incorporated and unincorporated areas in New Jersey, then once you get out of a city or town and you see almost nothing, you will get a feeling that you are not in any town or city in New Jersey other than being in a certain county just like any other state. You will get that feeling in southern parts of the state since most of the land is mostly forests or farms.
If you don't know anything about incorporated and unincorporated areas in New Jersey, then once you get out of a city or town and you see almost nothing, you will get a feeling that you are not in any town or city in New Jersey other than being in a certain county just like any other state. You will get that feeling in southern parts of the state since most of the land is mostly forests or farms.
I believe everywhere is still part of a town though. All you need to do is look at a map that breaks down by municipality or a county map...
IWe don't really have any areas that are unincorporated, we are far too dense. It is hard to imagine myself being somewhere that is unincorporated. Here, you're always in a town or city.
Los Angeles county has a million people living in unincorporated area. Some of those areas are very dense. Seems like a clumsy system of government. Unincorporated East Los Angeles has a density of 17,000 people per square mile:
As I said in my first post, individual anecdotal experiences and personal opinions (even from respected and famous individuals) have little weight in determining culture, but are only very small pieces in a larger puzzle. Honestly, they have little more meaning than if someone were to say "my Aunt Jane in Maryland drinks sweet tea every morning and flies a rebel flag off of her porch.
John Waters and Reginald Lewis are a bit different from Aunt Jane (who may or may not exist given the fantastic imagination of C-D posters). These are real Baltimoreans who grew up in Baltimore during the era we're discussing. And they describe it as a southern city during that time, and so do many Baltimore Sun articles. I know you want to dismiss it simply as "opinion," but that's the consensus historical view of the city.
And that makes sense considering the facts. As mentioned upthread, Maryland was a founding member of both the Southern Legislative Conference and the Southern Governors Association. And since the majority of the state resided in Baltimore and the DC suburbs back then (just as it does now), you can't write it off as a Southern Maryland thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
Slavery alone though doesn't make the city (or state) Southern. Newport, RI was once the busiest slave trading port in the United States, but that hardly makes it Southern.
Dude, we've already blown this argument to smithereens a thousand times already. Read the whole thread before raising the same arguments over and over again. There is a difference between having a slave economy--with 100,000 plus slaves--and having 1 slave in history like Massachusetts. Slavery was a moribund institution in the Northeast by 1830 and the slave population in northern states was never large in the first place. That's a critical distinction between northern and southern states.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
In 1900, decades after slavery ended, only ~15% of Baltimore residents were black--more than most Northern cities, but much smaller than pretty much any major Southern city (outside of maybe TX or FL).
I said how Maryland got a large Black population. Maryland had (and has) a much higher percentage of Blacks than any northern state because it was a slave state. Until the Great Migration, it had a larger Black population than any state above the Mason-Dixon Line or the Ohio River (btw, the mention of the MDL is not an excuse to jump into a discussion about its relevance or lack thereof).
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
have to disagree with you strongly on that point (with the exception of New York).
Baltimore didn't industrialize on the same scale as Philadelphia and Boston. That's a big reason why it's so much smaller. It's also a big reason why Baltimore does not have the same percentages of White Catholics as its neighbors to the north.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
The proportions of European migrant descendents varies considerably in the North, and while Baltimore may be at the lower end of that scale (which makes perfect sense) it definitely separates it from any city in the South.
Virtually every major metro in the Northeast has a much higher Italian/Irish percentage than Baltimore (the MSA is only 6.5% Italian). Here is Italian % by MSA.
New Haven, CT - 23.6%
Scranton, PA - 19.5%
Hartford, CT - 17.1%
Albany, NY - 17.0%
Buffalo - 17.0%
Rochester - 16.7%
Pittsburgh - 16.5%
Syracuse - 16.4%
Providence, RI - 15.6%
Boston - 14.9%
New York - 14.4%
Philadelphia - 14.0%
Erie, PA - 13.0%
Allentown, PA - 13.0%
Worcester, MA - 12.0%
Springfield, MA - 11.5% Baltimore - 6.5%
Hagerstown, MD - 5.0% Washington, DC - 4.3% Richmond - 3.6%
It's not just "at the lower end of the scale." It's significantly below every other Northeastern metro area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
When I said 'meaningless,' I was referring to the comparisons of gross population figures (not the percentages). Stating that there are "more Italians in the Philadelphia MSA than there are Black people in the Baltimore MSA" doesn't mean anything to me. Stating that there are a higher percentage of Italians in Philadelphia than there are in Baltimore is totally different, and has far more meaning.
Percentage and absolute number matter. In Philadelphia's case, it has a much higher percentage and a much higher absolute number than Baltimore. If you focused only on percentage, that wouldn't tell the whole story, would it? Without the numbers, you don't get a sense of the scale of these populations. The NYC metro has lots of towns with high Italian/Irish percentages because of the sheer numbers of those populations. You don't see tons of towns in the DC and Baltimore suburbs that are 25% Italian/Irish because the numbers are far less.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpterp
Granted the above data is for Maryland as a whole, not just Baltimore, since it's difficult to track down reliable data on religion on the city level. However, the Baltimore MSA is definitely heavily Catholic and Jewish and has an especially long Catholic history, even for a Northern city. For instance, the city is home to the nation's very first Roman Catholic cathedral.
It's not that hard. You can cross check the county numbers reported by the ARDA against the numbers reported by the Archdiocese. They are almost always very close to each other. We've already covered this in another thread.
The majority of Catholics in Maryland are non-White (and by "Catholic" people have traditionally meant "White Ethnic"). And that makes sense given that the percentage of Italians and Irish is so low relative to Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
The Baltimore MSA is definitely heavily Catholic and Jewish and has an especially long Catholic history, even for a Northern city. For instance, the city is home to the nation's very first Roman Catholic cathedral.
First, we need to establish what "heavily Catholic and Jewish" means. It's all relative to other cities. Again, here are our percentages for Italian, Irish, Polish and Jewish ancestry. The first number is the total % for the MSA. The second number is the % of the non-Hispanic White population.
New York - 30.13% of MSA (61.76% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Philadelphia - 32.67% of MSA (53.05% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Baltimore - 21.75%% of MSA (36.28% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Washington - 15.65% of MSA (32.25% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Atlanta - 12.25% of MSA (25.55% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Not even accounting for the scale difference between NYC/Philly and Baltimore, would you say that Baltimore is closer to DC/Atlanta or NYC/Philly?
Second, having the nation's first Catholic Church doesn't mean anything. The Northeast was founded by Protestants (Quakers in PA and later Germans, Swedes, Dutch/English in New York, English in NE). Many of its urban centers were eventually overtaken by Catholics. Maryland, on the other hand, was founded by English Catholics, which is quite a bit different from the "Catholics" Chris Matthews was referring to during the 2008 Democratic Primary.
And yet according to some posters on this board, these are not Northeastern cities but Baltimore and Washington are.
I also included a figure to show the percentage among non-Hispanic Whites. I've included Richmond this time for comparison.
New York - 30.13% of MSA (61.76% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Philadelphia - 32.67% of MSA (53.05% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Baltimore - 21.75% of MSA (36.28% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Washington - 15.65% of MSA (32.25% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Atlanta - 12.25% of MSA (25.55% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Richmond - 12.07% of MSA (20.07% of non-Hispanic Whites)
Baltimore is almost exactly between Philadelphia and Richmond. DC is clearly closer to Atlanta and Richmond.
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