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I agree with your second paragraph. A good example of this is that Pennsylvania and Ohio have embraced fracking but New York and Vermont have declined it.
The problem is your third paragraph. You leave yourself no wiggle room. "Unless you have family that lives in New England or travel there due to work Pennsylvanians don't really go to New England otherwise".
How do you know that? Pennsylvania has over 12 million people and you think no one travels to New England unless they know someone or work there? No one from PA vacations in the Berkshires, skies in Vermont, travels along the Maine coast? I find that incredibly hard to believe.
Why would they? I'm not trying to be rude but you have skiing available in PA and it's a lot cheaper to do in our state then it is to go to New England. You even have people from Maryland and other states coming up to go skiing in PA. It's really due to the cost and why would you pay more for it when you go elsewhere unless you have family up that way?
I'm calling straight bs on this. The Midwest was very heavily influenced by PA since that is where the settlers to the Midwest primarily came from initially. So it makes sense PA ancestry wise is a much closer to the Midwest then New England which is a very isolated region of the country. There are more people in PA with German ancestry then there is with Irish, Italian, Scottish, and Scottish Irish ancestry combined. You really need to look up the demographics of PA because you seem to think they are similar to the North east when they are not.
As of 2000, more Pennsylvanians identified as Irish, Italian and English combined than German, and that doesn't even include other ethnicities.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
The reason your not seeing this is probably because your from New England. If you actually bothered to look at the history of PA we have more in common with a state like Ohio since Ohio was initially settleed by Pennsylvanians. The same goes for most of Appalachia and even large chunks of Virginia. As far as the Norstheast not being the same or even close I'm in absolute agreement there. That is why I hate the term Northeastern since it's absolutely meaningless.
I'm from Pennsylvania. I still see as many differences with Ohio and Virginia as I do with New England. We'll have to chalk that up to different perspectives.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
Pennsylvanians go south when they want to go to the Ocean unless they have family up in New England they don't go north to the ocean to do so. Hell unless your from Philly or eastern PA (Allentown, Scranton, etc) you don't even go to Jersey to go to the shore...and not everyone from Philly or even Eastern PA goes to Jersey when they want to go on vacation to the Ocean either.
LOL. You clearly don't know the ingrained culture of people in Eastern PA then, as the Jersey shore is a second home for MANY people. It's an EXTREMELY popular destination. Delaware would be a clear second.
Even so, it's silly to keep speculating about where people go to the beach, since neither of us has hard data, but anecdotally, no matter where I've gone on the East Coast, I've always seen at least some Pennsylvania presence. People will go to different places for different reasons.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
Massachusetts along with other states such as New York and California are what you would call moralistic. They are far more "preachy" with how they think others should live there lives. People from Massachusetts will vote for something because they view it as the moral thing to do where as people in PA vote for something because they view it as pragmatic thing to do. As far as liquor laws go Pennsylvania again didn't start prohibition like Massachusetts did.
You're just plain stereotyping. That's all there is to it. The vast majority of voters in all of these states do not conform to the stereotype that you're laying out.
Why would they? I'm not trying to be rude but you have skiing available in PA and it's a lot cheaper to do in our state then it is to go to New England. You even have people from Maryland and other states coming up to go skiing in PA. It's really due to the cost and why would you pay more for it when you go elsewhere unless you have family up that way?
Um, okay. Then why do people go anywhere out-of-state if it's a cost issue? Believe me, southern coastal areas aren't exactly cheap. Any beach destination is going to be pricey in peak months, so the cost is a moot point. You may not personally have the motivation to travel to New England, but others do. That's the long and short of it.
If been to Massachusetts before and it's not nearly the same as it is throughout Pennsylvania in regards to close down factories. Massachusetts is pretty much never considered part of the Rust Belt. The only time in my entire life it's ever been referred to as part of the rust belt is on city data.
Perhaps not to the same extent as Pennsylvania, but there's a lot of closed up factories here. Where in Massachusetts did you see?
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
I'm calling straight bs on this. The Midwest was very heavily influenced by PA since that is where the settlers to the Midwest primarily came from initially. So it makes sense PA ancestry wise is a much closer to the Midwest then New England which is a very isolated region of the country. There are more people in PA with German ancestry then there is with Irish, Italian, Scottish, and Scottish Irish ancestry combined. You really need to look up the demographics of PA because you seem to think they are similar to the North east when they are not.
Where in the Midwest? Settlers in the Great Lakes region came primarily from New England or upstate NY. Eastern PA and Southern New England do have a lot of demographic similarities, both have large Irish and Italian-Americans. population.
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Massachusetts along with other states such as New York and California are what you would call moralistic. They are far more "preachy" with how they think others should live there lives. People from Massachusetts will vote for something because they view it as the moral thing to do where as people in PA vote for something because they view it as pragmatic thing to do. As far as liquor laws go Pennsylvania again didn't start prohibition like Massachusetts did.
As I posted earlier, Massachusetts voted less for prohibition than much of the country, and the prohibition movement wasn't concentrated in New England. State cultures change, too. Prohibition was nearly 100 years ago. The bolded appears to be stereotypes, any real evidence for it?
One thing I do agree with the OP is that big political differences between state, at least relevant to everyday life is overstated. Calling one state much more "free" than another is silly, the differences aren't that noticeable in everyday life.
As of 2000, more Pennsylvanians identified as Irish, Italian and English combined than German, and that doesn't even include other ethnicities.
What was false about what I typed exactly? Of the ethnic groups I listed all of the ones I listed combined were smaller then German ethnic group. Also again as my map I linked to earlier shows PA is not like New England when it comes to ancestry. PA and Massachusetts are two very different states.
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I'm from Pennsylvania. I still see as many differences with Ohio and Virginia as I do with New England. We'll have to chalk that up to different perspectives.
We'll chalk it to you needing get out more. I tried the whole agree to disagree with you earlier and you keep wanting to push this when you have been shown to be wrong.
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LOL. You clearly don't know the ingrained culture of people in Eastern PA then, as the Jersey shore is a second home for MANY people. It's an EXTREMELY popular destination. Delaware would be a clear second.
You need to pay better attention. I said not all of them go to Jersey shore I didn't state none of them do or most don't. I have family that live in the metro of Philly who never go to the Jersey shore when they are on vacation. Even people from NJ will tell you what I'm telling you.
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Even so, it's silly to keep speculating about where people go to the beach, since neither of us has hard data, but anecdotally, no matter where I've gone on the East Coast, I've always seen at least some Pennsylvania presence. People will go to different places for different reasons.
Usually do to visit family or work the majority of the time. But when on vacation people tend to go where they get more bang for the buck which means for the average family not New England.
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You're just plain stereotyping. That's all there is to it. The vast majority of voters in all of these states do not conform to the stereotype that you're laying out.
Really? Okay I stated Massachusetts is a Moralistic state in regards to politics. I would really love to see how exactly that is stereotyping. I guess since it doesn't conform at all to your theory that PA and Massachusetts are Libertarian that means it's stereotyping then huh?
Um, okay. Then why do people go anywhere out-of-state if it's a cost issue? Believe me, southern coastal areas aren't exactly cheap. Any beach destination is going to be pricey in peak months, so the cost is a moot point. You may not personally have the motivation to travel to New England, but others do. That's the long and short of it.
The other main reason outside of cost people from PA don't go to New England is because the region is out of site out of mind. The majority of PA's population lives south of I-80 and east of I-81. Which means most of the population of the state lives closest to the states Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware. Not close to New York which you have to travel through to even get to New England since the whole region is behind that state. That's why I said earlier that in PA we just don't interact with New England. It's a very isolated region and most Pennsylvanian's don't live close to it.
Perhaps not to the same extent as Pennsylvania, but there's a lot of closed up factories here. Where in Massachusetts did you see?
Boston, Worchester, and other areas of the state when I worked at my old job. I hardly saw the amount of closed up factories everywhere even in small towns in the middle of nowhere like I saw in PA.
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Where in the Midwest? Settlers in the Great Lakes region came primarily from New England or upstate NY. Eastern PA and Southern New England do have a lot of demographic similarities, both have large Irish and Italian-Americans. population.
They settled along some of the Great Lake areas but a lot of the population came from/through PA.
As far as Demographics go even in eastern PA it's heavily German. Which is not the case in New England. You have some very small overlap but PA has more in common with the Midwest in regards to ancestry.
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As I posted earlier, Massachusetts voted less for prohibition than much of the country, and the prohibition movement wasn't concentrated in New England. State cultures change, too. Prohibition was nearly 100 years ago. The bolded appears to be stereotypes, any real evidence for it?
Any real evidence against it? Progressive politics are extremely preachy and progressive politics dominates New England. Progressive political states are the states that are considered moralistic.
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One thing I do agree with the OP is that big political differences between state, at least relevant to everyday life is overstated. Calling one state much more "free" than another is silly, the differences aren't that noticeable in everyday life.
Yeah I'm going to agree to disagree with you here.
Any real evidence against it? Progressive politics are extremely preachy and progressive politics dominates New England. Progressive political states are the states that are considered moralistic.
Any more argument would turn this into a P&OC style debate. And the P&OC forum is gross. So not going any further.
Prohibition wasn't as popular in New England as it was in the Midwest or South.
While this is true, part of this is because even by then, the Catholic population of the Northeast was swelling, and Catholics were always hostile to prohibition.
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Originally Posted by SkyIsTheLimt
I find only two categories - the cities that are mostly liberal with cosmopolitan culture and then the villages and small towns with conservative religious people..
Most of the cities have the same vibe no matter where they are located like Chicago in Midwest to Atlanta in the South to Seattle in the West. And the small towns and the villages have the same vibe no matter where they are like in the North East to Mid West to the South to the West..
People tend to view places through the stereotypical lens and try to find differences otherwise most of the cities are very similar and most of the small towns and villages are basically the same like most of the small towns have a main street in the middle of the town and a famous diner that everyone goes too..
Again, this is such a gross stereotype it makes my jaw drop. Somewhere like Great Barrington, Massachusetts is simply a lot more similar to Boston than it is to a small town in West Virginia.
What was false about what I typed exactly? Of the ethnic groups I listed all of the ones I listed combined were smaller then German ethnic group. Also again as my map I linked to earlier shows PA is not like New England when it comes to ancestry. PA and Massachusetts are two very different states.
There are distinct differences between Pennsylvania and New England as well as the Midwest. That's the bottom line.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
We'll chalk it to you needing get out more. I tried the whole agree to disagree with you earlier and you keep wanting to push this when you have been shown to be wrong.
No one is wrong here. It's obviously a matter of perspective, and that's where we differ.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
You need to pay better attention. I said not all of them go to Jersey shore I didn't state none of them do or most don't. I have family that live in the metro of Philly who never go to the Jersey shore when they are on vacation. Even people from NJ will tell you what I'm telling you.
Sorry I misunderstood. Of course not everyone goes to NJ. As I said, Pennsylvanians do, indeed, travel up and down the East Coast.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
Usually do to visit family or work the majority of the time. But when on vacation people tend to go where they get more bang for the buck which means for the average family not New England.
I think that's a misconception. I've found that top East Coast beach destinations are comparably expensive.
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Originally Posted by cwa1984
Really? Okay I stated Massachusetts is a Moralistic state in regards to politics. I would really love to see how exactly that is stereotyping. I guess since it doesn't conform at all to your theory that PA and Massachusetts are Libertarian that means it's stereotyping then huh?
No, that's not what I'm saying. You seemed to imply that all voters only use morals in MA as the basis for voting, and that everyone subscribes to "preachy" politics. If that's not what you meant, than I apologize for the misinterpretation -- but, as others have said, I think the political differences are overblown and political reputation doesn't necessarily represent the electorate as a whole.
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that means it's stereotyping then huh?
