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It is not necessarily true about the cost of living being much higher when looking at Upstate NY. It is maybe a little bit higher, if at all, when comparing Upstate NY to PA outside of Philadelphia.
Exactly--location is everything. Generally speaking, Western Pennsylvania is cheaper than Eastern Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia area is definitely the most expensive part of the state.
Pennsylvania is beautiful but backwards. Most of the state is pretty darn conservative. Contrast that to New England which has zero conservative metro areas.
There are a lot of conservative areas in New England. Ive lived n both. New England is no more more liberal than PA. Both have liberal areas, both have provincial, conservative areas.
I would choose PA just because there are some areas the have a lower COL and healthcare industry jobs.
Also, a little less dark that NE.
Where the OP said she is looking in Chester County, pretty much anyone could find something that would work for them.
If you're concerned mainly with cost of living,forget about taxes and concentrate on heating fuel in winter and utilities like electricity. Those will eat up your budget faster than taxes.
All those states have huge contrasts within. Pittsfield, Jamestown and Erie are more similar to each other, than any of them is to Boston, Philadelphia or Long Island.
There are a lot of conservative areas in New England. Ive lived n both. New England is no more more liberal than PA. Both have liberal areas, both have provincial, conservative areas.
I would choose PA just because there are some areas the have a lower COL and healthcare industry jobs.
Also, a little less dark that NE.
Where the OP said she is looking in Chester County, pretty much anyone could find something that would work for them.
I don't believe that for one second. New England IS more liberal than PA in every respect. Almost all of PA is all red counties. Almost ALL of New England is all blue counties. Heck, Rick Santorum is from PA.
I don't believe that for one second. New England IS more liberal than PA in every respect. Almost all of PA is all red counties. Almost ALL of New England is all blue counties. Heck, Rick Santorum is from PA.
You dont have to believe it, that doesnt change my actual experience living in both areas.
Yes, there is rural Pennsyltucky in the middle, but Philly and Pittsburgh have more blue population than some NE states. Vermont, which had a repub governor when I was there, was easily as backwoods as anywhere in central PA. Yeah, there's Newfane, Brattleboro and Burlington, but the rest of the population is largely is radical, 60's John Birch conservative.
I don't believe that for one second. New England IS more liberal than PA in every respect. Almost all of PA is all red counties. Almost ALL of New England is all blue counties. Heck, Rick Santorum is from PA.
You're trying to over-simplify something that's much more complex than you're admitting. Not to mention, there was a time not in the long-distant past when New England was solidly Republican (how soon we forget history). Even as late as 1988 Presidential election, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey all went to the Republican column:
Despite a lunatic like Santorum (who was also soundly defeated when he started really veering to the right) Pennsylvania has long had a history of moderate Republicanism. See Arlen Specter. See Dick Thornburgh. See Tom Ridge. The "Republican Main Street Partnership," which is a cadre of middle-of-the-road Republicans in Congress, has no fewer than 6 members from Pennsylvania:
I drove through PA along I-80 the other day, as I was coming back from my interviews I had in Columbus, OH, and I saw a Ben Carson bumper sticker. Yup.
That's quite a mis-characterization and a stereotype that's constantly perpetuated by more uber-liberal neighboring states.
Yes, Pennsylvania is more conservative compared to NY or New England, but it is overwhelmingly a moderate state in a national context. In federal elections, it has become predictably center-left. As with all states, its metro areas are more liberal.
Also--let's not kid ourselves by judging a state's politics by one bumper sticker.
Or it's a Northern state in the North. This notion that the entire Northeast is uniformly liberal outside of Pennsylvania is rather silly. The region is more politically diverse than many people let on. Per my previous link, even in New York, self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals. And at least a quarter of Bay Staters and Vermonters identify as conservative.
Of course, most states have more conservatives than liberals. But I've live in Pennsylvania my entire life, and I can say that it IS backward. Not just due to political conservatives, but backwards in other ways, too. I love this state but that's the way it is.
You're trying to over-simplify something that's much more complex than you're admitting. Not to mention, there was a time not in the long-distant past when New England was solidly Republican (how soon we forget history). Even as late as 1988 Presidential election, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey all went to the Republican column:
Despite a lunatic like Santorum (who was also soundly defeated when he started really veering to the right) Pennsylvania has long had a history of moderate Republicanism. See Arlen Specter. See Dick Thornburgh. See Tom Ridge. The "Republican Main Street Partnership," which is a cadre of middle-of-the-road Republicans in Congress, has no fewer than 6 members from Pennsylvania:
Of course, most states have more conservatives than liberals. But I've live in Pennsylvania my entire life, and I can say that it IS backward. Not just due to political conservatives, but backwards in other ways, too. I love this state but that's the way it is.
I'm a Pennsylvania native, as well, and I lived there for the vast majority of my life. I understand where you're coming from.
I will agree that Pennsylvania has a generally provincial, glacially-moving government. And so, it's more conservative in a traditional, maintaining the "status quo" sense. But "backwards" means something else entirely. That's such a loaded term--it evokes sometime like segregated classrooms and smoking in public buildings. The state obviously does make policy changes, but it tends to take a much more measured, cautious approach after examining what effects a given policy may have in other places.
By comparison, I will admit that the governments of neighboring states tend to be more active in changing policy and are more progressive, but, again, that's a distinctly different scenario than a state being more "conservative" in the overtly political sense, like instituting "Right to Work" or limiting abortion.
Those types of things, while they have some support among a small, vocal minority, do not have support among the majority of the legislature, and especially not among the population at large. In addition, the legislature of Pennsylvania, due to outsized influence of more conservative areas (via gerrymandering) is notably more conservative than the general population.
Last edited by Duderino; 06-07-2015 at 10:56 AM..
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