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MA has a center of the state, Boston. NJ like said above is either NY or PHL dependent. MA is a little more refined than NJ too, more local and less Sprawly. NJ is a step closer to the south and the Post WWII sprawl definitely shows it. Although, NJ is a bit more fast paced throughout the entirety of the state. Go to Cherry Hill, Wildwood, Piscataway, Bridgewater, you name it... Definitely a faster pace than the Mass equivalents. Entertainment is a little higher in NJ compared to MA as MA has ridiculous generational laws. Typical New England.
But to me, the closest comparison to NJ would be NOVA. Fast paced, dependent on an intrastate economy and lots of post WW2 Urban Sprawl that can look repititive.
Mass is a more refined, slower paced (not by much), cleaner, overpriced, less Sprawly, and colder NJ. I see the comparison in a lot of spots but nothing more than CT or NY Or MD.
Can you really say MA “isn’t really all that similar to NJ” and then say “I see the comparison in a lot of spots”?
CT is more similar to NJ than MA. but MA is more similar to NJ than ME. That’s the question at hand.
Everything you said is true. But the only major difference sis the Boston centricity. Everything else is pretty much aesthetic. Pace of life in MA is much much closer to NJ than ME. It’s not as though NJ lacks sleepy or slow paced areas guys.
You guys are mostly avoiding the demographics/density/urbanity/politics, why? This is another area where NJ is much ore similar than MA. The question isn’t “is Massachusetts New Jersey?”...
You all mention all the Boston centric ness. Okay the. What about New York and it’s New York City centricity?
If you say Massachusetts (or Connecticut or Rhode Island) is more similar to Maine Vermont or New Hampshire than New Jersey I cant take that argument seriously...
And for the record Revere Beach and Nantasket have some Jersey shire like qualities...
Also having an entire region dedicated to beach tourism is more a MA/NJ trait (Cape/Shore) than NH.
If you say Massachusetts is more similar to Maine Vermont or New Hampshire than New Jersey I cant take that argument seriously...
For real? NH has Portsmouth. What old port cities does NJ have that resemble Newburyport, Marblehead, Gloucester, New Bedford, and Salem?
NH has Nashua and Manchester. Not only old textile mill cities like Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill: they literally sit on the same river. What old textile mill cities exist in NJ?
The Appalachian Mountains are an important tourist draw in both MA (the Berkshires) and NH (the White Mountains). What mountain range in NJ known for?
NJ has some sort of functional county government while MA and NH do not.
This intersection is the state line between Salem, NH and Methuen, NH.
There’s no way that MA is more similar to NJ than it is to NH.
Can you really say MA “isn’t really all that similar to NJ” and then say “I see the comparison in a lot of spots”?
CT is more similar to NJ than MA. but MA is more similar to NJ than ME. That’s the question at hand.
Everything you said is true. But the only major difference sis the Boston centricity. Everything else is pretty much aesthetic. Pace of life in MA is much much closer to NJ than ME. It’s not as though NJ lacks sleepy or slow paced areas guys.
You guys are mostly avoiding the demographics/density/urbanity/politics, why? This is another area where NJ is much ore similar than MA. The question isn’t “is Massachusetts New Jersey?”...
You all mention all the Boston centric ness. Okay the. What about New York and it’s New York City centricity?
If you say Massachusetts (or Connecticut or Rhode Island) is more similar to Maine Vermont or New Hampshire than New Jersey I cant take that argument seriously...
And for the record Revere Beach and Nantasket have some Jersey shire like qualities...
Also having an entire region dedicated to beach tourism is more a MA/NJ trait (Cape/Shore) than NH.
Only it isn’t NJ has had 5 Republican congressmen as recently as 2016.
It’s a very New England Trait to have basically no place in the entire state with clear Republican majorities. The cities of NJ are actually even more democratic than the cities of MA while the suburbs/exurbs are Republican. Balances out to a state only slightly redder than Mass but anything deeper than that there is a clear difference.
Meanwhile Maine/NH and VT act as extensions of rural/Suburban/small city Massachusetts in every way.
Massachusetts is 72% white, Maine is 95% White and NJ is 58% White. Yes closer to MA than ME but not by this massive margin.
If you clump the Mid Atlantic together and clump New England together you see a big difference in basically everything. Architecture, political voting patterns, political institutions, etc.
MA has a center of the state, Boston. NJ like said above is either NY or PHL dependent. MA is a little more refined than NJ too, more local and less Sprawly. NJ is a step closer to the south and the Post WWII sprawl definitely shows it. Although, NJ is a bit more fast paced throughout the entirety of the state. Go to Cherry Hill, Wildwood, Piscataway, Bridgewater, you name it... Definitely a faster pace than the Mass equivalents. Entertainment is a little higher in NJ compared to MA as MA has ridiculous generational laws. Typical New England.
But to me, the closest comparison to NJ would be NOVA. Fast paced, dependent on an intrastate economy and lots of post WW2 Urban Sprawl that can look repititive.
Mass is a more refined, slower paced (not by much), cleaner, overpriced, less Sprawly, and colder NJ. I see the comparison in a lot of spots but nothing more than CT or NY Or MD.
I'd agree, NJ is most similar to the DC suburbs (NOVA, Moco, MD, and northern PG county) IMO. Just goes to show that New England is truly distinct from the Northeast/Mid Atlantic.
Biggest difference I can think of between MA and Jersey is the lack of old port cities in the latter. Jersey doesn’t have anything like New Bedford, Fall River, Gloucester, Salem, or Newburyport, does it? When I think of the Jersey Shore, I think boardwalks. Ironically, the closest thing to the Jersey Shore in New England may be Hampton Beach in...New Hampshire.
I'm not sure what you mean necessarily by port cities but NJ has Perth Amboy, Camden, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Carteret, the towns on the Raritan Bayshore, etc. We even have our own Salem, NJ with a port established since British rule. Mass. and NJ also share large amounts of Lusophone Americans, which is pretty unique from the rest of the US.
I'm not sure what you mean necessarily by port cities but NJ has Perth Amboy, Camden, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Carteret, the towns on the Raritan Bayshore, etc. We even have our own Salem, NJ with a port established since British rule.
Salem, NJ does seem like the right idea. A few of those seem more like very classic, urban suburbs of NYC, though. The towns I mentioned are generally big tourist draws with an emphasis on being quaint™ and historic™ seaside cities. Here are some streetview examples:
Salem, NJ does seem like the right idea. A few of those seem more like very classic, urban suburbs of NYC, though. The towns I mentioned are generally big tourist draws with an emphasis on being quaint™ and historic™ seaside cities. Here are some streetview examples:
I never knew that! The South Coast of MA is the center of Portuguese culture in the state. What's the equivalent region in NJ?
Got you on the port cities definition. There are very few similar examples in NJ.
Basically Newark (with the Ironbound neighborhood the traditional center of the Portuguese and Brazilian community) and its surrounding suburbs (Union, Hillside, Elizabeth, East Newark, Kearny, Harrison.) There are also quite a lot of Brazilian illegal immigrants in NJ and they are more dispersed across the state vs. Portuguese Americans who are generally in North Jersey. Portugal Day is a huge annual festival in Newark.
Mass and RI are the only places I believe with higher populations of Lusophones than NJ. Growing up in NJ, I even met people from Mozambique and Cape Verde (although nothing comes close to the Cape Verdean population in Mass/RI.)
In my opinion, the U.S. states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia are too geographically northern to be considered Southern states. Additionally, all six of those states have vast areas where Southern culture is markedly absent. Therefore, I like how the OP rezoned those states to other U.S. regions in his map.
I think that we all could quibble with the placement of "State X" in "Region Y." I mean, heck, West Virginia should be in a region all by itself; it is markedly dissimilar to all 49 other states in many ways. But if we're going to go with the underlying assumption that individual states cannot be split into more than one region, then we're going to have to make some choices for the "border" states that may or may not align with one's views of those particular states.
If we take as a given that there will be 8 regions (and the OP did not specify this, but that's how many regions he chose), then I think the OP's map is as good as it's possible to get. Only if we allow ourselves more than 8 regions will we start to subdivide the New England states or the Deep South from the Mid-South, and so on and so on.
Can you really say MA “isn’t really all that similar to NJ” and then say “I see the comparison in a lot of spots”?
CT is more similar to NJ than MA. but MA is more similar to NJ than ME. That’s the question at hand.
Everything you said is true. But the only major difference sis the Boston centricity. Everything else is pretty much aesthetic. Pace of life in MA is much much closer to NJ than ME. It’s not as though NJ lacks sleepy or slow paced areas guys.
You guys are mostly avoiding the demographics/density/urbanity/politics, why? This is another area where NJ is much ore similar than MA. The question isn’t “is Massachusetts New Jersey?”...
You all mention all the Boston centric ness. Okay the. What about New York and it’s New York City centricity?
If you say Massachusetts (or Connecticut or Rhode Island) is more similar to Maine Vermont or New Hampshire than New Jersey I cant take that argument seriously...
And for the record Revere Beach and Nantasket have some Jersey shire like qualities...
Also having an entire region dedicated to beach tourism is more a MA/NJ trait (Cape/Shore) than NH.
As others have stated, New Jersey is more mid Atlantic rather comparable to a New England state. In layout, NJ is for the.lot, mostly Post WW2 development. Upon moving here, I see more similarities to NC in development style than MA. So in a way,other New England states can be better compared to Mass than NJ, depending on what you are talking about.
For mass.. Urbanity? Obviously not. But in layout of cities and interests? Obviously other New England states.
But again, stark contrast between Mid Atlantic and New England. I see few comparisons that are in line with each other. Not a bad thing at all, but NOVA/MD is more like NJ than Ma.
And yeah Nantasket and Revere have Jersey Shore vibes. You can add in Salisbury to that too. But I see little relationship from the Cape and Islands, and most of the North Shore.to Jersey.
Again, no shame to either state. They have their pros and cons. But they truly are two completely different places. I see a comparison in some ways, but in most other factors... Not so much.
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