Good article about Ithaca in the New York Times:
Colleges Help Ithaca Thrive in a Region of Struggles
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: August 4, 2013
ITHACA, N.Y. — In many ways, this city is not so special. It has a nice lake, some attractive houses with lawns, and a couple of colleges. But many places in upstate New York have lakes and lawns and places of high learning.
What most sets this city of 30,000 apart from many of its neighbors these days is what is absent: fear for its future.
Led by a young mayor with an inspiring back story and an idealist’s approach — he talks about sidewalks in philosophical terms — Ithaca is the upstate exception: a successful liberal enclave in a largely conservative region troubled by unemployment woes, declining or stagnant population, and post-Detroit talk of bankruptcy.
“It’s like a little San Francisco,” Nicole Roulstin, 32, an Ithaca resident, said recently, “or the Berkeley of the East." ............................................
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/ny...anted=all&_r=0