Your favorite small urban cities in North America? - Page 13

pj3000 · #**241** Posted **Sep 7, 2020, 4:00 PM**

Anyway, back to the topic... Lancaster also gets a vote from me.

I like Frederick, MD a lot too. There's been a ton of revitalization there in the past 5 years.

Docere · #**242** Posted **Sep 7, 2020, 4:01 PM**

Pennsylvania is "Midlands", Upstate New York and New England are "Yankee." The line runs into the Midwest as well, splitting the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest and lower midwest.

Also SW Pennsylvania is known for its populism and cultural conservatism. It's been trending Republican. I think Trump actually carried the Pittsburgh metro (which is whiter and less educated than most metros).

pj3000 · #**243** Posted **Sep 7, 2020, 4:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Docere

Pennsylvania is "Midlands", Upstate New York and New England are "Yankee." The line runs into the Midwest as well, splitting the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest and lower midwest.

Also SW Pennsylvania is known for its populism and cultural conservatism. It's been trending Republican. I think Trump actually carried the Pittsburgh metro (which is whiter and less educated than most metros).

Somewhat. Pennsylvania is more correctly divided North-South than it is East-West, which is the way it is commonly thought of and referred to.

Interstate 80 is as good of a dividing line as any... north of it is "Yankee" and south of it is "midlands". The nothern tier of PA is Yankee and much more like the southern tier of NY. Norhtwestern PA and Northeastern PA cities like Erie and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are much more like places in New York state than they are like what is largely considered traditional "Pennsylvanian".

The counties around Pittsburgh/Allegheny County have trended remarkably red, especially considering that they were some of the most reliably blue counties for many decades. The heavily white working class Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland counties made a hard shift to the right in 2008 and then even more so in 2012 (and I believe even Allegheny County though blue, trended more red)... hmmm, wonder why??

Centropolis · #**244** Posted **Sep 7, 2020, 10:50 PM**

ive run into “midlands” culture in rural central new york state which was weird and interesting. i also cornered a dude to explain his confederate tat once and he was scared of me and i got nothing.

Docere · #**245** Posted **Sep 8, 2020, 12:16 AM**

There's a Penn Yan, NY - presumably some sort of meeting point between "Pennsylvanians" and "Yankees"?

dc_denizen · #**246** Posted **Sep 8, 2020, 1:02 AM**

I've been through Harrisburg numerous times, but never really explored the area outside of downtown and kind of dismissed the city in general - what you see from the interstate is not the most flattering view, especially after you've crossed the river , so I expected everything except the downtown area to look like a big lewistown or something with plenty of malls and walmarts

in fact there are plenty of pretty towns encircling harrisburg with some nice brownstones

eg

Mechanicsburg

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2132...7i13312!8i6656

Carlisle

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2015...7i16384!8i8192

Hershey

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2848...7i16384!8i8192

Hummelstown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2652...7i16384!8i8192

Middletown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1999...7i16384!8i8192

Elizabethtown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1515...7i13312!8i6656

eschaton · #**247** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 12:16 AM**

Rural PA is way more right wing than rural New England, or even Upstate NY. However, it's not appreciably different in terms of politics from rural Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc.

Basically there's a general rule throughout the Notheast/Midwest that as you move south rural areas steadily get more conservative. This is even true within Pennsylvania. Ignoring 2016 - where there was a huge collapse in Democratic support throughout the rural far north, you even see a big difference within PA. Somewhere like Bradford county in rural NEPA, around 6 out of 10 people were Republican, but then if you look at Fulton by the border of Maryland, 8 out of 10 people voted GOP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj3000

Interstate 80 is as good of a dividing line as any... north of it is "Yankee" and south of it is "midlands". The nothern tier of PA is Yankee and much more like the southern tier of NY. Norhtwestern PA and Northeastern PA cities like Erie and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are much more like places in New York state than they are like what is largely considered traditional "Pennsylvanian".

The Wyoming Valley was originally settled by people from Connecticut, and I believe Erie was mostly settled by Yankees as well. You can hear this in the accents, and you can see this in the housing styles. Very little in the way of high-quality urban fabric in Erie or Scranton. Instead of attached brick rowhouses, you have (even in 19th century neighborhoods) mostly detached wood-frame houses set pretty far back from the sidewalk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I've been through Harrisburg numerous times, but never really explored the area outside of downtown and kind of dismissed the city in general - what you see from the interstate is not the most flattering view, especially after you've crossed the river , so I expected everything except the downtown area to look like a big lewistown or something with plenty of malls and walmarts

in fact there are plenty of pretty towns encircling harrisburg with some nice brownstones

eg

Mechanicsburg

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2132...7i13312!8i6656

Carlisle

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2015...7i16384!8i8192

Hershey

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2848...7i16384!8i8192

Hummelstown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2652...7i16384!8i8192

Middletown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1999...7i16384!8i8192

Elizabethtown

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1515...7i13312!8i6656

Carlisle is my favorite of the bunch. It has benefited from being the county seat of Cumberland, along with having a small private college (Dickinson) located right in downtown. There's actually a small historically black neighborhood just to the northwest of downtown, though it's really only a couple of blocks.

In general I think the fact that the industrial revolution largely passed over South-Central PA is why so many of the small cities and boroughs are well-preserved. Essentially there wasn't a tremendous demand for land area within the urban core to be given over to giant mills and warehouses, which meant you kept having residential neighborhoods abutting directly against the downtown area.

Docere · #**248** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 1:28 AM**

Yeah, I believe NEPA voted for Obama (having Biden on the ticket probably helped), while SWPA has been moving in a West Virginia-type direction.

stanleebhm · #**249** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 2:25 AM**

Carleton Place, Ontario

KB0679 · #**250** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 6:39 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj3000

First, the whole "Alabama in the middle" and "Pennsyltucky" etc. descriptors are dumb. It's the other way around. Pennsylvania is not like Alabama or Kentucky... Alabama and Kentucky are like Pennsylvania. Fathers don't take after their sons.

Except Virginia is Kentucky's father and Georgia sired Alabama.

The "Philly on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle"/Pennsyltucky descriptors 'work' because people immediately get the reference due to Alabama's and Kentucky's strong sociopolitical/socioeconomic reputations. Nobody would know what you were talking about if you said "Alabama/Kentucky is like Pennsylvania" because Pennsylvania doesn't have a reputation heavily skewed one way or the other--which is exactly the point of using those descriptors which underscore PA's hybrid nature of sorts.

BigDipper 80 · #**251** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 12:48 PM**

JManc · #**252** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 4:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschaton

Rural PA is way more right wing than rural New England, or even Upstate NY. However, it's not appreciably different in terms of politics from rural Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc.

I'm from Upstate New York and have watched that area (from afar) move pretty far to the right in the 20 years I've been away. I was up there in 2016 (right before election) for my grandmothers's funeral and there were Trump signs EVERYWHERE and none for the former New York Senator. Most of my high school class are pretty hardcore right wing..where as most of my friends here in TX are moderate to Democrat. Rural New England is more peppered with wealthier college towns and rich folks from Boston and NYC to offset the yokels. I lived in New Hampshire for a while and Boston refugees where everywhere. Rural PA is just more desolate than rural NYS which has bigger cities.

eschaton · #**253** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 4:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

West Virginia is the secret home of small, dense cities. It's a shame that most of them are not in great shape.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.3494...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6303...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0596...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0704...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0760...7i16384!8i8192

West Virginia has some cool downtown-type buildings left in its smaller cities, but outside of examples of rowhouses in Wheeling I've already mentioned, very little residential urban vernacular survives.

There are some surviving blocks of rowhouses in Charleston. Weirdly none of these appear to front directly on public streets any longer.

Docere · #**254** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 9:27 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by stanleebhm

Carleton Place, Ontario

Pics?

Docere · #**255** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 9:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc

I'm from Upstate New York and have watched that area (from afar) move pretty far to the right in the 20 years I've been away. I was up there in 2016 (right before election) for my grandmothers's funeral and there were Trump signs EVERYWHERE and none for the former New York Senator. Most of my high school class are pretty hardcore right wing..where as most of my friends here in TX are moderate to Democrat. Rural New England is more peppered with wealthier college towns and rich folks from Boston and NYC to offset the yokels. I lived in New Hampshire for a while and Boston refugees where everywhere. Rural PA is just more desolate than rural NYS which has bigger cities.

Upstate NY, Pennsylvania and Michigan will be voting to the right of Texas soon.

dc_denizen · #**256** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 9:58 PM**

Every (non-minority) rural area in the world tends to cite more right wing than urban centers do . But for some reason this only gets discussed as naeseum for the USA

If the woke cultural revolution continues and after trump is kicked out of office, leading to a reset of the Republican brand , I expect many more places to vote right wing

Back to the topic

JManc · #**257** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 10:27 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Every (non-minority) rural area in the world tends to cite more right wing than urban centers do . But for some reason this only gets discussed as naeseum for the USA

If the woke cultural revolution continues and after trump is kicked out of office, leading to a reset of the Republican brand , I expect many more places to vote right wing

Back to the topic

It's not that rural. There's tons of small towns and villages scattered throughout and though Upstate was never super progressive, it was always fairly middle of the road..moderate democrat/ republican. That changed in the past 20 or so years.

Centropolis · #**258** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 10:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Every (non-minority) rural area in the world tends to cite more right wing than urban centers do . But for some reason this only gets discussed as naeseum for the USA

If the woke cultural revolution continues and after trump is kicked out of office, leading to a reset of the Republican brand , I expect many more places to vote right wing

Back to the topic

as a horseshoe anarchist maybe trump wins and we get a hard reset by 2030 of the spectrum.

iheartthed · #**259** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 10:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Docere

Upstate NY, Pennsylvania and Michigan will be voting to the right of Texas soon.

I doubt Texas will ever be left of Michigan or upstate New York.

Centropolis · #**260** Posted **Sep 9, 2020, 10:39 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I doubt Texas will ever be left of Michigan or upstate New York.

i do envision the day that texas moves left of anything in the midwest but that means that the global-capitalist engine gets back on track like it was.

i hope it does.