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Yes, there seems to be a glut of these negative people here in upstate NY.
In our area...Binghamton-Endicott-Owego...they surfaced in the 90's as IBM was downsizing. 10-12 years later, the area(Thanks to Lockeed Martin and others) has come back to...well, if not where it was, at least on a steady upward trend. See my previous post about the neighbor moving to NC. Doesn't matter to them..area's gone to hell..and will never come back. L.Martin and other/transfer-ins, "pilgrims" from downstate, N.J., L.I., and other places often remark on this sense of "why would you move here?" from numerous locals. Hey, both my wife and I were personally affected by downsizing. I now work 1 full/2 pt jobs......adapt and overcome.
It's called Onex....they are buying out Kodak's health imaging unit, which currently employs 800 people, and bringing the number of employees up to 1300, an additional 500 jobs...the average salary for which will be 78,000 (which goes a LONG way in Rochester, definitely enough for an upper-middle class comfortable lifestyle)
Excellent! I'm currently on the internship hunt in the healthcare (admin.) field ... Good to see that there's still life in the Northeast, I hate the desert and love the four seasons (although all in one week can be ... fun ). If you think upstate NY is bad, come visit my lovely home state of Michigan. It sounds like paradise compared to here right about now... The Wall Street Journal had a recent editorial titled "MoveoutofMichigan . org!!"
Oh.. and I'minformed , holy crap you're good, that's not even on the Onex website yet.
Last edited by IWantToBelieve; 03-17-2007 at 11:03 PM..
Reason: adding a thought
Your last post was very profound...sorry for the silly rhyme, it's unintentional. It sums up the negativism that natives have and helps explain to newcomers and visitors as to why it exists.....
Tioga:
Thanks for relating your personal experience in the Binghamton area for all of us to ponder and reflect upon.
And to I'minformed:
I am glad you have informed us of some GOOD news for the Rochester area in terms of the new jobs coming in and putting an old Kodak plant back in service under a new company and vision. And, as always, please keep up the "boostering" for western NYS.
All in all, upstate will rise again, even if it takes a while. With all of the infrastructure in place, and with all of the great human potential combined with beautiful landscapes, pleasant summers, and a liveable pace of life, perhaps NYS can rightfully be called, once again, the Empire State!
Excellent! I'm currently on the internship hunt in the healthcare (admin.) field ... Good to see that there's still life in the Northeast, I hate the desert and love the four seasons (although all in one week can be ... fun ). If you think upstate NY is bad, come visit my lovely home state of Michigan. It sounds like paradise compared to here right about now... The Wall Street Journal had a recent editorial titled "MoveoutofMichigan . org!!"
Oh.. and I'minformed , holy crap you're good, that's not even on the Onex website yet.
haha..well, I'm not that good...the Rochester Democrat&Chronicle wrote a big story on it the other day, it was kind of hard to miss when I looked on their website.
After visiting Upstate a few times because my wife's family lives there, I fell in love with the area and we plan to move there from Colorado. The traffic is less, everything is greener, less sprawly, and the wild areas seem more accessible. People think I'm crazy but I think the forests and hills in Upstate are just as beautiful, if not more beautiful than the ones in Colorado.
I also live in Colorado and am looking to move to upstate. People think I'm crazy too. I had called an employment agency in the capital region and the guy asked me why I would want to leave Colorado. I actually want to move back east to be closer to family. While I think Colorado is beautiful in its own rite, I think the East Coast is beautiful too - especially the trees, everything being so green in the spring in summer, the fall and the change of seasons. I don't think people understand that much of Colorado (aside from the
Rocky Mountains themselves) is semi arid high mountain desert, aka brown, rocky, sparseness of trees. It was really hard trying to explain to people that I grow cactus in my garden and that a lot of people out here don't have grass yards but have rock yards. Aside from missing the seasons, I just want to be in driving distance of family.
[quote=Phish Head;465347]
The worst part about Rochester (and for that matter Syracuse): grass is greener syndrome. The people I met couldn't understand why I liked Rochester. They all think that life is better in (fill in the blank here: NYC, NJ, NC, Florida, etc). The news media there must be designed to scare people- all they talked about was crime, Section 8 housing, job losses, cloudy weather, etc. If you follow the Rochester news, you'd think that you'd walk out your door, into a blizzard, a black man would stab you, you wouldn't be able to get help from a hospital because they are closing, you'd end up in Section 8 housing with rats and roaches, lose your job, etc.
A lot of people with the grass is greener syndrome move to Colorado as if it is paradise. It was funny because we got quite a few snow storms this winter. However, we would have about 5 days of sunshine between them. I remember watching the news and because we had two days of grey skies (because it was snowing) they stated that "if anyone was feeling the blues because of the grey skies they should immediately contact their health care professional about seasonal depression and maybe get some anti depressants. I almost fell off my futon laughing. We get almost 300 days of sunshine here. And when I say sunshine I mean cloudless days, bright blue skies, and this year round. You just can't beat Colorado weather even in spite of snow storms (with the sun coming out almost immediately when they are done and snow usually melting within a day or two afterwards) I am originally from Columbus Ohio and remember the six months of "grey" so I am quite familiar with truly grey seasons. It was funny listening to people complain about a few grey days. I think the bigger problem is expectations. No place is paradise, everywhere you live has its pros and cons. You just have to decide what pros are most important to you and what cons you can live with.
I also live in Colorado and am looking to move to upstate. People think I'm crazy too. I had called an employment agency in the capital region and the guy asked me why I would want to leave Colorado. I actually want to move back east to be closer to family. While I think Colorado is beautiful in its own rite, I think the East Coast is beautiful too - especially the trees, everything being so green in the spring in summer, the fall and the change of seasons. I don't think people understand that much of Colorado (aside from the
Rocky Mountains themselves) is semi arid high mountain desert, aka brown, rocky, sparseness of trees. It was really hard trying to explain to people that I grow cactus in my garden and that a lot of people out here don't have grass yards but have rock yards. Aside from missing the seasons, I just want to be in driving distance of family.
Yeah, it really dry around here. We have a grass yard and it seems whenever I'm home from work in the summer I'm watering to keep things alive.
The high mountains in Colorado are magnificient and some areas are almost as green as NY. If you get high enough in elevation it rains a lot more and it looks similar to the Adirondacks. Funny thing is that those were always my favorite parts of Colorado, even before I visited Upstate.
There is a certain ruggedness to the rest of Colorado, even some of the dryness I'll miss. The spring is fairly green in Colorado and you get a nice mix of reds, yellows, browns, and greens in the landscape around here.
Good descriptions of Colorado. I've visited the Salida, Durango, and Four Corners areas, driving all around. What struck me was how clearly you can see, for such long distances, in the dry air. You could tell the color of a car miles away. And the vast distances between mountains was great--really dispelled the claustrophobia that being stuck in Appalachia (for now) has taught me I have.
Plus Colorado was just so dramatic, you expected cowboys and Indians to come shootin' round the bend. Much of it looked like a big movie to me--once I got enough spinach and steak in me to make enough red blood cells to bring my brain oxygen again. I was dizzy for a week!
Like you, though, I need it green. Maybe 'cause my first years were spent in the really polluted part of New Jersey, if I'm not around greenness and freshwater, I really feel stranded. The dryness of so much of Colorado was pretty unsettling to me. Mesa Verde (now there's a misleading name!) Park looked hellish--didn't help that my wife talked me into going through the tunnels there. I still have nightmares about that....
If you like the Adirondacks because they remind you of the greener areas of Colorado, be sure to get up into the forest, lake, & cottage country of Ontario, which won't be far away once you make your move to NYS. Although much of this is quite flat, there are a lot of canyons and sheer cliffs on the many rivers especially--all of which you can explore in a canoe, kayak, or boat. (The fishing opportunities and true expanse of wilderness up there is just amazing.)
Also, above Lake Superior, a pretty huge stretch of the Ontario wilderness is very rugged, very Western-like, almost mountanous in its own right. There's a great train trip--the Algoma Central; try Googling it--that takes you northward from Sault. St. Marie, Ontario, for a good 200+ miles. Very rugged country, full of canyons and cliffs, suddenly broken by sweeping lakes. Very reminiscent of the West, but densely, deeply green and FULL of waterways. The train will stop to let you off wherever you want--it's like a huge taxi into the wilderness. Great trip, and not that expensive.
Don't forget New York's own Letchworth State Park, too! Some great cliffs and canyons and WATER there, and as green as it gets north of the tropics.
Good luck on your moves, JKC1970 & Rumblebelly! I hope you'll post your experiences and thoughts when you make the moves happen.
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). If you think upstate NY is bad, come visit my lovely home state of Michigan. It sounds like paradise compared to here right about now... The Wall Street Journal had a recent editorial titled "MoveoutofMichigan . org!!"
