Is Maine big enough? (Portland, Bangor: employment, living in, cost of)

[American girl]

To have separate threads for the Portland area in the Bangor area? Just 1.2 million people in the state does it make sense?

[kevin5098]

I believe it makes sense not because of the size of population but because of differences in culture between the two cities.

[maineguy8888]

The Bangor thread hardly gets used. The Portland thread is pretty quiet most of the time too. So probably just a Maine thread would suffice.

[American girl]

Originally Posted by maineguy8888

The Bangor thread hardly gets used. The Portland thread is pretty quiet most of the time too. So probably just a Maine thread would suffice.

That is the way it seems to me. It seems like an annoyance to have to keep checking at the top of the page to see was going on in Bangor in Portland, which seems like not much.

[citychik]

It's my understanding that sub-forums here are not created in response to the population of any particular areas, but to how often the city or region is mentioned in threads and thread titles. Traffic at any of the forums here is going to have peaks and valleys over time. Look at Vermont - that state has a smaller population than Maine (626,042 according to Wikipedia) and there is a sub-forum for Burlington, probably because it was the topic of discussion more often than any other place in Vermont. There is a forum where requests for sub-forums should go: About the Forum

I would think that many people considering Portland as a place to visit or live would not want to slog through all the posts about other towns. And likewise about Bangor, which is pretty far away from Portland and although I've never been to Bangor, from what people have told me it is very different from Portland. Plus I've seen some Mainers say that if someone has only visited Portland and/or the southern part of the state, they haven't really experienced Maine at all. So I think the sub-forums are useful because of their specificity.

[TheKezarWoodsman]

Originally Posted by kevin5098

I believe it makes sense not because of the size of population but because of differences in culture between the two cities.

I think it is this, although if it is there would be a decent need for a caribou or presque isle subforum as well (there have been many posts about these areas). As well, i notice those two forums tend to be used as forums for the larger area surronding those towns every so often (like portland being for all of district 1).

I see what others mean as well about lack of use, usually there is only one or two active threads in each, getting about maybe 3 posts a day at most.

[congnt1]

Why are there no titles and no posts

[TheKezarWoodsman]

Originally Posted by citychik

It's my understanding that sub-forums here are not created in response to the population of any particular areas, but rather to how often the cities or regions are mentioned in threads and thread titles. Traffic at any of the forums here is going to have peaks and valleys over time.

I would think that many people considering Portland as a place to visit or live would not want to slog through all the posts about other towns. And likewise about Bangor, which is pretty far away from Portland and although I've never been to Bangor, from what people have told me it is very different from Portland. I've seen some Mainers say that if someone has only visited Portland and/or the southern part of the state, they haven't really experienced Maine at all.

Im not a mainer, never have been, but i have visited both (as well as areas up and aroostook), and all three are different in culture.

Good rules of thumb are as follows (individual areas will vary).

The further north, the more rural (check a map)
The further north, the more conservative (google voting results for any maine county, any election)
The further north, the lower cost of living (home costs, food, just about everything)
The further north, the more people (by percentage) who work blue collar (city-data employment statistics)

As well, people north of bangor i have noticed (it has even been used on the citydata forums) tend to refer to anything south of bangor as the south, and usually it is talking about culture/politics/regulations. As someone not living in maine, this heavily confused me at first, but it is how i gained my opinion of my other post on this thread.

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by American girl

That is the way it seems to me. It seems like an annoyance to have to keep checking at the top of the page to see was going on in Bangor in Portland, which seems like not much.

I agree. This is a tiny forum. There's so little traffic in the entire forum that we could be away for a week and catch up in a few minutes. If nothing catches my eye from the subforums on the main page I don't bother with it. I think threads would get more traffic if they were in one place.

[mensaguy]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

I agree. This is a tiny forum. There's so little traffic in the entire forum that we could be away for a week and catch up in a few minutes. If nothing catches my eye from the subforums on the main page I don't bother with it. I think threads would get more traffic if they were in one place.

That's pretty much the way I read the subs too. Of course, you and I can remember when the sub-forums were created. The Maine forum was a lot busier then. It seemed like then that we had a lot more diversified opinions being posted than we see now, and most of the people seemed to get along fairly well, in spite of their differences. There were also a lot more active posters visiting the forum every day. We had several people that were active posters until they moved to Maine, and then they quit posting. We had a few others that moved away from Maine and quit posting. Maine Writer and I could probably list 20 members that were once active that no longer post at all.

Maybe the forum will get more active some day.