Assemblyman Hawley: Let's Research Dividing New York Into Two States

many upstaters do want to separate, not just Republicans (4.00 / 1)

I was at the table with six generally leftist upstate residents last night when the prospect of separation came up, and everyone suddenly got very enthusiastic.  It was originally in a slightly different context - can New York State feed New York State? - but the enthusiasm wasn't just around that.

There is a real and growing divide.  They've always been different places with deep connections, mostly thanks to the Erie Canal, Thruway, and New York Central.  As the importance of those links has declined, nothing has come up to replace them.

If we want "one New York", we all have to work for it.  All the other trends point toward at least two New Yorks.

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by: simonstl @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 15:55:29 PM UTC

Read Syracuse.com (4.00 / 1)

and some of the threads on the closure of New Process Gear... and on Paterson's "Upstate" European business tour...

I have never seen such wide ranging and serious talk about "separation" before in my life.  And not just from upstaters; of course there has always been an "independent NYC" impulse as well. It is creeping into any thread remotely related to economics or state government. It is on the minds of ordinary people to a greater extent than before.

All due to the economy, of course.  Or rather, economies - you cannot have 2 separate economies for 30+ years and not expect it to have an effect on how people think politically.  What used to be merely a minor cultural divide (upstate/downstate) is being severely aggravated by first, the economic divide, and now, by the all-around bad economy.

I almost wonder if I should create a "Doomsday Clock" to comment on the state of the divide.  Realistically it would be far from "midnight" at this point (maybe 6 p.m.) but we have to admit that an idea that was once nutty is becoming something less nutty to a lot of people you could not describe as "flakes."

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:19:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Most people I know around Albany (4.00 / 1)

are not interested at all in this -- their top concerns are jobs and high property taxes.

And those property taxes would be even higher were it not for the city's enormous tax payments to the state, which outweigh what the city gets back in return.  

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:00:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

What are you talkin about? Downstate does not need Upstate (4.00 / 1)

Please enlighten me as to how downstate can not survive without upstate.  

I can only name 2 things upstate does for downstate:

1. A place for stateworkers to live with a better QOL due to the cost of living.

2. A place to house Downstate's Inmate, Mental Health and OMRDD population.

Please fill me in if you can on what it is that upstate does for downstate.

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:01:38 PM UTC

OK (4.00 / 1)

well, you take the prisoners then...

To use that as a metaphor: If you keep someone chained up in a pen so they can't get their own food, well yes, by that view, Upstate is utterly reliant on Downstate.  If you let them go free and govern themselves so they can use their own resources to find new food sources for themselves, they won't need you that much.

But as long as they're on a chain (and want to stay on the chain), they'll be reliant on you.

That's a kind of twisted definitely of "relying on someone" methinks.

As for Downstate, right now they don't seem to need anyone, but I wonder what will happen many years from now when the water supply starts to need expansion again.  You see, NYC is not really independent.  It has land interests upstate because of its water system, so even if they were independent, they would still have a great deal of complex rural affairs to deal with.  Whether they own that land or not.  Without New York State... are they going to be able to enforce their water rights with their small force of NYSDEP cops?

As someone up in CNY I can feel uninvolved in that question, but I would imagine that someone living in the Catskill region would find this separation talk more distressing.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:25:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

argh (0.00 / 0)

"twisted definitely" = "twisted definition"

NYSDEP = NYCDEP

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:32:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Water! (0.00 / 0)

Ok water. Thats 1.

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:51:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Umm.... (0.00 / 0)

Food?  I'm all for urban agriculture, and it is true that China exports it (hey, but what is in that stuff?), but, typically urban areas need their hinterlands to feed their populations...

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by: robinia @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 23:03:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

maybe some research is needed (0.00 / 0)

But, in the pre-industrial age at least, I never heard of any city-states that became more powerful when they lost political control over their land base/vassal states.

New York City was historically attractive to immigrants because it was a gateway to the rest of America, not necessarily because it was a stopping point.  

When considering separating "New York City" from Upstate, New York City is still going to have to deal with its intimately connected suburban areas (Long Island, Westchester) and of course the counties where its water supply is.  So New York City wouldn't be independent; it would simply be dealing with a third less people... and would still have to deal with suburban and rural issues, and have less room to extend its geopolitical influence in the future.

I don't quite buy the argument that New York City would be dramatically better off in the deal.  Upstate would have an opportunity for swift change (positive or negative, depending on the political will of the inhabitants), while New York City would have pretty much the same problems to deal with and the same politics.

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by: NYCO @ Tue Feb 10, 2009 at 00:55:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The upstate prisons are major employers, (0.00 / 0)

providing tens of thousands of jobs with decent pay and benefits, in places where those kinds of jobs are scarce.

And prisoners from NYC are counted as upstate residents, enhancing somewhat upstate's representation in the Legislature.

Overall, upstate makes out quite well on that deal.

As it does generally vis-a-vis downstate.

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:09:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Downstate doesn't need upstate? (0.00 / 0)

I guess New York City doesn't need electricity. (Note: Guess where New York City gets most of its electricity from?)

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by: robert.harding @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:48:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the utilities would still sell it to them, same as always (4.00 / 1)

Unless maybe you're proposing that Upstate would nationalize electrical power and keep it for itself.  I guess that might lower rates around here....

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by: simonstl @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:49:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

NYPA (0.00 / 0)

Currently helps NYC get Niagara Falls power at rates discounted from the open market.

Just sayin.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:59:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks but no thanks (0.00 / 0)

IF you are helping then how do you explain that downstate pays more then  anyewhere else in the US?

You still can only count prisons hospitals and water.

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:03:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Downstate pays less than upstate (0.00 / 0)

look it up.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:50:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sorry this does not count. (4.00 / 1)

We buy our electricity and we pay for what we buy.  You  can sell it to anyone else if you wish.  The grid runs though you yet you do not control it.

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:01:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Mostly from NYC (4.00 / 1)

By law, 80% of NYC's electricity must be generated within NYC.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 18:39:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Weird (4.00 / 2)

I always thought of dividing the state as an idea from the left.

With the secrecy shrouding everything in Albany, it is impossible to know who is supporting who. I've hear Senator Schumer say that Downstate feeds cash to Upstate through Wall Street and I've heard Joe Bruno and Sam Hoyt say Upstate feeds downstate through massive subsidies for subways, sewers, stadiums, and other such stuff.

I don't know, to me, reforming Albany would eliminate the need for state splitting.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:38:45 PM UTC

the idea (4.00 / 1)

The Republicans didn't invent the idea of splitting... the cultural divide was always there and they simply took crass advantage of it, although it always seemed to be not a terribly effective arrow in their quiver.  (It was more effective for Cuomo in 1982 vs. Koch!  So even the Dems have taken advantage of it for their own narrow purposes.)  

I never thought of it as a partisan or ideologically driven thing.  Can you be an Upstater first and a liberal second?  Definitely... although you would need to grapple with the heightened challenges of advancing your liberal agenda in a state that suddenly didn't have as much Democratic numbers and financial power.  But then you'd just be liberals who had to fight harder and better for the same things.

Can New York have a velvet divorce?  (how did that work out for Czechoslovakia?  of course, we're not in Europe next to Soviet Russia...)  Are there political solutions short of "two states" (seems still too much like fantasy) that can relieve the burdens of complexity in a politically viable way?

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:51:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

European examples are apples (4.00 / 1)

to our oranges.

The most recent division of one existing state into two happened during the Civil War.

It's legally doable, but in my view it would be a waste of scarce state resources to spend a dime investigating it.

And I'm from upstate.

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by: devtob @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 23:42:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You say anything but that does not make it true. (0.00 / 0)

"Joe Bruno and Sam Hoyt say Upstate feeds downstate through massive subsidies for subways, sewers, stadiums, and other such stuff. "

This is 100% bunk. 100%.  There may be something upstate offers downstate but none of them are these.  The MTA, Yankees, Mets and sewer system do not get upstate subsidies nor the help of Joe Bruno.  Funny thought though.  

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 16:58:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

stripping out fantasies (0.00 / 0)

There would need to be a process of stripping out fantasies about "who supports who"... on both sides.

New York City does indeed send more tax dollars per capita for Upstate needs...  but then again, Upstate is arguably not being allowed to develop its considerable resources and talents in a way that would make it less reliant on those tax dollars.

Upstaters will drop the "Upstate supports NYC welfare queens" canard if Downstaters will drop the "Upstate is Kentucky without us" canard.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:03:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Upstate is not kentucky without downstate (4.00 / 1)

Its West Memphis Arkansas without the potential for cotton farming.

#1 Upstate employer: Verizon.
#2. New York State Department of Corrections.

Fact bro.

How is downstate preventing upstate from developing its "considerable resources?"

Fill me in please.

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:09:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

not going there (4.00 / 1)

Part of the problem with this discussion is that people in NYC seem to think that life is going to go on "as normal" once this little Wall Street imbroglio gets cleared up.  You think about success in terms of corporate employers; we think about success in terms of developing/managing natural resources, global shipping, and water and energy in a changed world of potential peak oil.  None of that stuff has value to some NYC thinkers, apparently.  So a conversation isn't really possible.

The major flaw I see in "New York City going it alone" seems to be that no one down there really thinks anything in the future is going to be different.  Wall Street rules, forever and ever.  America is always #1.

Upstate thinkers are contemplating a future where those factors of the economy and geopolitical sway, might not always be there.

So it's really difficult to have this conversation when we are thinking about the future and New York City - ruler of the known world - is only thinking about the present.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:17:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So true and (4.00 / 1)

nothing from Patterson on this issue as well.  Bloomber often speaks about tourism as fillin in part of the gap which give us about 2 or 3 billion dollars a year to go. There is no viable next for NYC and we are not compeating with upstatwe we are compeating Mumbi, Rio and Singapor.
   

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by: madmike @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:38:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here's what I'll tell you (0.00 / 0)

If we had two separate states, NYC/LI state would be the one in a fiscal crisis right now (due to loss of wall street funds, the underlying cause of the states crisis) and Upstate would be in a slightly better than usual year, due to INCREASING housing prices west of Albany.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:54:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't want to join in on the republilcan meme (0.00 / 0)

But seriously, if NYC and LI did not have to lose tens of billions in tax dollars to Albany it never sees again, this fiscal crisis would not be more than a blip. Financial instituitions will recover but it will be a differnet world. Wall Street isn't going top vanish. Then add in all the other corporations based in NYC that will weather this storm and continue on and the outlook isn't so bad. NYC still has two major airports and it's sea ports which generate revenue that wouldn't go to Albany anymore.
Upstate could "go it alone" but in the long short-term the cost to build infrastructure and business base would keep the region on the edge.
NYC may need rebuilding of some infrastructure but again the tens of billions NOT being sucked into the Albany black hole would be a boon for the city.
Here on Long Island the "fair share" mantra on education dollars is a dangerous one of you go further and ask to define fair share. Define it as getting back what you give to Albany means NYC aid would increase while upstate areas would decrease. Long Island funding would also increase.
The last numbers I saw was Nassau/Suffolk losing $6billion to the Albany black hole and NYC losing $11billion. If that money isn't coming back, where is it going?

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by: nassaupolitics @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 16:18:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I can't see NYC (or the USA) continuing as normal (0.00 / 0)

after this particular disaster.

What was it you said about Upstate being 50 years ahead?

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by: simonstl @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:45:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"ahead" is academic... (0.00 / 0)

We're ahead in consciousness, but not ahead in plans and certainly not ahead in implementation.  and certainly not politically positioned to get ahead.

One thing is clear: there isn't any more time to waste on emotional arguments with anyone who's thinking only of the present.  Which is why I will no longer engage in "do not/do too" spats with anyone who waves the red rag of "you're Kentucky without us."  That's a waste of energy.

I think what Assemblyman Hawley has done is more potentially productive than what's been done in the past.  Usually some idiot will introduce a grandstanding resolution into a session about "secession" or whatever (both upstate and NYC pols have done this).  He's actually trying to get some good minds put onto this problem.

There's no use trying to pretend we're one big happy family when we're not.  Maybe in the process we can rediscover what does make us a family.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 18:09:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Steve Hawley (0.00 / 0)

any chance he is a descendant of Jesse?  :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 18:11:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tell me madmike... (0.00 / 0)

What data do you have saying that Verizon is the top upstate employer? To my knowledge, hospitals and universities are among the top employers in the state, including upstate New York. So I don't see how Verizon would qualify as the top upstate employer.

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by: robert.harding @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 18:24:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I would bet my house that, overall, (0.00 / 0)

the No. 1 employer upstate by far is some level of government -- the state, prisons, the authorities, federal government (Fort Drum, etc.), SUNY, local school districts, county governments, local governments, etc.

And the city's tax revenues support all of that, disproportionately.

 

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:19:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

My source is here: (0.00 / 0)

I read it in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Newjack-...

-m

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by: madmike @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 02:44:55 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"Stripping out fantasies" (0.00 / 0)

about hard-working upstaters supporting city layabouts would be a good thing, for discussions here and for state policy-making.

But don't expect the Republicans to stop lying about the city anytime soon.

While it doesn't work, at least according to recent election results, it does comfort, and maybe help turn out, their semi-racist dittohead base.  

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:39:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Exactly (0.00 / 0)

This whole two-state thing is based on the LIE, propagandized by Republicans for decades, that upstate subsidizes the city, when the reverse has ALWAYS been true.

Hawley expands on the longtime LIE to propose spending money that could be used for reality-based state purposes on a Tedisco-level publicity stunt.

Robert, it's a shame you are apparently represented by an idiotic ideologue in the Assembly.  

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by: devtob @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 23:49:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

that's only one part of the story (4.00 / 1)

The "secessionists" I know just don't think upstate can win dealing with NYC.  It's not a matter of cash, but a matter of power and culture.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bus to catch to Manhattan...

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by: simonstl @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:18:33 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If it's just a matter of cash, (0.00 / 0)

upstate has been winning for decades, so the argument should be over.

But the upstate-supports-downstate LIE has become engrained in two generations of low-information Republican voters.

I think it's less a matter of power and culture, and much more a matter of decades of hacks like Hawley deceiving the booboisie for their own personal political gain.

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:51:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting (4.00 / 1)

There is a school of thought within political economics that says urban centers and their surrounding suburban areas should have political autonomy from one another, as they have differing sets of interests and needs that only political independence can allow them to properly address.  This, of course, becomes magnified when the split becomes urban/rural as opposed to urban/suburban.

Splitting NY is a fascinating idea, and, I have to admit, I'm not entirely opposed to it on theoretical grounds.  However, for several reasons, I don't think it's a very realistic possibility.

Either way, a theoretical question that comes to mind: where would the boundary for the split be?  Would it surround NYC?  A border north of the Bronx?  All the way up to Albany?  Or somewhere in between?

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by: Kluggy @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:04:01 PM UTC

it would (0.00 / 0)

be a difficult question and you would have to ask the people of the Catskills region about that.  I would imagine, in such a theoretical situation, that Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties would be very roiled by the question.

And would the Albany area economy want to cut itself off from the NYC economy?

And how would Binghamton feel since some people there look to downstate, not CNY/WNY, as their economic future.

And would Plattsburgh want to come with Upstate or would they rather cleave to Vermont.

Etc etc.

Which is why searching for less drastic political solutions seems wise.  But that search for solutions, sooner or later, needs to acknowledge the possibility of separation so that other less drastic solutions can be identified.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:11:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the boundaries are hard (0.00 / 0)

as would be the negotiations for any split

(Note that that's fictional and definitely not in my voice.)

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by: simonstl @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 17:43:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And what about Nassau and Suffolk counties? (4.00 / 1)

A lot of the running-against-the-city stuff came from there, especially during the D'Amato ascendancy in the 1980s and 1990s.

Though I think many on Long Island understand that the city is essential to the Island.

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 00:58:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed (4.00 / 1)

The relationship between LI and NYC is rather complex, but, as is the case with most urban centers and their surrounding suburbs, also rather interdependent.  That said, cross-state suburbs are fairly common (just look at NYC suburbs in NJ and CT), so a state separation isn't necessarily an impossibility.  Yet, I think the technical and legal complications would be rather substantial, and consequently any such split would require substantial will on both sides to make it happen (which simply isn't there).

This is an interesting theoretical exercise, and I think the interest in it here hints at the underlying existing urban/rural tension that exists here in New York.  Yet, I still don't think it's a plausible scenario.  

 

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by: Kluggy @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 02:03:47 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interdependence (4.00 / 1)

NYC & "upstate" are interdependent.  We need each other in many ways. Some examples include (but are not limited to):

• NYC gets almost all of its water and some of its electricity from upstate.  The new battle over hydrofracking the Marcellus shale formations is beginning over NYC's water supply (it should end over the fact that the upstaters who lease their land will get permanently sick).

• Most NYC prisoners are housed upstate.  NYC gets to turn its back and pretend there's no problem, and upstate gets not only jobs, but also federal funding, since the census lists prisoners as living where the prisons are.  (Of course, the prisoners are being used as political pawns, which is why there is no prison reform, but that's a subject for another debate.)

• NYC's wealthier suburbs are dependent on NYC for their jobs and, consequently, their livelihoods.  Conversely, NYC is dependent on its wealthier suburbs to give wealthy executives a standard of living sufficient for them to be willing to commute into the city.

• Most of Albany's budget is dependent on tax revenues from NYC, even though most New Yorkers don't live in NYC.

• Not to throw another monkey wrench into the works, but where would you put Long Island?  It would be odd if the residents of Long Island had to go through another state just to get to the rest of their own state (including the state capital).  That means Long Island joins NYC, which exacerbates another problem -- municipal solid waste.

• It's bad enough that the MTA deals with three states now (yes, some routes run through New Jersey); a four-state solution just makes things worse.

• This may sound facetious, but when they changed the name of the Triboro Bridge to the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge, it cost $40 million to change the signs.  If New York splits into two states the cost of changing signs, logos, seals, etc. would be enormous.

I say, let's stop yammering about splitting and find ways to work together.  We need each other.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 18:56:19 PM UTC

Agreed (4.00 / 1)

There would be a lot of problems.  The thing you point out with the suburbs is a very interesting problem.  Westchester, Putnam, Orange, and even Dutchess at this point are caught as being part of the NYC metropolitan area on the one hand but being "upstate" by NYC standards on the other hand.  

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by: BingChester @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 19:24:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rockland, too n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 01:00:48 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Of Course There's a Upstate/Downstate Divide!... (0.00 / 0)

...ask Mario Cuomo.

He tweaked Upstate too many times and got tossed...by losing places like Erie County. He didn't think runaway spending and tax-hikes mattered. (As a young joutnalist the year Pataki defeated him...Cuomo challenged me personally to find ANYONE who could name four taxes that were raised by the new budget. I went to a graduation ceremony where he was speaking...grabbed a new grad...who rattled off four...no problem.)

Then let's go to the Boom-Boom 90's. You know...the decade former NYS Senator Hillary Clinton asked folks out on the campaign trail last year, "What didn't you like?...the peace?...or the prosperity? If you seperated everything north of Westchester County into its own state...Upstate/New Buffalo/Whatever would have ranked 49th in job grown.

Again...recall future Senator Clinton's campaign pledge in 2000...200,000 new jobs for Upstate. By the time she ran for president...the Senator needed new 320,000 jobs to fulfill the promise.

Now...the Buffalo News reports today the "shovel ready" projects tagged for the first round of stimulus (SURPRISE!) do not include ones WNY dearly wanted/needed. Money for University buildings. Big deal. No money for better housing...improved roads...light rail...or anything else.

This aint a Republican or a Democratic notion. It's an "I'm fed UP!" issue.

Absentee landlords are only tolerable when there's no other option. It's time to start exploring options...this way Upstate could get market rates for the water and electricity it sends to NYC at a discount.

Let the revolution sbegin!

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by: Waterloo Native @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 19:28:50 PM UTC

Conversation killers (4.00 / 2)

About a year ago, I posted some thoughts on "Upstate Conversation Killers, and How to Get Past Them."(I'd repost here but it was a long article)

It's funny but we are right now, in this thread, talking about a lot of the same issues.  Especially this one:

Someday Wall Street money is going to be insufficient to support the entire state (and there may not be the will to do it), especially during a protracted economic downturn. Upstate should seek increased economic independence from Wall Street, before Wall Street seeks economic independence from it. And I think it is important to use "Wall Street" and not "NYC" or "Downstate" as part of any new responses to this old conversational roadblock. Which opens up new vistas on just what this region's situation really is (since Wall Street is just about the only place more corrupt than Albany right now). Let's be specific: what exactly is driving this wealth engine that Upstate is currently so reliant on? How healthy is that wealth engine, really, and how much of that wealth is real? That's what has to be learned - and that has to be part of the new response to this old conversational roadblock.

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by: NYCO @ Sun Feb 08, 2009 at 20:00:19 PM UTC

The conversation about (0.00 / 0)

upstate/downstate issues is quite alive, here anyway.

Your year-ago analysis of Wall Street's long-term problems was prescient.

I hope you used it to adjust your retirement accounts.

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by: devtob @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 01:08:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Do it! (0.00 / 0)

All this interest in partition is great.

I have supported it for years.

http://politicalclassdismissed...

The problem is we have the highest taxes and while, NYC, a world capital, can afford them, Upstate can't.  That's the problem in a nutshell.   Downstate foists this high cost of government on us and, be honest, you just don't give a shit that we are dying up here.

Plus, Downstate is more liberal on social issues and you guys, packed together like sardines with total strangers, are way more statist than we are in Upstate.  You guys love the government passing all sorts of crazy laws to protect you from your fellow man.  We like guns; you fear them, for just one example.  And true to the purpose of the Second Amendment, it's not so much out of fear of our neighbors but of the State itself.

This is now politically impossible but never let that stop you.  History shows that what is impossible one day is inevitable the next.

One more thing.  It's a canard that Downstate subsidizes us.  We don't need you; never did.  Much of the Industrial Revolution happened Upstate.  We'll be fine without you but we will visit often.

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by: Jim Ostrowski @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 01:20:12 AM UTC

not a partisan issue (0.00 / 0)

Partitioning NYS into 2 or more states is the ONLY way our current disaster can be cleaned up. I advocate for 3 states, but 2 would be a helluva lot better than the one dysfunctional one was have now.

I even started a blog all about breaking the state up:

http://upstateless.wnymedia.net

BTW, this should NOT be a partisan issue. Breaking away from Downstate/NYC will be better for all residents of Upstate in the long run, no matter which political persuasion they adhere to.  

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by: denizen @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 20:30:45 PM UTC