Posted on 11/23/2001 5:25:09 AM PST by LarryLied
Despite the "friendly" Sunbelt's purported ease and opportunity, the "unfriendly" North continues by far to have the best quality of life.The United Way now reports that Minnesota (of which I am genetically half a native, which may undermine the good data here) is the best state, in economic well-being, education, health, civic engagement, safety and the environment. Having visited this Midwest Finland, I am not surprised. And I find New Hampshire's Number 2 rating apt, too, having inhabited that rocky realm of rectitude, responsibility and (usually) reasonableness for four years.
Ditto the others in the top 10: Connecticut (even with Hartford!); Massachusetts; Vermont; Maine; Wisconsin; Iowa; New Jersey, and, yes, even Rhode Island, hardly a state at all!
Meanwhile, the bottom 10 are all in the Sunbelt, the worst New Mexico, and then Louisiana.
Maybe it's mostly the weather. The North's bracing and wildly variable climate energizes people and encourages planning and careful citizenship. And it's probably better for you, because cold is bad for bugs. Even the post-war wave of air-conditioning hasn't let previously soporific Southern schools, offices and factories overcome the North's paradoxical climatic advantage.
And Northerners tend to be less mobile, and so less likely to slide into that appalling anomie in which the American Dream is pursued by folks wandering the roads in search of pots of gold that turn out to be tin, and leaving no forwarding address. But then, it is easier to wander about where the weather is warm. Thus the pervasive trailer parks in the Sunbelt, and enough social problems to make you ask if the Sunbelt's growing national power is a good thing. (Don't show this to my Tennessee relatives.)
My mother's ancestors moved to South Carolina from Massachusetts before the Revolutionary War. She was about as Southern as you can get.
My wife's grandmother moved south from Iowa around 1900. They never did get the Yankee out of her.
My ex-brother-in-law moved from Ohio to Atlanta in high school. He's the biggest Bubba you ever saw--up country drawl and everything. In fact, he was the model for a character named "Bubba" in a book I just finished reading. (He acclimatized quickly.)
Once you get the Yankees down South, get them to relax and acclimatize--basically, get the Yankee out of them--you can't tell them from just regular, normal people.
It takes some longer than others, and the process is not pleasant.
In 1976, I drove my pickup to La Feria, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley to marry a local lady. An attendant in a gas station saw my New Hampshire "Live Free or Die" license plates and asked me where was the country of New Hampshire.
Yeah, let's hope that liberal states like NM continue to lose power relative to the rest of the states.
Wouldnt have anything to do with the amount of Mexicans living there, both legal and illegal and their tendency to vote for Algore now would it.
"Yankees" being at fault is highly unlikely.
Something I like to point out to "natives" here in NC complaining about all the yankees moving here recently and causing democrats to be elected is the states electoral history. Here in NC, last year we elected a republican to the council of state for the FIRST TIME SINCE RECONSTRUCTION! Now, if the recent influx of yankess is causing democrats to win, explain to me the democrats control of the state house and senate for almost 140 straight years and it taking 140 years to elect the 1st republican to the council of state.
So I guess you haven't read about the new mayor of NY extending 9-11 relief benefits to the ILLEGALS in NYC....or the ILLEGALS from the Dominican Republic who are complaining if they go HOME to bury their people killed in the plane crash they will not be allowed to come back ILLEGALLY.
You sure do selective reading UP HERE...and since when is Illinois the North?
It's always constructive to blame your problems on someone else rather than try to solve them. Was Ted Turner a yankee import?
I know a few of them from the northern rustbelt that reside in Atlanta and they are indeed trying to transplant their yankee ideas in the south.
Well I'm glad their down there instead of up here. If there are so many northern liberals down there maybe the author was right that the North is better now, all the conservatives stayed up here. :^)
It is much worse out here in this frozen wasteland of Telluride. We have armed, drunken militia at every intersection. The "intersections" are merely narrow gravel roads that go off into the wilds where vicious elk and buffalo suffering madcow disease attack anyone. Enraged squirrels drop out of trees unexpectedly and go for the face. I won't even mention the drooling rabid naugas that lurk at every turn. Landslides, blizzards, and insane conservative lynch mobs hiding in the few trees with machetes and machineguns are common. Obviously, no Yankee would want to move here, but if any want to visit, I'll put "Deliverance" in the VCR and serve up some fava beans and a nice chianti... Don't mind the one eared, angry looking cat. PhishBait loves strangers.
I guess so, you did say there were a lot of redneck hicks in NY..:)
A northern worker could always quit his job and pursue opportunities. A slave wasn't allowed to. Big difference.
Hot Damn!!! We're 49!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!! I was shooting for 50 but we'll take it.
As a transplanted yankee, I am often axed by folks down here where I am from. I tell everyone I am a native New Orleanian, it just took me 26 years to get here.
I have travelled extensively and me thinks that uptown New Orleans is the best area in the whole country to live, even if they build a Wal-Mart.
That comment about the honest reconstuction governments comes right out of the revisionist history books. It is pure BS. If you don't understand what that means, I will make it simple. It is lies.
What you see regarding NY is not what you get. Those people are very adept at hiding that which tends to tarnish their own view.
I can show you plenty of outhouses in NY state, but then you never see those on TV. The richest man in our government, bar none, is from upstate NY and his district has miles and miles of poverty. He never expounds upon that, all he shows is the glitz and glamour enjoyed by the few. That area has nothing on the disadvantaged of Appalachia.
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