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Commonly held by everyone who lives in Upstate for the last ninety years anyway? Inasmuch as I've since heard the same thing from upstate Michigan and Central Pennsylvania and even small town Massachusetts, I'll just have to take your word for it now.
An interesting data point here is very early in Tom Wicker's book about Attica. He describes driving in from Buffalo and the countryside already looking a little bit shabby; I guess maybe compared to Connecticut or New Jersey at the time?
I read this 30 years later and I'm thinking that 1971 was about as good as it ever got! That countryside was looking plenty prosperous to me and I saw tons of it? We went back and forth across 104, sometimes 5 & 20 all summer long. People were still getting hired right into Kodak straight out of high school and if they could put three thousand dollars together they could buy a house. If things went really well then a cottage on the Finger Lakes because I was a guest at at least two dozen of them in my time and some of those people worked on assembly lines all their lives. Very few cars older than six years on the road back then, (and we all know why too?)
So what on earth was Tom Wicker looking at? That image of time and place has only been my template for orderliness and general well being ever since?
I've lived in five other states, traveled as far south as Panama and as far north as Prince Rupert plus all over France and Spain. Upstate New York in the early 1970s would have been well up in the top third with respect the general air of prosperity. It was much closer to Switzerland than it was to Albania. Biarritz or the Loire Valley in 1986 were not a whole lot more spiffy.
Just from the place names you understand that this area was settled in a fit of neo-classicism with utopian movements all over the place. The Mormon church would spring out from the middle of it. People moved here because the soil was better than New England, the growing season was thought to be a few weeks longer and a lot of their descendants would move on once again within a generation. It was the main economic conduit of the young growing country for 130 years and it's naturally in decline now. Sure the Industrial Revolution came through here in a big way but at the very outset the land was parceled out way back when you could still make a living off a 60 acre farm.
Just as naturally they ended up with a dense infrastructure that they can't support from taxing the current commerce base. That's why the back roads suck. Had the place been settled after the railroads were established you would have nearly as many small towns to support.
If the fortunes of the entire region were to reverse in the future it will be the result of the fresh water, I predict. Because the Canadians will be making everyone else pay for it by then.
There's a very very good reason why Canada didn't want a tar sludge pipeline across their own country to Ontario. If you don't think that fresh water will not become a major league commodity someday, soon go to Mexico City where something the size of Lake St. Clair just plain got erased.
I would be remiss if I omitted saying that this has always been a strong area for running, just from my generation I can mention Pfitzinger, Paige, and Tuttle. We used to do low key Ten Mile races sponsored by the firehouse in some podunk town all summer long and Rochester had a very strong all comers summer track program. The cross country Invitational scene has always been one of the strongest in the country. Most of the guys who will go to the State Meet will also get a chance to post a time an Vanny at least once. Check out how Dave Dobrynski's time has held up over the years and remember that he was racing against Paige just about every weekend.
Plus right now they are fracking the snot out of the southern tier, enough to build a new railroad bridge at Portageville; so you better be comfortable with that technology the farther south you get. For what my opinion is worth you will know for certain pretty soon and I don't expect the current level of Marcellus drilling activity to hold up for much longer.