So, basically, north of Westchester... or something

Following up on the "Upstate is... somewhere" question, a polling firm called Public Policy Polling recently asked New York State voters about about the best definition of "upstate." The most popular answers: Everything north of Westchester County (29 percent), Everything north of New York City (25 percent), and Everything north of Poughkeepsie (22 percent). [PPP]

Comments

If you can commute to NYC for work then you are not upstate. So I say anything North of the commuter train. So that means Beacon is where upstate begins.

"Upstate" is a implicit relative designation as measured by the distance between any location and times square as compared to the distance between times square and the designator's subjective personal benchmark (usually where the live or have lived).

Metro north runs to Poughkeepsie

Poughkeepsie it is.

Not to add fuel to the fire, using the commuter rational, I would say anything north and west of the Capital Region would be upstate, everything south downstate. I frequently travel by Amtrak (once a week) to NYC and there are quite a few folks who do the same, with a surprising number doing it daily. My suggestion would be to modify the commuter model to account for volume of working population commuting to NYC (let’s say a minimum of 25% of a county’s working population). This would throw out the Capital Region, which probably ekes out 1-2% of its workforce making the 2+ hour trip south. I would wager Dutchess and Ulster county would be tossed out too using the 25% threshold. So that gets that thick, red line denoting up and down state at Orange and Putnam Counties (which I personally view the dividing line) Ah yes, this argument can be sliced so many ways!

It seems to me that Upstate New York is not a place, but a state of mind. (An Upstate of Mind, obviously.)

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