That was her claim, yes. Specifically, she lived in New Philadelphia, PA, a small town on the Schuylkill River well upstream of regular Philadelphia. It’s not my claim that that’s part of New England, just that not everybody agrees on what the limits of New England are.
While it’s certainly convenient to define New England as the six northeastern states, I’m not sure that’s entirely satisfactory, either. If “New England” is a region of similar culture, geography, economy, etc., then why should it exclude places like Plattsburgh and Lake Placid, and include Greenwich, CT, which is clearly part of metropolitan New York City?
An excellent deduction, but be careful when you get to West Virginia.
I think what you have there is just an outlier or an idiosyncrasy or just a mistaken or ill-informed person. There is no wide disagreement over what constitutes New England. I think that if you do any perfunctory research, you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of sources that define New England define it as those six states, period.
It’s agreed on by everyone except the ignorant. I’m sorry, but your friend is either an idiot or you are misinterpreting what she said.
Because it’s not defined on the basis of similar culture and geography. It’s defined as being those six states. You (and apparently your friend) are making up your own definition.
It’s true that upstate New York is more similar culturally to New England than to New York City, but that doesn’t make it part of New England, and nobody regards it as such. If someone said “I’m going to New England to view fall foliage,” no one will think you might be going to upstate New York.
Right. Parts of Connecticut are suburbs of NYC (I have even seen signs in NYC that point towards New England in general) and Providence, Rhode Island has little in common with northern Vermont or Maine but they are all equally New England. It is just Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. That is the definition of the region and it stops as soon as you cross into another state that isn’t part of it. THE END. Lots of people think that Upstate New York is part of New England because it looks like its neighbors but it isn’t just by definition.
Then why bother? When you cross a state line you become subject to different laws. When you’re in a city’s metro area you are influenced by its culture and economy. If neither of those things, then what’t the point of having a name for a group of six states? What’s different inside compared to outside, I have to cheer for the Patriots?
Emphasis added. Actually, it’s neither a city nor a state. It’s a “district”. Washington D.C.-- The District of Columbia. But for all intents and purposes, it’s a city.
Yes, you have to cheer for the Patriots. Someone told me it was the law or something like that. You live smack dab in the middle of New England yourself just like I do. I can’t give you a philosophical reason for the term “New England” but I can tell you that it means the totality of exactly 6 states and those states only. The refreshing thing about this term is that it is so definite in true New England style even though it has no legal meaning. We can argue all day long about the boundaries of “the South” or where “the West” begins and ends but not New England. There are actual survey lines laid out long ago that make things perfectly clear. Think of it like a fraternity of states.
Does anybody have a term for that part of the country settled in early colonial times, with small town centers spaced a day’s ride on horseback apart, remnants of stone walls and old farms, small inns and bed-and-breakfasts, colorful fall foliage (and its attendant tourism)? I had been using “New England”, but apparently that’s not right.
A lot of people think of the Ivy League as “a bunch of fancy colleges in New England.”
In reality, only four of the eight are in New England: Harvard (Massachusetts), Yale (Connecticut), Brown (RHode Island), and Dartmouth (New Hampshire).
The other four are in New York (Columbia and Cornell), New Jersey (Princeton), and Pennsylvania (UPenn, duh).
Also, it’s a god damn football conference. I had to convince a co-worker that Stanford, Chicago, and Duke were NOT “Ivy League” colleges, even though they rank above several of them in academics.
That is a good comparison. The Ivy League <> great school. There are eight and only eight Ivy League schools. That is all there ever will be. Harvard is the most famous one but its next door neighbor, MIT, whips Harvard’s ass in science and technology. MIT is not in the Ivy League even though it is stronger academically in many subjects. The Ivy League is very literally a sports league for northeastern schools that don’t offer sports scholarships. They are all great schools but other schools all over the country consistently beat them especially when you look at individual departments.
Wait, isn’t William and Mary part of the Ivy League, too?
And Washington, DC is a city. It has exactly the same borders as the District of Columbia, which is sort of like a state in some ways but isn’t one, instead being its own unique thing. But then, I don’t think the US is all that unusual in having a special status for the capital territory.
Oh, and another reason why state capitals often aren’t the biggest city in the state: State capitals are often deliberately chosen to be in the geographic center of the state. But big cities are almost always built on major bodies of water, and major bodies of water often form the boundaries of states. So the big cities will often be over at the edge of their state.
The Ivy League is an interesting case. The term “ivy colleges” goes back to the 1930s, and “Ivy League” frst appears in print in 1935, with no strict definition of which schools were included. Wikipedia says:
The Ivy League didn’t become the formal name of an entity with defined members until 1954.
