Who cares. NY has been turned into a piece of shit state. A once great place torn down by lame ass politicians.
The equivalant to Upstate is generally referred to as "the sticks" in some other states. Upstate refers to: noone wants to live there unless you are running from the law and need to live off the grid.
Upstate New York might as well be a completely different state, New York generally refers to everything south of Rockland County, which includes, Rockland, Westchester County, NYC and the boroughs and Long Island which includes 2 of the 5 boroughs Brooklyn, and Queens, and both Nassau and Suffolk Counties. north of Rockland is a huge land area which is sparsely populated except for a few cities, BTW Buffalo is a fairly large city as is Albany, and Syracuse and a few medium sized cities. lots of farmland and wilderness is included in Upstate New York. New York is the fourth largest populated state of which, is about 20 Million, total with about 14 million living in NYC metropolitan area about 35% of the states population lives in what is considered upstate New York
I don't disagree with dha's comments. But to answer your question, I believe it has to do with the fact that New York (city) and New York (state) have the same name, and also NY City is geographically at the southernmost part of the state. So basically anything that is not New York City is "upstate". Exceptions would be Long Island which extends to the east of the city so it's not "upstate" and areas slightly north of the city which kind of stand on their own, such as Yonkers and Westchester. Those are both within commuting distance of NYC.
if driving on a highway in nyc you'll be passing by houses or large buildings.
on an upstate highway you'll be passing by countless amounts of trees. once in a while you'll see gap between the trees that leads to a real ugly house. the nearest neighbor is many miles away. makes you wonder who the fuck lives there? and what's the deal with the deer that constantly keeps rubbing up its head against one of those trees?
This is probably overcomplicating it, but having grown up in northern New Jersey, we used to refer to the part of New York on the Jersey side of the Hudson, and bordering NJ to the north, as "Upstate NY". That would be Rockland County, as 25 referred to, and extending up to around West Point.
^ I could probably simplify the definition by referring to NY as anything close enough to commute to NYC and upstate as everything past commuting distance.
People upstate get offended at being called upstate. Like Buffalo or Rochester they want to be called western NY. And Syracuse Central NY. They think upstate is the adirondacks.
But honestly theres three parts to New York State. Upstate(which is everything north of the Bronx), NYC, and Long Island. That’s it.
@dha Florida is commuter distance, I have a few friends who commute to NYC from Boca Raton, on Net Jets, I’ve actually flown with them, leaving at 515 AM and returning at 750 PM Kinda expensive but these guys got the money.
I grew-up in Syracuse, referred to as Central New York. Then you have the Adirondacks that covers a huge, lightly populated area. Then you have Lake Placid/Plattsburg that have zippy-do-DA in common with The City/Long Island yet NYC dictates the state's govt. Places north of the greater NYC area as PLs mentioned the counties is "Upstate". And the Catskills was referred to the Borst Belt back in the 30's/60's (Mel Brooks got his start there). Remember: the NYC area was populated and developed way before the rest of the state since it had access to the Atlantic; the Erie Canal was an amazing industrial waterway project to get wheat, corn, ag products from the Midwest to NYC real cheap, plus hydraulic concrete was key to the Canal. Florida gets the winter New York "Snow Birds", plus in Florida they have the "Early Bird" dinner specials for folks who eat dinner like at 4:30/5PM.
Well... Michigan has the UPers in the UP (upper peninsula)
AFAIK it's New York (city metro and LI) vs up state (pretty much anything else) I suppose you could also argue it is the dark blue urban metro areas vs up state
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The equivalant to Upstate is generally referred to as "the sticks" in some other states. Upstate refers to: noone wants to live there unless you are running from the law and need to live off the grid.
New York is the fourth largest populated state of which, is about 20 Million, total with about 14 million living in NYC metropolitan area about 35% of the states population lives in what is considered upstate New York
on an upstate highway you'll be passing by countless amounts of trees. once in a while you'll see gap between the trees that leads to a real ugly house. the nearest neighbor is many miles away. makes you wonder who the fuck lives there? and what's the deal with the deer that constantly keeps rubbing up its head against one of those trees?
Southern Michigan has several good sized cities. The parts north of Lansing/Saginaw have lots of wilderness, people call it "up north".
Illinois has downstate. North Carolina has Down East. Rather than the Tidewater (like Virginia) or the Low Country (like South Carolina).
But honestly theres three parts to New York State. Upstate(which is everything north of the Bronx), NYC, and Long Island. That’s it.
Florida is commuter distance, I have a few friends who commute to NYC from Boca Raton, on Net Jets, I’ve actually flown with them, leaving at 515 AM and returning at 750 PM
Kinda expensive but these guys got the money.
By commute, do you mean every day?
NetJets? Have to check that out.
AFAIK it's New York (city metro and LI) vs up state (pretty much anything else)
I suppose you could also argue it is the dark blue urban metro areas vs up state