Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2009 > August > 05 > Entry
Austinites in Upstate New York
It would be easy to forsake Binghamton, N.Y.
Parts of downtown remain a wasteland after urban renewal. Monolithic government buildings impede what little pedestrian traffic is nurtured by the remaining, attractive commercial strips. Blight nudges into even prosperous neighborhoods.
Yet Binghamton maintains great promise in its abundant greenery, wealth of densely packed building stock and, especially, the presence of Tier-1 Binghamton University. That institution has planted its flag downtown and a developer proposes some fairly sensitive student housing nearby.
How to leverage those assets? Longtime locals are fighting the good fight. They are getting some help from Austinites and their ideas.
More to come …
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By Steve Basile
August 8, 2009 8:10 PM | Link to this
I lived in Albany for 25 years and NYC and Long Island for several more and have always understood everything North of the Tappan Zee Bridge (Mid-Westchester County) to be "Upstate." Anyone outside of the Finger Lakes, Southern Tier or Central NY is pretty unlikely to use those terms in my experience. To everyone outside Upstate, or outside NY all that isn't NY City is considered upstate.
By Michael Barnes
August 8, 2009 4:48 PM | Link to this
Sarah,
Everybody up here -- or the people I've met -- uses Upstate New York, too, for the more generalized region. Maybe they got used to it. I use Southern Tier and Tri-Cities (Triple Cities) as references in the series as well.
Michael
By sarah
August 8, 2009 1:19 PM | Link to this
Hi Michael,
Did anyone else point out to you that only New York City people call Binghampton "upstate." Of course we all tend to be confused about how other states talk about themselves (ever have a friend say they were "coming to your" and ask you to meet them in Ft. Worth? Anyway, this from a native: Upstate New York is the area North of Route 5/the NYS Thruway. Typically: Watertown, Potsdam, Plattsburgh and the Adirondacks (okay, maybe Lake George.) CEntral New York is all the communities strung along that same route (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany -- much like Central Texas is a somewhat defined area also. That places you in the Southern Tier/ Tri-City area. New York is divided geographically (including by rivers and canals), culturally, politically -- just for the record 8-))
By Woody
August 7, 2009 10:17 AM | Link to this
Being from that area, I would encourage any moving there to reside in Pennsylvania. Binghamton is really close to the border and the taxes are much lower on the Pennsylvania side.