I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I’m accidentally disparaging when I don’t mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I’ll start:
I’m in the Bay Area, specifically Oakland. Despite Bay Area hate from some posters, I think it’s great. How about you?
Jersey. The best state.
Hahahahaha! I’ll buy you a drink. This was most unexpected Jersey pride.
I’ll say, haven’t been in a while, but my brother lived in SF and then Palo Alto for a bit during and after law school, so 2009-14 we’ll say, and I had a blast every time I went to visit. I haven’t been back since, and obviously people say the city has changed a bit, but back then it was such a different lifestyle from the East Coast.
I always go back to this story, at that time Dunkin Donuts’s catchphrase or whatever, at least in the NEC, was America Runs on Dunkin, but when I went out west they would say America’s Favorite Coffee, and I always found it a pretty apropos juxtaposition of the coastal mentalities. In NY/NJ, we were all about work. Everyone works, you go out after work in your fuckin suits, you talked about work. It was a culture, and it ran on coffee (sometimes Dunkin). But out west, people seemed to be more interested in taking in life, the sights, the food, and yes, the fucking coffee.
And the catchphrase for the middle of America was “drink it or don’t, nobody cares about you”.
JK, flyover states!
I carry a bunch of pride for all of my favorite places I’ve lived in (I was easily bored in my early 20s), but…
Jersey?
Kidding, ofc, friend.
Lived up and down the east coast along the way, including places whose current inhabitants I would not want to publicly associate myself with.
South Central PA wasn’t per se “appealing,” but it was home for many years so I get it. Neither good nor bad, just home, but easily judged.
I still smile a lil when I happen to cross US 30 and notice it, so I get it. Feels like I “could” make that turn and be “home”
OC, MD was “the” vacation dest growing up so…. I have very little affinity for Jersey. A few years working for a guy who was proudly “from JC” (sorta) and a giant dick didn’t help my perspective, to be honest.
Long way to say Staten Island.
And a giant dick from JC sounds like someone who moved in sometime after 2000. I feel like the old timers, the real legit JC people, are anything but dicks. That city went through some hard, hard times, and it’s in its golden age right now, it’s nice to see.
I think NJ tends to be a love it or hate it kinda place. I lived outside of NJ a couple of times, but it pulled me back in, as they say.
As for South Central PA, closest I’ve gotten was probably King of Prussia, perhaps. Don’t really know much about it, but I’m always interested. Got a family now, and being able to pop them in a car to go to some kind of experience, versus the cost and hassle of flying (i.e. doors fall off), is appealing to me. And I’m at a point in my life where I can bring my kids to places I find interesting but they find incredibly boring, but when they get to my age they will continue the cycle (barring the apocalypse, of course).
And as for OC, MD, I feel like if you have a beach place you go to, that’s where you go. I’ve been going to essentially the same place for 37 years, at this point. On our way there, we pass Ontario license plates for all them who head down to Wildwood or maybe to MD too. I’ll probably take the family to Rehoboth or Ocean City, MD, at some point, just for the sake of checking the box (barring them being underwater, of course).