Ever since coming to California, I’ve been intrigued, and sometimes frightened, by the differences between this area and my home region. Last year, I wrote about differences in population density, yearned for New England cuisine, lamented the lack of seasons in SoCal, and the issue of regional differences has been a prominent topic in my posts ever since.

Now, I don’t mean to bash California — that’s hardly my intent. What I do try to do is provide an image of another part of the country that many Californians have never been to, in order to show them how different the two regions are, and how many things that are taken for granted in this part of the country just don’t exist elsewhere. I recently discovered the fascinating forums at city-data.com, which are full of information on different areas of the United States. Since the site is particularly geared towards people who wish to relocate, I was able to find a few topics especially relevant to my interest in regional differences:

“Any former CA natives moved to New England and loved/hated it?“

The responses to this question are fascinating. Examples:

“I loved the difference from Ca. Did not miss that La La Land feeling at all,loved the snow,the people who I found to be very friendly compared to So. Ca. and the history … the best schools in So. Cal don’t come close to the kind of education my son had in Lexington … The only thing I didn’t like was the long grey winter. It’s like living in a black and white movie..but it was fun bundling up for a change as opposed to shorts in the winter in Ca.”

The “black and white” winter is a particularly interesting comment… even a lot of New Englanders find the long winters depressing (I immediately think of Edith Wharton’s naturalistic novel Ethan Frome). But the value on education is certainly there — even though my high school wasn’t exactly top-notch, based on the horror stories I’ve heard about some public schools in California, I had it pretty good. According to Morgan Quitno’s “Smartest States” rankings, the N.E. states all fall within the top 15 nationally: 1. Vermont, 2. Massachusetts, 3. Connecticut, 5. Maine, 12. New Hampshire, 14. Rhode Island. California lands at 47.

“I spent 2 years (1980-82) at UMass, Amherst, lived in a small town north of there (Leverett) and loved it. But I missed California way too much. As you can see by my location, I’m now in Austin, TX, which is much more like CA than New England is. The northeast feels like a different planet. It’s not BAD, it’s just SO different, culturally and geographically and climatically and in every possible way.”

I had the same feeling of coming to a different planet when I first landed in LA. The architecture, the layout, the climate, the geography, the lifestyle — everything seemed foreign. But it’s true that New England is definitely unique compared to the rest of the country. This uniqueness shows itself in the most unexpected ways — for example, these maps that show (1) the distribution of small rivers named “creeks” (in orange) versus “brooks” (in blue) and (2) bodies of waters called “lakes” (orange) vs. “ponds” (blue):

It’s interesting that the term “brook” and “pond” are almost exclusive to New England (plus the uplands of New York and parts of northern New Jersey), but these maps also show just how many bodies of water there are in New England relative to a lot of other parts of the country, and particularly the West. One comment that I frequently hear made by Westerners who’ve visited New England is an amazement at the amount of fresh water in the region, as well as the amount of greenery (the first time I visited the West, I was shocked at how *non-green* it was!). This makes sense when you consider that the New England states are among the most heavily forested in the country.

But the differences are just as much cultural as they are geographic:

Though it might take longer to become friends with someone there, once you make a friend they’re TRUE friends. Opposite of Los Angeles, where everyone says “call me” or “let’s do lunch” but rarely means it. In New England they’re more likely to be honest, earthy, and die-hard friends but they’re not as gregarious at first.

This is actually something I’ve struggled with here in LA. The casual approach to friendship has always thrown me off — relative to most people here, I probably have a much smaller circle of friends, but it frustrates me when they don’t return my messages or are always “too busy to hang out” — what’s the point of having friends if you don’t act like an friend to them? It also seems like a lot of people here probably aren’t that well-connected with their hometown friends, while I would wager to say that for many New Englanders, hometown friendships are often the most important.

This emphasis on the “hometown connection” might have something to do with the concept of social capital, i.e. the “connections within and between social networks.” The political scientist Robert Putnam evaluated social capital across the United States, creating a map that allows us to identify certain regions where social capital is relatively strong:

Apart from the sparsely populated northern plains (one of the most isolated regions of the country, where I would guess that social connections have historically been very important to survival and the avoidance of boredom!), New England seems to stand out as a bastion of relatively strong social capital. I would wager this sense of social capital on something as simple as town commons and meeting houses, features of virtually every New England town which, by their nature, have always connected people. But perhaps these institutions merely reflect a general sense of community that exists in the region.

In fact, the difference in physical layout between towns in New England and towns in California is particularly noticeable. While the vast majority of N.E. towns are concentrated around a clearly defined and densely populated centre, many towns and cities in CA are much more spread out, and you won’t necessarily find schools or churches in the “centre”, if there even is one. I remember from my middle school days in Bristol that many kids went to the community centre in the middle of town to hang out after school — but from what I’ve been told, this is much less likely in CA.

More comments on cultural differences in New England:

Socially conservative. I don’t mean they’re anti-abortion, I mean the subdued personalities, the “old world” style of interacting, the good taste in all things. … It’s rather proper and feels a bit stuffy. Also, less crazy self-expression. I like the kooks of the west coast and Austin, they’re colorful and it makes me feel like I have permission to be a kook along with them. I enjoy certain fads, northeasterners are less prone to play along with them. And they’re not nearly as decadent as we are.

While New Englanders might be perceived in California as being “stuffy,” I think that most N.E’ers are probably a bit put off by the forwardness of Westerners… I know that I’m used to a greater sense of propriety and politeness than what you find in LA. (And note that in N.E., politeness and outgoingness are not synonymous). New Englanders have a strong reputation for being reticent and reserved compared to the rest of the country, and it’s certainly true. But for us, it has nothing to do with being “cold” (although the winters can do that to you), but rather with generally minding one’s own business and giving others the courtesy of privacy. (It is for this reason, among many others, that I felt much more at home in English culture than I do in Californian culture).

However, the comparison of “progressives” is interesting — while you might find your fair share of transplanted West Coast hippies in N.E. (particularly in western MA and VT), I think that there are fundamental ideological differences between eastern and western liberalism in the US. In fact, this same topic is being discussed on the city-data forums.

While New England has always been one of the more progressive regions in the country, more receptive to new European ideologies in the 19th century by virtue of proximity, there has always been a sense of social conservatism, probably rooted in the 17th century Puritan culture. Even when Boston was becoming “The Athens of America,” the city was infamous for its censorship laws, such that the slogan “Banned in Boston!” became a way for publishers to promote risqué books. Heck, Massachusetts had a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sundays until just a couple years ago.

While the West Coast seems to be a hotbed for social liberalism, socialism, and progressive movements like agressive environmentalism that sprung out of the 1960s, New England’s political climate, to me, seems much more temperate and less radical. In fact, I’m starting to think that the universities in N.E. are becoming increasingly libertarian in nature, perhaps foreshadowing a return of the seemingly moribund “Yankee Republican” — the true classical “liberal”, favouring smaller government in every domain.

This traditional libertarianism (the original ideology of the Republican Party, whose stronghold was New England) is still alive and well in the region, particularly in New Hampshire. The Free State Project is a testament to this fact. Still, New England is one of the only places in the country where rural whites often vote for liberal candidates, although each state has often voted for a Republican governor. It’s a bit of a puzzle. At any rate, the area does experience a higher voter turnout than California:

New England’s unique town meeting system of government, which puts many more decisions in the hands of citizens and less in the hands of elected officials, might do some part in encouraging political activeness in the area — such a system seems impractical for most cities in CA. But in N.E., it has worked for a long time — Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the early 1800s that:

New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind.

On the other hand, as I have come to learn through personal experience and through testament from the natives, Southern California is much, much more image-oriented and status-oriented. This might be contrary to an average Westerner’s perception of the East, but in fact in New England there is much less concern about what clothes someone wears, how much money they make, etc. I feel more comfortable back home because there is a much less rigid social norm as to what kinds of fashions are acceptable.

One of the posters in the city-data thread who moved from CA to N.E. as a kid comments that: “Looking back I can see that my California childhood friends were 8 going on 24, but my NH childhood friends were 8 going on, like, 12. MUCH better.” I’ve noticed the same thing by listening to kids outside the school across the street as I walk to and from class every day. (This sort of attitude can also be seen in this topic on city-data, where a CA resident expresses her eagerness to move to New Hampshire).

Frankly, I can’t comprehend this culture where people seem to always be talking on their cell phone, or “texting” during class — it seems so excessively modernized. Most people in this region seem to accept massive suburban housing developments (with tiny yards) and sprawling commercial strips as the norm. In New England, the resistance to such development is much stronger (see: the fight against Wal-Mart in Vermont, for example). Many people are often surprised when they realise how few fast food chains we actually have in N.E. compared to the rest of America.

In fact, this website provides a map of fast food restaurants across America. The cities with the most fast food joints are marked — you can see from the national view that not a single city in New England is marked. Conversely, Los Angeles has the second highest number of fast food restaurants, second only to Houston.

Perhaps some correlation can be seen in obesity rates:

Indeed, New England leads Morgan Quitno’s “Healthiest State” rankings as well: 1) Vermont, 3) Massachusetts, 4) Maine, 5) New Hampshire, 11) Rhode Island, 13) Connecticut. California does reasonably well at #19, although “Safest State” is another matter. New England is exceptionally safe: 2) Vermont, 3) Maine, 4) New Hampshire, 11) Connecticut, 16) Rhode Island, 21) Massachusetts (probably would be much higher without Roxbury, Dorchester, and Springfield), while California comes in at #42. The concept of a gated community is unheard of in New England. Most people, unless they live in the city, do not feel the need to lock their doors at night.

One way to get some basic sense of what a particular people are like is to simply Google: “[these people] are known for”… and see your results. When we search for “New Englanders are known for…”, we get:

…their set ways and obdurateness, thriftiness and a quiet demeanor, getting maximum value for their dollars, their capacity to make something out of nothing, being “clannish”, their self-reliance and distinctive accent (language being a topic that I haven’t even touched upon here, because I could say too much about it. We’ll save that for another time), making their points with as few words as possible, being a hearty bunch, their frugality, their independent natures, laconic speech and understated, well, everything; Yankee ingenuity, their political savvy, common sense, and moral values; individuality and resourcefulness; their fierce dedication to faith and family; enjoying their ice cream year ’round (ironically, it’s true), their love of ice cream (see?), their uncompromising adherence to the old world traditions of quality and value, being stoic, their generosity, their characteristic accents, their nonchalance about extreme weather changes, their rugged individualism, their dry humor.

Although these only begin to scratch the surface of a large number of people, it’s still interesting. But I don’t think you’d really get a good sense of what New Englanders are like unless you lived there yourself. Which, I might add, is not a particularly bad idea, according to the “Most Liveable State” list. A geographic representation (dark green = most liveable; red = least liveable):

(PS: New Hampshire is #1. California is #30.)

The CommonCensus Project surveys Americans’ sense of regional identity. You will notice that most respondents select “USA” as their primary identity, although a fair number answered “New England” (288 votes). The only other regional identity with more votes is “Midwest” with 492. However, considering the ratio of Midwesterners to New Englanders (65 million vs. 14 million), the “New England” identity is particularly strong (and that’s not counting the 201 people who answered “Boston”, which is a much more significant percentage of that city’s population than NYC’s 382 or Chicago’s 338!).

New Englanders have a strong sense of identity. Heck, there are even some groups that advocate secession. And pretty much everyone agrees — if we could be our own country, we wouldn’t have too many complaints. Take for example this “Balkanized” rendition of North America (if every secessionist movement had succeded):

Or, we could use Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America, which redraws the national boundaries based on cultural zones:

(By his evaluation, we New Englanders have more in common with our Canadian brethren in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia than we do with people in Detroit, Kansas City, or San Francisco. I won’t argue with that.) P.S. – If you like these maps, check out this awesome blog that was featured on wordpress today.

Granted, I’ve only scratched the surface of a much more complex cultural contrast. But I’m fascinated by the relationship between geography and culture. Moreover, I’m fascinated by geography itself, both political and physical — one of the things I miss most while being in LA is nature. In New Hampshire, you’d be hard pressed to find an environment where you aren’t completely surrounded by nature. I’m really excited about coming home to all that snow in 10 days, too.

Also — for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow of the photos that I took during my trip home back in October.

Please don’t get me wrong — I’m not trying to assert that California is a hellhole, or that New England is paradise on Earth. I’m simply trying to expand some people’s perception of another corner of the country. Some people are better suited for SoCal; others for New Hampshire. Others for Texas, or Washington, or New York, or Illinois, or Kansas. But you won’t know if you never travel. Personally, however, I’ll gladly take 17th century villages over 20th century cities, winding country roads over sprawling grids, town lines over city limits, seasons over sunshine, and an “ayuh” over a “fer sher.”

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