In 1969, novelist Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York City on a promise to make the city the 51st state and a platform of self-governed neighborhoods.
Bill Kauffman has a short piece on Mailer's campaign posted on First Principles.
There would be no inane happy-talk about the “family of New York” from Norman Mailer. He realized that “the good farmers and small-town workers of New York State rather detest us.” Rather indeed. “The connection of New York City to New York State is a marriage of misery, incompatibility, and abominable old quarrels.” His concern was properly with his own brawling grounds, but he did see a favorable fallout for we hicks as well, for going it alone could spark “the development of what has been hitherto a culturally undernourished hinterland, a typically colorless national tract.”
Yes, Niagara Falls, Cooperstown, Lake Placid, Susan B. Anthony, Grover Cleveland, Washington Irving, John Brown’s North Elba—we are cultural and scenic starvelings for sure.
What does WNY have in common with NYC?
A tax burden, we don't want
A tax burden, we don't want to have to pay it all ourselves....Splitting the state is a disastrous idea.
Despite the much-touted
Despite the much-touted intellectual differences between downstate and upstate, rural areas would be in dire straits should NY and NYC part ways. When a school district like Elba has a building project with local obligation, a single-digit percentage- who picks up the other 90+%? It may be a love/hate relationship, but NYC, Westchester and Nassau counties pay WNY's way. ...And don't think they haven't noticed! Quoting a candidate for the 19th District: "The fact is now that Nassau has 17 percent of the students in New York State, but only receives 3 percent of the state's education funding."
For an in-depth look at the tax pie for NY go to:
http://www.nyfiscalwatch.com/html/fwm_2003-05.html