Northeastern United States: Encyclopedia II - Northeastern United States - Culture

Northeastern United States - Culture

Northeastern United States - Language Ethnicity and Religion

Culturally, the Northeast is somewhat different from the rest of the United States. While some regions of the United States, such as the U.S. South, are predominantly Protestant, half of the states in the Northeast are predominantly Catholic, with Rhode Island having the highest percentage of Catholics in the U.S. The Northeast is also home to many other religious groups. For example, New York has the highest percentage of Jews in the nation, followed by New Jersey. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland also have a significant percentage of Jews relative to most other U.S. states.

There are many different accents in the Northeast, including:

• the Boston accent, and more generally the Eastern New England family of accents, which extend from eastern Massachusetts up to Maine;
• the New York accent
• the Philadelphia accent

The Northeast is one of the most ethnically diverse region in the U.S. It has high populations of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, although it has a generally low number of Native Americans. The high level of diversity has much to do with New York City, which was and still is an entry point for many immigrants, however, the other major cities of the region have significant ethnic diversity as well. The three largest cities in the census-defined Northeast (New York, Philadelphia, and Boston) have the same four largest ancestries: African American, Italian, Irish, and Puerto Rican.

As is the case in much of the United States, people from many European American backgrounds live in the Northeast, although white Northeasterners frequently identify with their ethnic background more strongly than do whites from other U.S. regions. Massachusetts, particuarly in the Boston area, is regarded as the Irish capital of the US. Brooklyn, New York has long been known for its many Italian-Americans (many of whom have moved to outlying suburban areas). The New York City borough also historically is a major center of the Jewish-American population; while a significant community still lives there, in the mid-20th century Jews made up over 50% of the borough's white population (the city as a whole also contained over 50% of the entire country's Jewish population at the time). Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is home to the famous Pennsylvania Dutch (who are actually of German descent). Overall, the Northeast has high percentages of people of Jewish, Italian, Irish, German, and French-Canadian descent. The cities of New Bedford, Massachusetts and Newark, New Jersey both have high populations of people of Portuguese descent; increasingly so does Mount Vernon, New York, a small city that borders New York City to the north which also has a significant African American and Caribbean–West Indian community.

Northeastern United States - Urban Suburban and Rural

Much of the history of the Northeast is characterized by archetypical medium and large manufacturing cities. The sometimes urban character of the region gives it a strange mix of reputations. Some view the cities places of economic opportunity for this reason. In major northeastern cities, gay villages and ethnic enclaves aren't uncommon and most of the cities have large, at times provocative, artistic and theatrical scenes. In the past century or so, religious and ethnic factionalism have become less and less of a concern. At the same time, the major cities are expensive and have wide disparities between rich and poor, often giving them a reputation for being impersonal and aloof. The decreased importance of manufacturing has left many of the cities without an economic base, giving some of them a reputation for urban decay. Notable examples of cities left damaged and often severely depopulated due to loss of manufacturing include Yonkers, Utica, Buffalo, Syracuse, and even parts of New York City in New York state; Newark in New Jersey; Baltimore in Maryland; Lowell in Massachusetts; Hartford in Connecticut; and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. However, examples dot the entire region and much of the neighboring region of the American Midwest.

Though it generally is seen as having a very urban character, at least in its most populated areas, the Northeast was one of the first regions to undergo heavy post-World War II suburbanization. The most notable of these early suburbs was Levittown in the Long Island region of New York, east of New York City; Levittown is often regarded as the archetype of the "cookie-cutter" suburb where all houses and streets look pretty much the same. The suburban spawl of New Jersey is, likewise, famous, as is New Jersey's reputation for urban decay.

Today, suburbanization is a rampant trend in United States housing development driven by widespread use of the automobile and de-emphasis on mass transit and commuter railroads as a viable form of transportation. Nonetheless, the subway of New York City is widely used and iconic, and the New York City metropolitan area's Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad transport about one-third of commuters who use rail transportation in the United States each day.

Many of the major and secondary cities in the region utilize mass transit. Systems include Philadelphia's SEPTA and Boston's T. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) mass transit system between New Jersey and Manhattan. Syracuse's OnTrack transit service makes Syracuse the smallest city in the United States to have its own transit system, though its not widely used. Further, New Jersey Transit operates commuter rail throughout New Jersey and Maryland's MARC Train system provides that state with rail transportation.

Today, the coastal Northeast is said to resemble a megalopolis, or megacity, an interdependent network of cities and suburbs that blend into each other. Economically, the region provides many of the financial and government services the rest of the country and much of the world depends on, from New York's Wall Street to academia to Washington's K Street lobbying firms. The megacity is called BosWash, for Boston-Washington describing the width of the region from one metropolitan area to another, or Bosnywash, for Boston-New York-Washington, describing the three primary metropolitan regions. It is linked largely by the I-95 Interstate, which runs from Florida, through Richmond, around Washington, D.C., through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and up to Boston and into Maine. By rail, the cities are linked by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Suburbs of Boston as far north as New Hampshire and even Maine as well as suburbs of Washington as far south as Orange County, Virginia are arguably all part of Bosnywash.

Some argue, notably political scientists Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis in their book The Emerging Democratic Majority, that city and suburb in Bosnywash and in other regions of the country are moving towards a state of economic and cultural seamlessness. Teixeira and Judis use the increasingly similar voting and demagraphic patterns of city and suburbs to make their arugment. However, it is also evidenced in increasing population density and tightly-linked infrastructure. Along the Gold Coast, the area across the Hudson River from New York City, of New Jersey, population density has become so great that the state built the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system to decrease traffic congestion. This system complements the PATH system, New Jersey Transit commuter bus and rail service, a complex highway transportation system, and Port Authority Airports. Future expansion of Hudson-Bergen Light Rail could see it go to Staten Island in New York City. Similarly, Boston's transit system links Boston with the surrounding suburbs very seamlessly. Further, much of the Northeast region is heavily linked by state-run commuter trains and Amtrak.

Despite the heavy urban/suburban characteristics of the region, many rural characteristics survive. Much of Upstate New York, and even as far south as Westchester County have decidedly rural characteristics. Both Long Island and northern New York have relatively well-known wine producing regions. New York is a heavily agricultural state, and even New York City's borough of Queens had farm production well into the late 20th century. Small towns and cities dot western Massachusetts' Berkshire region, as well as Vermont, Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and New Hampshire. While formerly important rural industries like farming and mining have decreased in importance in recent decades, they persist.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Culture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki