The Condescending New York Fractivist: The Ugly New Yorker
The following is a short version of an article I wrote in 2015 about New York attitudes toward natural gas development and life in my neck of the woods, two hours from Manhattan. Not much has changed!
Our late friend Nick Grealy, on occasion, used the following neat graphic from the New Yorker to illustrate how Manhattanites typically look at any place west of the Hudson – with disdain, as if it didn’t exist and certainly wasn’t worth worrying about. It’s the “flyover country,” a pejorative term intended to convey their own sense of superiority; a not so subtle form of condescension which accounts for so much of the antipathy and mistrust between rural and urban.
That condescending attitude isn’t confined to Manhattan, though. From New Paltz or so south, it seems to extend to the boundaries of the Hudson River watershed including significant parts of Orange and Ulster Counties, for example. No further proof is needed than a column that appeared in the Middletown Times-Herald-Record yesterday.
Here’s the full piece (emphasis added):
When Southern Tier towns threatened to secede and join Pennsylvania, where they could frack in freedom, the response was sympathetic. After all, on one day last December the region had to absorb two pieces of bad news from Albany — the fracking ban and a rejection of a casino license application. No wonder they were upset. Just leave them alone for a while, the thinking went, let them work through this and pretty soon we’ll all get along as if none of it had happened.
I think that was a big mistake. We should have let them try to leave.
If the only things they have going for them economically are a few longshot chances for others to bail them out, then they’re not likely to be much of an asset for the rest of us.
Instead of letting them stew and then letting them know that they were still a part of the family, we should have taken them at their word.
You want to secede? Take a look at the map and you’ll see that you don’t have much choice. It’s either Pennsylvania or us, and you probably should have done a bit of research before you started making threats.
Sure, Pennsylvania will let you frack, but that’s about it. Glance at some of those state-by-state rankings and you’ll figure out pretty soon that there’s not much of a future for you once you cross that border.
CNBC did a survey of state economies and found that while the cost of living in New York is higher, we have a stronger economy and better quality of life than Pennsylvania. Even more daunting were some things researchers for the business and technology web site Business Insider put together. New York has the highest average wage among all the states, while Pennsylvania is in the middle of the pack. We’re adding jobs, while Pennsylvania is losing them. And JP Morgan Chase is predicting that New York’s economy is speeding up. Pennsylvania has just about maxed out any benefits from all that fracking, while the bills for damage to the infrastructure and environment are about to start coming due.
I suppose we’ll have to keep the Southern Tier now, even though there was not much of a chance that it would get permission to go away. So we have to decide if we are going to keep on being polite, pretending that this never happened, or expect something in return. By their own admission, they were pretty desperate to leave, so there’s not much they can offer. If they think their tantrum is going to raise their profile, luring more tourists and visitors, they are mistaken.
Have you been to Binghamton lately? Or Olean?
Of course not. Except for a few college kids, nobody goes there who doesn’t have to. You probably have not even driven through on the way to anywhere else because they are lots of better ways to get where you really want to be.
The column is obviously intended to be offensive for the purposes of provoking interest and readership, and it was successful in that. That’s no surprise because the author knows how to offend and how to sell papers. He’s Ken Hall, the former Editorial Page Editor of the Times-Herald-Record, which tells us exactly what the Ottaway newspaper chain thinks of many of its readers and their hometowns. It views them as boors, hicks and rubes and considers anything west of Middletown (until one crosses the Sierra-Nevadas) as banjo-playing, stump-jumping territory. Ken Hall is “Mr. Condescension,” in fact, and revels in the self-satisfaction of knowing just how good he is.
Playing his attention-grabbing game is a frustrating thing, but as is often the case with these types of maneuvers, is still necessary because he says so much that isn’t true, beginning with his wholly speculative comment about “bills for damage to the infrastructure and environment…about to start coming due.”
Let’s also consider his claim New York has the stronger economy. He relies upon a CNBC survey that rates the states based on an arbitrary weighting formula. Both states end up toward the bottom of the heap, which is hardly a surprise, given the high taxes prevalent throughout most of the Northeast. Even so, New York rates dead last (that’s No. 50 out of 50 for those of you who live in Soho and do art for a living with paycheck from your trust fund) in both the “cost of doing business” and the “cost of living.” Unfortunately, the latter only accounts for only 50 points on the rating scale and the nebulous “quality of life” is weighted at six times that or 300 points…
It isn’t the overall performance of the state that matters most, though. Rather, it’s how regions with and without natural gas development are doing and, on that score there’s no comparison. We’ve documented that case over and over again, noting how the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania is outperforming the Southern Tier of New York in virtually every economic category. Here are some of our favorite charts from earlier posts (click on the charts for links to the stories where each may be found):
How Susquehanna County (PA) moved ahead of Sullivan County (NY), only 20 miles away, with gas drilling.
How Bradford County (PA) did with its payroll versus adjoining Tioga County (NY) with gas drilling and without it, respectively.
How Susquehanna County (PA) has now bested adjoining Broome County (NY) in average weekly wages, with gas drilling.
How Bradford and Susquehanna Counties in PA turned it around economically with fracking while the Southern Tier suffered.
Pretty stark contrasts, aren’t they? Ken Hall, though, couldn’t care less. Why? Because, he has his nose so far up in the air he’s smelling space shuttle exhaust. That’s what his post is all about. While we know he probably exaggerated for effect, he clearly hates upstaters and considers them beneath him, revealing the condescension at the very heart of so much the New York fractivist opposition. His piece pulsates with booming statements of scorn:
“We should have let them try to leave…”
“…they’re not likely to be much of an asset for the rest of us”
“…there’s not much they can offer”
“Have you been to Binghamton lately? Or Olean?”
“…nobody goes there who doesn’t have to”
“…[there] are lots of better ways to get where you really want to be”
That’s about as ugly as an ugly New Yorker can get and it’s intentional. What makes it all the more remarkable is that, if you read many Ken Hall’s voluminous writings or the editorial pages of the far left Times-Herald-Record under his reign you realize part of his persona is an absolute conviction he’s, not only one of the smartest guys around, but also one of the most compassionate. His compassion doesn’t extend to the residents of the Southern Tier, though, or their economic situation. That, in his warped mind, is to be blamed on the fact the stupid dolts choose to live there. After all, they reject his politics and the beautiful, albeit high cost, world he’s helped create for them in his New York.
And, he really does think it’s his New York. The only question in his mind is what usefulness these serfs might have to him. He cares not a whit what their needs or wants might be; it’s all about him and the other noblemen from the Hudson Valley and Manhattan. One can imagine what he really thinks: “Those Southern Tier simpletons are so damned annoying. Why can’t they just shut up and and accept the fact they need us more than we need them? Don’t they realize what we’re doing for them? What a bunch unappreciative airheads! Let them eat cake!”
Update: The charts are now old, of course, but that misses the point, which is that they show what fracking did for Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier counties as condescending New York metro area residents condemned their Southern Tier counties to stagnation at best.
#NewYork #Pennsylvania #Fracking