From a reader, this commiseraton. George Pataki, call your office.

Peter,

I saw your post on the Corner regarding the Upstate NY phenomena and thought I would add my 2 cents….
I grew up in central New Jersey, within the orbit of NY City and was a regular reader of the NY Times, but my family was from the southern
tier- Kirkwood, Binghamton, Appalachin- so it was basically my 2nd home..I was shocked by the condition of Binghamton when I returned there after an absence of many years, it looked like Escape from New York. When I was last there 2 years ago for my mother’s funeral, I noticed that there it appeared there hadn’t been any new houses constructed within the last 20 years and the only new commercial construction was Home Depot and gas stations- Court Street looked like it hadn’t been repaired for that long..
You are right, the upstate workforce is well educated, there are a number of excellent universities…. the basics are there but until the political leadership of that area changes from being self-satisfied rulers of their small, declining fiefdoms looking to Albany to change their lives to something more forward-working it will always be the same.