Perhaps Biden can be forgiven this one—but here’s a handy cheat sheet for him
Practically everybody confuses New Hampshire with Vermont.
As did Joe Biden, as one might expect:
Former Vice President Joe Biden mistakenly praised the state of Vermont on Saturday when asked about his impression of Keene, N.H., by reporters during a press gaggle.
Video of the exchange shows Biden remarking about Vermont’s “beauty” after an unseen reporter asks him for his “impression” of the town, which is located in southwestern New Hampshire, close to the state’s border with Vermont.
It’s actually not all that close by New Hampshire/Vermont standards, but I’ll let that pass.
People put the two states into the same category: thinnish and New Englandy. And that they are. But they are not similar. Here are some handy hints:
—Vermont is the socialist state. New Hampshire is the somewhat-libertarian (at least, it used to be) state.
—Vermont is very rural. New Hampshire not so much.
—Vermont has been invaded by New Yorkers, New Hampshire by Massachusetts people.
—Vermont is landlocked. New Hampshire has a seacoast.
—Vermont is one of the bluest states in the nation, perhaps the bluest. New Hampshire is trending blue but is still purple.
In both states, most of the population lives in the countryside (or, on occasion, in little service villages). There are three cities. The densely settled area around Burlington accounts for about 14% of the population of Vermont. That around Manchester and Nashua accounts for about 16% of the population of New Hampshire. Burlington aside, Vermont has one substantial town – Rutland, around which live about 16,000 people – and a half-dozen or so smaller centers (Brattleboro, Bennington, Barre, Montpelier, St. Albans, and Newport). Maybe 10% of the population lives in the densely settled portions of these towns. New Hampshire has 11 towns which have between 11,000 and 23,000 in their densely settled portions and a similar number between 2,400 and 11,000 in population.
Purplish? You need to build a wall.
Vermont has more cows than people.
“Vermont has been invaded by New Yorkers, New Hampshire by Massachusetts people.”
BOTH tax refugees from their home states, that seem to have brought their
“lifestyle” luggage with them.
North and west of the seacoast and Manchester/Concord, NH is pretty blessed rural.
NH is certainly VERY rural north of the notch.
NH is certainly VERY rural north of the notch.
Like Maine and Alaska. Swaths of territory in which there’s no organized local government because hardly anyone lives there. You have a township sized piece of land and the population consists of 3 people in a cabin.
Art Deco:
Not sure where you are getting your urban-to-rural breakdown. But using urban/rural figures for each state, compiled by Iowa state, I get around 60% urban for NH and 38% urban for Vermont. (I’m on my phone now and don’t know how to do links on a phone, or I’d give you the link.) In addition, NH has a far larger population than VT, although of course both are small compared to most states. Also, NH has MUCH bigger cities than Vermont. Low-tax NH is far friendlier to business as well.
“Vermont has more cows than people.”
Iowa has more hogs than people. Probably chickens too, but that doesn’t sound quite as bad.
My view of NH and VT is Wild Cat mountain, Mad River Glenn, and Mt. Mansfield. Oh yeah, and Putney mountain that I once bicycled over before the days of mountain bikes.
Not sure where you are getting your urban-to-rural breakdown.
From the Census Bureau data on block group populations and areas. I’m looking just at agglomerations of block groups wherein each block group has one of the following properties:
1. A population density > 1,000 persons per sq. mile;
2. Less dense, but Is completely surrounded by such block groups; or
3. Less dense, but is hemmed in between such block groups on one side and water, parkland, or the state border on the other.
Block groups vary in population but typically contain about 1,400 persons.
Also, NH has MUCH bigger cities than Vermont. Low-tax NH is far friendlier to business as well.
All four agglomerations in northern New England (Burlington, Nashua, Manchester, Portland) are about the same size: 90,000 to 120,000. Like Utica and Binghamton in New York, Fall River and New Bedford in Massachusetts, Erie in Penna).
physicsguy:
See my comment above this one. Also, I wrote that Vermont is VERY rural, and NH not so much. That latter statement doesn’t mean NH lacks rural areas. It simply means it’s less rural than VT.
Wish I could link to that Iowa State chart, but I can’t at the moment. It has the urban/rural breakdown of the population of each state. VT is the most rural state in the US, according to the chart. NH, on the other hand, is much more urban, although certainly not highly urbanized. It has figures typical of many states in the South and Midwest.
Art Deco; et al:
List of northern New England cities—
Nh is head and shoulders above the rest. We are not talking about the southern tier of Mass, Conn, or RI . But among NH, ME, and VT, it’s NH that has the cities. Manchester at 109K. Nashua at 86K. Portland ME at 66K is sandwiched in there. NH also has Concord at 42K, Derry at 33K, Dover at 29K, Rochester the same, and several others in that ballpark. Contrast with VT. Burlington at 42K and South Burlington at 17K. Then Rutland at 16K, Barre at 9K, and a few in the 7K range. NH presents a relatively urban contrast to both Maine and VT. Also, the population of NH is approximately twice that of VT
VT is the most rural state in the US, according to the chart.
I suspect your Iowa chart is making use of more relaxed boundary conditions than I prefer. The Census Bureau’s fave is the ‘Metropolitan Statistical Area’, which is derived from survey’s on commuting patterns. They adopted the ‘urbanized area’ as a unit to consider around 1990, then relaxed the boundary conditions to 500 persons per sq. mile. The Census Bureau has long favored an agglomerated population of 2,500 as the urban-rural boundary. In defining their Standard Metropolitan Areas, they once required a core of 50,000, but later relaxed the standard. Urban geographers classify settlements according to available functions, which in turn require critical masses of persons and purchasing power.
Vermont is unusual in that it’s pure countryside, for the most part, with few small towns. Other states (Maine, West Virginia, Mississippi) are as bereft of a city population, but have more small towns.
Nh is head and shoulders above the rest. We are not talking about the southern tier of Mass, Conn, or RI . But among NH, ME, and VT, it’s NH that has the cities. Manchester at 109K. Nashua at 86K. Portland ME at 66K is sandwiched in there. NH also has Concord at 42K, Derry at 33K, Dover at 29K, Rochester the same, and several others in that ballpark. Contrast with VT. Burlington at 42K and South Burlington at 17K. Then Rutland at 16K, Barre at 9K, and a few in the 7K range. NH presents a relatively urban contrast to both Maine and VT. Also, the population of NH is approximately twice that of VT
Those are the populations within administrative boundaries, not populations for agglomerated settlements. I grew up in a burg which has 210,000 within the municipal boundary, but 600,000 in those living in tract development. Again, the agglomeration of Census block groups, irrespective of municipal boundaries for NH is as follows:
manchester: 116,500
nashua: 94,500
derry: 22,500
portsmouth: 19,500
salem: 19,200
dover: 18,700
concord: 16,600
merrimack: 15,700
keene: 13,200
hampton: 13,000
rochester: 12,400
laconia: 11,100
durham: 11,000
Using the same boundary conditions for greater Burlington, you delineate a settlement of ~90,000 people. For Portland, IIRC it’s ~100,000. You don’t have the larger towns in Vermont, Rutland the exception. In Maine, you have Lewiston (~42,000), Bangor (~30,000), a daisy chain in York County (~27,000), and Waterville (~12,000, IIRC).
This is far from the first example of politicians misnaming the place where they have been for the last hour. While making a campaign stop at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, John Kerry called it “Lambert Field.” Apparently Kerry had previously called it “Lambeau Field,” so this appears to be just a case of misspeaking.
For a more egregious example, consider Barack Obama, who in an interview with Bob Costas, presented himself as a big fan of the White Sox, who, like Obama, resided on the South Side of Chicago. After living in Chicago for two decades, one would hope that Obama would have the former home of the White Sox well-memorized. Not so.Kaminsky Field? Oh you meant Comiskey Park.
Only a dozen miles from Keene to Vermont? Perhaps Biden should stick to campaigning in Texas, where one can travel 879 miles in Texas from the New Mexico line to the Louisiana line. Hard to make a mistake on the wrong state in those circumstances. Butch Hancock, one of the prides of Lubbock, so informs us, in his song “Two Roads.”
Coincidentally, my brother has in-laws in Keene and deceased in-laws who lived in Keene. I have gone to a family reunion on the Connecticut River on the New Hampshire side, across from Vermont.
Neo, I was just trying to point out that northern NH is rural, and has a character much different from the more populous southern NH. Our friends from northern NH frequently call the downstaters “flatlanders”. Can’t repeat what they call people from Massachusetts.
Biden has a campaign staff, presumably. They know he’s not all there. Like going to the doctor for that stupid Medicare dementia questionnaire, someone needs to remind him what day it is and where he is right before he goes out in public.
Biden is himself from a tiny state. One would think he’d be more aware of the small-state issue.
The sun has riz
The sun has set
And we still is in Texas yet
Burma Shave
Vermont has more hippies, old and young, than New Hampshire. I’m told more guns too.
To those outside New England, and southwestern CT, it’s all one thing: New England.
Biden’s just doing a Spinal Tap reference – Hello Vermont!!!!
Biden is a complete embarrassment in every single way. I hope the Dems nominate him as Trump will crush him.
Can anyone really imagine him as President, Commander-in-Chief and Leader of the Free World?
Cornhead on August 27, 2019 at 6:40 pm said:
Biden is a complete embarrassment in every single way. I hope the Dems nominate him as Trump will crush him.
Can anyone really imagine him as President, Commander-in-Chief and Leader of the Free World?
* * *
He would be the same kind of figure-head that Hillary would have been, doing what their handlers told them to, and being covered for by the Democrat-party Media.
AesopFan:
That describes almost all the candidates they’ve had on that side: They’d all functionally serve as figureheads and ciphers for Democratic Party Orthodoxy, with the exception of four: Sanders, Gabbard, Williamson, and Bloomberg.
The Democratic “establishment” exists to implement a policy of “Oligarchic Crony-Capitalism for me, Impoverishing Doctrinaire Leftism for thee.” It evolved to that point via the natural selection of crowd dynamics, which favors those who mouth leftist platitudes but retain sufficiently-large personal fortunes to provide “pull” and offer sinecures.
They don’t want Sanders because his policy is just “Doctrinaire Leftism for Everyone.” He’s a true believer, and they aren’t. They’ve no interest in being impoverished along with all the hoi polloi. (“Rules are for the little people.”)
They don’t want Gabbard because she makes them look bad when they stand next to her. I don’t just mean that she’s relatively pretty and youthful, which are attributes missing in most Leftist women. I mostly mean that she lacks visible haughtiness, seems to have integrity and doesn’t seem to despise conservatives. These are her distinctives, and they not only mark her as being “outside their tribe,” but the contrast helps to call attention to their haughtiness, craven falsity, and seething hatred.
They don’t want Williamson because, well, bless her heart.
And as for Bloomberg?
They do want Bloomberg, and for good reason. He, too, believes in “Oligarchic Crony-Capitalism for me, Impoverishing Doctrinaire Leftism for thee.” He’s perfectly willing to regulate the lives of the hoi polloi in miniscule detail while letting the good times roll for his allies and hangers-on.
He has the money, and thus the power, to not be a figurehead or cipher. If he had a different personality or history, that would make him dangerous to the Democratic Establishment. But it doesn’t worry them because he’s a proven, known quantity. Someone like Yang or Steyer might “attempt to grow a brain”; i.e., he might get funny ideas and wander off the reservation. But Bloomberg is a left-of-center oligarch through-and-through.