any place north of Freeport

Total outsider here. I thought there was the 5 boroughs and Long Island. Everything else is upstate. Sure you can have Western NY and all that, but it's still upstate. Never knew much about Westchester before, but if you want to be more cosmopolitan then who am i to argue? I consider "going into the city" meaning into NYC. But to someone from NJ, LI or one or the other boroughs the city would be Manhattan.

"...any place north of Freeport"

Now that's funny :))

Do *upstate* folks every refer to people as living *downstate"? Just wondering :D

Upstate:
Albany, Syracuse, Ithaca, Rochester Buffalo

Syracuse is Central New York. Buffalo is Western. Oswego, Watertown, etc.is Upstate.

I was born and raised in Utica. If I was trying to be specific about its location, I'd say "central" NY, since most people I spoke to considered anything from Buffalo to Albany "upstate".

Yes, those of us who are upstate do refer to "downstate." (Westchester County, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, the Catskill Mtn region all come to mind.)

I don't think the whole eastern, western, central thing is the same as upstate/downstate. It's like some new-fangled way to describe places in NYS. Sounds like a weather report or something.

We referenced Binghamton as the "southern tier", and anything south of Albany as "downstate" or "down by NYC".....

I live in the Albany area and consider anything north of White Plains to be "Upstate, The Other New York"

I think that NYC is so not a part of the state that it should be taken over by the federal government and then it could become New York, District of Columbia so it could stop sucking the rest of the state dry.

When I was a student at Syracuse, the NYC crowd all referred to the area as "upstate." The western, eastern, central, etc. descriptions had not come into vogue. Their view of "upstate" was basically anything in NYState that was not within commuting reach of The City (with the exception of the Hamptons at the end of Long Island).

I live in Lake Placid, born and raised, and consider pretty much anything north of Albany as upstate. Syracause area is central, and Rochester, Buffalo is western. NYC, I just call that the city.

oops, I meant Syracuse.

Peterboy -

Sorry - your math is a litle confused. NYC doesn't suck the state dry. It's the other way around. Tax money from NYC supports the rest of the state via tax money into Albany (as well as 5 or 6 other states as well - including Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and several other states that are absolute debtors - via the federal government)

And I think most people in the city recognize that it is reasonable to expect us - since our average incomes are so much higher - to help support the poorer areas upstate. But the wheel has spun so far that the state's highest court has mandated that the legislature completely revamp the way Albany supoorts local school systems - to return to the the city some of the hundreds of millions of dollars per year that were sent unfairly to schools upstate.

(While it is true that the average income in the city is almost 3 times that of upstate - there are still a huge number of middle class, working class and even poor people in the city - and it's not far that their children do without to give so much extra to the children of upstaters.)

I grew up a few miles north of Westchester and at the time never considered it to be "Upstate". Now that I'm in Brooklyn, I have to tell people I'm from Upstate though...because no one seems to know where Putnam County is. Sometimes I'll just say I grew up in Westchester.

Perhaps you're right nytraveler but folks up here have had their land taken over and had towns moved just to make room for reservoirs to provide your city with water whether they liked it or not.

Oh and gee thanks for looking down your nose at us poor "Upstaters" and saving us with your higher incomes.

The classic "city" attitude us bumpkins find so unnatractive.

nytraveler, we have the same system down here, we call it "Robin Hood". I live in Plano, a fairly affluent city by Texas standards and we send our tax dollars to Austin where it's distributed to poorer counties. Our legislature is trying to devise a more equitable system but so far nothing except for a proposal for Heaven Forbid a state income tax dedicated to the education system. But knowing politicians it would be pissed away to "balance the budget" in other areas. One saving grace, our legislature meets every 2 years for 6 months so it takes awhile for them to screw things up.

Living in the Finger Lakes, growing up outside Binghamton (go Endwell!!) -- I think of anything north of Westchester "Upstate". Then you can divide "Upstate" into many different regions -- Western, Central, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, Catskills, Adirondacks, etc.

As far as the NYC/Upstate debate that has been going on -- we both depend on each other. Tourism is the #1 industry in NY state, agriculture is #2. Both areas contribute in their own way.

Just wanted to clarify my geography -- I grew up in Binghamton (Southern Tier) and now live in the Finger Lakes region.

Also, if someone from outside NY (say, Texas) were to ask me where I live, I say "Upstate" NY, to immediately clear up I don't live in the city. If someone from NY asks me where I live, I'll give the specific geographical region.

as an "Albanian", I would describe as the following:

downstate - Kingston and down

upstate - Hudson Valley through Albany up to Canada Border

central - binghamton area

western - utica and west to Buffalo

Radiofanatic, Utica as western and Binghamton as central???? Although I shouldn't talk - I consider anything south of Albany as "down by NYC".