ObjectivesThe Past Is Future
Introduction – Decline…and Revival…in Upstate New YorkCase Study – Quality of Life in Hamlets, Villages, Towns and Cities

In 1971, Edmund Wilson, the noted American author and literary critic, offered an eloquent elegy to the world of Upstate as he had experienced it, from childhood to old age in his book Upstate New York, Records and Recollections of Northern New York.

It was centered on Talcottville, New York, a mere hamlet in the foothills of the Adirondacks, a place where a secondary highway and a county road crossed (if you were paying attention) and a river ran by, with a picture-perfect waterfall barely a short stone’s throw from Wilson’s home. The hamlet and its surrounding area, where he had spent summers as a child and then somewhat more often as an adult, were, to him, a microcosm of a larger world. Talcottville lay on the route from urban Utica to the wilderness of the Adirondacks, a seemingly idyllic locale to have spent one’s young summers…but now changing, perhaps even crumbling at the edges or at its core, at least in his view.

The tales he told were lyrical, endearing, often amusing. There were accounts of dear but cranky neighbors with whom he spent time when in Talcottville, at home and out exploring the neighborhood, listening to their stories of a more-glorious past. There were lush descriptions of the nature that surrounded him, rich and colorful in all seasons, forays he made with those same dear but cranky neighbors into the countryside and to nearby towns and cities, even just the views he enjoyed from the windows and backyard of his stone house.

I like the feeling that I am occupying the largest and most distinguished house in the town - though the population of Talcottville is now hardly more than 80 people, that everybody knows me and takes me for granted - that I can say or do whatever I please, with the town at my door and all about me. At night we can sit on the porch and talk while the village people pass

Upstate / Wilson / p 96

Unlike what Wilson wrote in 1971 as an elegy to Upstate New York, with a glorious past but in decline, agriculture, technology, and education are now in the present day very much alive and doing quite well. A surprise to behold, in fact.

This was an Upstate that I had never thought would resurrect itself…and in so many facets it already had. The next question, obviously, was why. What had initiated this change and what was sustaining it? There seemed to be disparate development strains at work and yet all were converging to produce a reinvigorating force all across Upstate. What lay behind this widespread movement?

If rebirth and renewal were truly underway in Upstate, a book that appeared in 2024, On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America provided surprising insight. Based on events already transpiring in other parts of the United States, the observations gave me pause: suddenly many puzzle pieces in Upstate were beginning to fall into place and solidly so.

Climate change alone is not the sole factor energizing the Upstate turnaround.  It is a necessary component just as the warm weather (and economic incentives) a century back proved a siren call to drive migration southward in the United States, for industrial development and retirement living.

Turning the temperature on its head, as global warming has begun to do, alters the quality of life and the quality of work in the South and Southwest.  More northern climes with ever-milder winters and quite tolerable summers gradually become more appealing for future economic growth and population migration.  Apart from weather, the conditions favoring industry include natural resources (water), lower energy costs (often alternative such as hydro, wind, solar), affordable housing and plentiful educational resources (for a future-oriented work force).

From my travels around the region, I could see that this shift was not just a hypothetical – it was already in the making, it was underway.

Quality of life depends on many factors.  Diverse employment opportunities, sound jobs, availability of affordable housing and nearby recreation all factor into the determination of where people want to live.  Layer that on top of an increasingly amenable climate, one that attracts industry and people, and Upstate looks up…reliably so and well into the future.

The many bread crumbs I came across in my reading and my travels seemed to represent not disparate elements but one recently baked and very impressive loaf.  Yet when I presented much of what I had observed to people living in Upstate, I initially encountered hesitation, followed by disbelief….and finally amazement.  How could so much (good) have been happening without anyone taking notice?

Wilson enjoyed his neighbors, near and not-so-nearby, for their stories, their problems, their insight on what was transpiring in the area and their companionship for outings.  One of his explorations was to a hamlet in the foothills of the Adirondacks, Sodom, in fact one of several hamlets called Sodom in New York State. Spreading sin around the state, one might speculate.  But he was only aware at the time of his own nearby Sodom that he was intent on visiting:

Expedition to Sodom.  I’d always been curious about this place, which I only knew from its name on the map-how it came to be called Sodom and how the inhabitants feel about that.  I assume that, like the other names in this region, Carthage, Rome, Utica and Ithaca, Tyre, Poland, Denmark, Copenhagen, Russia, Peru, etc., it had simply been picked at random by the early, ignorant settlers, who ran through atlases, classical dictionaries and Bibles.  They thought that Sodom must be all right because it occurred in the Bible.  These names I have always found irritating-the Indian names, if you know what they mean, have always some geographical appropriateness.

Upstate / Wilson / p 310

In fact, Sodom is no more than a hamlet where 3 country roads meet, Peaceful Valley Road, Sodom Cross Road and Back to Sodom Road.  The solemn meeting of these three roads is anchored by a primary school, a cemetery and a sign post, nothing more.  And not a hint of sin in the air or on the ground.  Except perhaps in the tales not told by those inhabiting the small cemetery, with a few headstones, some leaning, some tilting, some with barely legible inscriptions, but all secure in the ground as are those they memorialize.

In the back of his mind, along those lines, must have been a question as to whether there was a Gomorrah.  He made no mention of it and in fact, by the state road gazetteer I studied, there is no such place.  I checked.  If he had not made that exploration, I certainly would have set out to do that, to satisfy my own curiosity.

But he had heard of a place that more accurately represented Sodom and sin:

Morris Bishop at Cornell later told me that Ithaca used to be known as Sodom when there was an army post near there and this was where the soldiers went for their drinking and whoring

Upstate / Wilson / p 310

The truth was that Sodom was the actual name given to a rough-and-tumble settlement by Cayuga Lake in the early 1800s, future home to a distinguished university.  Originally a village of a few hundred, given to the activities of the day such as fights, drunkenness, misbehavior of all sorts, in a word general wickedness, it was formally renamed Ithaca by the state surveyor in 1817.  History does not indicate why.  Perhaps the surveyor wanted to gloss over its past, a form of civic improvement at no cost.

I had the feeling that it was folly to look specifically for sin today in a city like Ithaca.  Until I reached the dignified and magnificently restored theater in the center of town, where, quietly nestled next to the State Theater was a brightly lit storefront proclaiming Adult Outlet.

Clearly, sin was alive and well in Ithaca.  Not Sodom, not Gomorrah, but by another name, Ithaca, still there, front and center, sin in plain view.  That undistinguished generically unadorned adult bookstore / entertainment center huddled next to a magnificently restored vintage theater, an active cultural center for Ithaca.