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[QUOTE="shantydaze, post: 2583568, member: 666"]
As an outsider, I probably do not have much to add. My residency in New York STATE (sorry, didn't mean to shout the last word, but I find that here in the Midwest, I need to make this distinction very clear) was limited to my three years on the Hill.

I have noticed that my description of New York State has developed over the years. When I discussed my impending academic pursuits at SU, I would tell people it was in "Upstate New York" when trying to explain why I was not concerned about living in such a big city as NYC and the crime there. On one occasion, I had to break it down for a friend's mom, specifically that Syracuse was further away from NYC than my small hometown in Wisconsin was from Chicago and the quickest route from Syracuse to NYC was through two other states.

I once made the mistake of responding to a question of why I wanted to go to Syracuse as opposed to other schools was because I had never lived on the "East Coast". I was quickly and aggressively corrected that Syracuse was not part of the East Coast geographical region. I am not sure where that line is, but apparently it is not simply a state bordering the Atlantic Ocean. I have never had a problem using "Northeast U.S." for designating Syracuse, however.

Now, when explaining to people where my wife is from and where I have to travel a couple of times a year, I use "Central New York". It feels like it is more specific than Upstate New York, which because of movies and television shows seems to invoke images of a bed and breakfast or small cabins around a lake surrounded by mountains.
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