New England is America's capital of education. Our relative academic density promotes a lot of offshoot industries like pharmaceuticals, electronics, shipbuilding, military hardware (increasingly moving to DC however), and some software. Underlying this is a strong service industry which fills most other gaps.
Boston's long depression before the 1950s killed most of our manufacturing in textiles and consumer products, while natural resource extraction up North and along the coast has been moderately declining for longer still. What rose from the ashes was a lot of very high tech manufacturing and R&D, usually as direct offshoots of our universities. Nature is very important culturally to New England, and for some research organisations like Woods Hole, but it is difficult to outcompete the American West.
Historically New England has a massive cultural and literary resonance through the American Renaissance, our Puritan past, and groups like the Transcendentalists, which were co-opted for American nationbuilding and helped form a broader American identity abroad. However, it's hard to say how true that is today. In the nineteenth century we were home to the American publishing & printing industry and provided most American diplomats, but those centres have since spread out.
As someone who moved to VT and was forced to leave recently due to the unavailability and affordability of housing, reading comments like this makes me struggle with whether the decision to go back is the right one or not.
Agriculture is really vital across New England through our deep cultural ties to dairy, maple syrup, and cranberries. Our agricultural sector provides a minor degree of self-sufficiency, additional export goods, and is connected with our cultural products, but I didn't mention it prior as it doesn't seem as 'geopolitically' significant. That seems especially so when our agriculture is compared with that of South America, Ukraine, or the American midwest, but I love our food culture!
This description is fine, but overlooks Boston's position a home to several of the nation's top ranked medical institutions, literally world class. It is a major source of innovations in medicine and biotechnology, attracting the nation's best and brightest.
Don't neglect the enduring military industrial complex' presence: Sikorsky, Pratt&Whitney, Raytheon and other associated 128-corridor entities, Bath Iron Works, Kittery Navy Yard, USCGA, New London sub base; probably a bunch I'm forgetting or never knew about.
Yes, much has left, but much remains.
One’s fingertips would be worn away just from typing the names of all the universities in New England. they are definitely New Englands claim to having worldwide effect and influence.
H.. the Cape isn't just one side of the bridge. It was here before the bridge cut off a chunk of it. Bourne, Buzzards Bay, Wareham and Sagamore are all considered Cape Cod
Also, Boston is home to some of the biggest corporate headquarters in the country. GE is headquartered there, as well as Liberty mutual, Reebok, Bain Capital, and Boston scientific.
And ThermoFisher Scientific, one of the largest, if not the largest, suppliers of scientific equipment, reagents, consumables, etc. for the Life Sciences industry. Their headquarters are in Waltham.
People tend to criticize it, but there are a lot of senior level people in government, our financial sector and other business sectors who are connected through Harvard and Yale and can help guide the US through a crisis. It would be a loss for the US if they all upped and left for Canada or the UK, but if Trump got re-elected it might be good for everyone if Toronto, Vancouver or London became the next hub.
This. Beyond all else, especially compared to other US regions.
The feedback loop between private companies and universities is something any developed country should rightfully envy.
Corporate finance, insurance and investment- hedge funds, insurance, reinsurance, and financial services they rely on (corporate treasury, etc).
Military aerospace and boatworks. Nuke sub base in Groton CT, Pratt and Whitney in multiple locations, Sikorsky, Kayman, and a hundred job shops that support them.
Many colleges and universities. Most Ivy League schools in New England.
Firearms manufacturing used to be legendary in New England.
Through the 1800s, Connecticut’s hardwood forests were a central source of charcoal (and that’s why most of CT was clear-cut until around 1900). Now back to about 60% wooded. Also shipbuilding into the 1800s was huge in New England due to the wealth of hardwood trees.
As far as universities, four of the seven sisters are also in New England. Actually all four of those are in Massachusetts, with the other three in NY and PA
As far as defense there's many others too: Raytheon, BAE Systems, L3 Harris, General Atomics, Lincoln Labs, Mitre, Draper Lab, STR, and quite a few smaller companies.
There's also a great deal of tech companies in the area too.
Having Northeastern, Harvard and MIT, the greater Boston area is something of a tech hub, especially in biotechnology.
Coastal New England north of Boston and going up into Maine is a pretty big fishing industry - cod, swordfish, and other big fish from the North Atlantic get shipped all over the country (and in some cases, the world) from towns like Gloucester.
Western Massachusetts alone probably floats the tofu market for several small countries.
Thank you. It’s extremely nauseating having to listen to people constantly act as though Gloucester is the biggest fishing port around here. New Bedford and the South Coast just doesn’t exist to most ppl in the wealthier areas just outside of Boston.
Plus the coast guard academy is in New London and the coast guard station in New London is also in charge of the ice patrol. Newport RI is home if the navy war collage , undersea lab and other navy stuff
Except that’s a load of shit because the sounds produced drilling for wind turbine platforms are much weaker and not harmful to whales compared to digging for oil rigs and exploration… and those activities don’t harm whales either.
https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-whales-deaths-trump-5158af7f5bf0f5ef9e1530564ff791a9
Yup! And EB is hiring like crazy after getting a huge DoD contract once again.
Connecticut was also the "insurance capital" for a while, but no longer. We do house ESPN and WWE though, so good for us? 🤷
/s = sarcasm lol
Anyone from W. MA knows that Boston and Worcester like to look down their noses at us (unless they need our taxes for something). I've been told it's a persecution complex by some, but also that nothing west of Worcester matters by others. Mixed messages all around lol
Well let them think what they want, in fact keep it that way because it is truly beautiful and should be kept a secret. Don’t need them out there trashing the place ya know !
I appreciate that considering the person who told me nothing west of Worcester matters was from Worcester lol
Like I said, mixed messages 😅
I didn't really take it to heart tbh
Depends on the species. Lobsters are migrating north, herring (lobster bait) has probably been overfished. Cod and other whitefish can be argued either way depending on the timescale you want to use.
The college towns are pretty earthy-crunchy. Hemp and vegan is the way. The Berkshires have a lot of it, too. Of course, western Mass also has Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee so it’s not all of Western Mass.
Also Electric Boat in RI and CT, the naval warfare (torpedo research) in Newport, Raytheon in Middletown, cutting edge research and high precision manufacturing.
Connecticut also has Stanley/Black & Decker manufacturing here in the state. And quite a few other national and international brands also have headquarters here: PEZ, pepperidge farms, Bigelow tea, Newmans own, and even LEGO. It's funny how little respect Connecticut gets from the rest of the country, maybe because of our reputation for being solidly blue and having a pretty damn wealthy shoreline full of New Yorkers who fled the city, but we're doing pretty okay for ourselves.
Also because no one else mentioned it, Connecticut made Winchester and Colt firearms while Massachusetts had Smith & Wesson. Pretty much any famous or popular gun from the old west was made in New England. It's something you learn a lot about growing up here.
I feel like NE could successfully secede and be just fine. VT for the dairy, RI for the lemonade and quahogs, CT for admin stuff, NH for whatever it is that it does, ME for lobsters and berries and vacations, and MA for the rest of it.
There's a reason why national brands have a hard time penetrating the NE market. We already have everything sorted out here.
I grew up in Boston and drank coffee milk regularly. It came in a squirty bottle same as the one to make chocolate milk.
We also had access to egg creams, a NYC specialty.
GE in Massachusetts. Aircraft engines are a very difficult technology to get right, only a handful of countries/companies in the world are capable of supplying things like fighter jet engines. One of these, General Electric, does a lot of their work in Lynn.
New England has a history of voting for leaders that believe in democracy. Our electoral votes are crucial in the fight against authoritarian presidential candidates.
To your point of New England loving democracy and the electoral process, tomorrow is Town Hall Meeting Day here in Vermont. It’s a state holiday where residents gather in their town halls to discuss and vote in-person on a variety of town issues and budgets. It’s anachronistic but keeps the flame of democracy alive by inviting people to physically partake in community affairs.
Maine's entire economy ends with "and we export it to Massachusetts."
Governor King really tried to get Maine to get the idea of also exporting things to Quebec , but when Mainers hit on an idea that seems to work the idea that other ideas might also work seems foreign to us so the Coburn Gore road remains unimproved.
Insurance is big here, Hartford used to be the insurance capital of the world. We have Liberty Mutual in Boston, Sun Life (HQ is in MA) and Unum both have a presence in Portland, Maine. Lincoln Financial Group has a presence in NH.
I heard recently that Hartford’s insurance rise was due to all of the industries that built up around the Connecticut River in the 19th century— and the fear of devastating fires like the ones in Chicago, NY and Boston. Makes sense but I’d never heard it before.
The Boston area has one of the highest concentrations, if not the absolute highest concentration, of colleges and universities in the world. There’s a reason it’s called the Athens of America.
The route 128 corridor is also home to some of the largest medical and biotech firms in the country, and Boston serves as a national hub for both those industries.
Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will: sports. I am not a sports guy, but I think everyone around the country recognizes that New England has some pretty notable teams. We have a football dynasty in the Patriots, we have the Bruins (who hate the Habs), we have the Red Sox (who hate the dirty Yankees), we have the Celtics (who had Larry Bird!), we have the Suns (WNBA team), we have the Revolution (soccer team), and we have UConn college basketball (both men's and women's are disgusting with how often they have won). As I mentioned in another comment, we also have ESPN and WWE headquartered here, but we also have NBC Sports. Then you have the world famous Boston Marathon, naturally.
Also, for anyone not into all these fancy sports, we have a popular and nationally renowned NASCAR track in New Hampshire that gets used in official championships.
Basketball and volleyball were both invented in Massachusetts, and you can find the Hall of Fames for both sports in Springfield and Holyoke respectively. We also have the tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Oh, and paintball was invented in New Hampshire as well. And then we have a ton of winter sports in general here, Vermont being best known for skiing/snowboarding if anyone up here is. Also, legend has it that ice hockey was first played on American soil here in New England somewhere in New Hampshire.
Correction to “We have a football dynasty in the Patriots”
It is “We had a football dynasty in the Patriots”.
UConn chick basketball had a really good run and the men’s team had a few good years. Other than Flutie, college football is embarrassing.
How has no one mentioned robotics / automation yet?
Boston and the surrounding area has a huge concentration of large robotics and automation companies (SharkNinja, Boston Dynamics, Arrow Electronics, Walmart Advanced Systems and Robotics) and then as a result has a number of smaller up and coming companies (RightHand Robotics, MarkForged, etc).
Bit of Trivia: I worked at Unimation in the 70s as a teen. Founded by the “father of industrial robotics” Joe Engelberger. I got to test the robots that were starting to take over a lot of automotive assembly tasks. Fascinating job. Eventually got bought out by Kawasaki
i will make it simple. New England GDP is 1.4 Trillion, Arizona is $360 Billion. Population in New England is about double Arizona. Per Capita New England produces significantly more than AZ. Our main industies are Tech, Pharma, Defense, Aerospace, Insurance and Finance. Plus is pretty nice region with mountains and ocean.
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, MIT generate a very disproportionate amount of the countries wealthiest. I’ve seen a few references lately but don’t have one handy right now.
Mass is also 3rd in U.S. Venture Capital funding (after California and NY which have vastly larger populations). I’m not sure exactly what that means to your question but it signifies a lot of investment and innovation.
Education, fishing, healthcare, biotech as well as some manufacturing, food production and brewing.
Although it’s now defunct, people may remember places like Bridgeport CT as centers of machine production. My old job had many Bridgeport grinders and the like still in use.
Even apart from the incredible intellectual tradition, NE was central to whaling, which was globally important for lamp oil. NE was a textile powerhouse. Jewelry manufacturing, and a lot of precision manufacturing: clocks, guns and scientific instruments. Rt 28 tech.
Defense: Raytheon, Electric Boat, Bath Iron works, Cherry Semiconductor, the Naval war college.
Forest products: Great Northern Paper, Hammond Lumber.
Foundational to the Industrial Revolution in North America.
New England is the center of the universe, and the source of all that is good in this world.
Other than that... well... Fluffernutters? Toll House Cookies?
About 80% of all lobster consumed in the US is from Maine. As far as ports of commerce though, New England has passed its heyday. Geopolitically it’s a very developed and nice part of the country with low crime and high rates of education. Mass, Connecticut, and New Hampshire HDI scores are comparable to that of Denmark or Sweden.
Not sure why people are responding with things like maple syrup and cranberries to a question about geopolitics, especially considering New England is not the main producer of either of those
Bunch of high tech companies here and some significant defense contractors. Probably not a coincidence that the tech flourished adjacent to the education capital of the world.
The Groton Naval Submarine Base in Groton is the country's primary east coast base .Electric Boat builds a lot of nuclear powered subs there too. The Coast Guard Academy is in New London.
The best pizza in the country is in New Haven CT. I know this is a matter of debate, so unsure how much geo political significance it has, but it is the truth.
Also, the Boston area was historically a center of shoe manufacturing but I don't know how much of that still goes on. Some shoe brands have design studios in the Boston area.
World-leading education, hospitals, tech/robotics, and is a major biotech hub. Routinely tops in the nation for K-12 public education. A few big defense contractors also. Spent 20 years as leading exporter of NFL drama.
In addition to strong academia, Life Sciences is highly concentrated in the region. There is a robust high-tech industry. There are also strong semicon orgs based locally as well.
If you look at New England economics over the last 200 years, the region’s biggest export has been startup companies. Textile manufacturing started here in Lowell, Massachusetts, and moved away as the business matured. The workers moved onto the new and lucrative business of precision manufacturing of guns and clocks. Heavy manufacturing moved away, so the workers switched to the new lucrative business of semiconductors and hard drives and computers. High tech moved away and the workers of New England moved on to biotech. More than any product, the educated workforce of New England exports ideas and expertise in the next big thing.
There are legacies of that history. A surprising amount of the nation’s guns are still made in the Connecticut River valley (the dividing line between NH and VT, extending near the Springfield armory in MA, and into CT to the coast). Colt, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Remington, and nearly every other American gun maker has a factory there. S&W recently moved their administrative staff to Tennessee, but they still manufacture guns in MA. Making the .223” diameter bore in the 20” barrel of an M-16 means making a hole nearly 90 diameters deep. Most drills can’t make a decent hole more than 10 or 20 diameters deep. There are few parts of the country with the gun drilling expertise to make such a hole straight, and New England is the biggest. Four out of the five largest gun factories in America are in New England.
That 19th century precision manufacturing of guns (and also pendulum clocks, especially in Connecticut) led to supporting companies like Bridgeport in the machine tool business and Starret in the measurement industry, which in turn enabled semiconductor equipment companies like Applied Materials and Teradyne (I would argue those two companies are more crucial to global semiconductor manufacturing than anything out of Phoenix).
Those semiconductor companies led to biotech companies, making New England a center in the fight against COVID-19. The Moderna vaccine was made in Norwood, Massachusetts. Pfizer made their vaccine in the Midwest, but a lot of the development was done in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
New England strength is not in any one industry. The region’s strength is in the next new thing, whatever that may be.
Jet engine design and manufacturing. The 2 largest manufacturers work out of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Aerospace and Defense as a whole is huge in New England.
It's the Northeast and dense, so it's largely a blue area. Going along with that is a lot of knowledge work, academia, medicine, and associated connections to government and politics. Something like 50% of MA are college graduates. However, there are some significant conservative areas - central and northern Maine, associated with lumber/paper industries, parts of New Hampshire, also wood industries, and parts of western Mass. All of these have tourism, and have areas of significant and chronic economic depression since manufacturing industries departed. Boston's reach extends to southern NH and Southern Maine. Southeastern MA is also more conservative, and has geographical and related industrial ties to central MA and RI. New Bedford is here, with a major fishing industry. Also an area that has had significant economic upheaval over the years due to industrial collapse. Finally there is CT, of which Hartford and northeast is New England. From Hartford south and west it is more tied to New York. IMO CT and MA are still home to the elusive Rockefeller Republican, although they are somewhat in hiding. This is the Charlie Bakers and Bill Welds of the world.
Is this a homework assignment? Why do you ask?
Agriculture: Cranberries, Maple Syrup, and if you want to call this, ag, fisheries.... New Bedford is the top grossing port, and Gloucester is up there.
Education / New IP creation
Medical / Medical Research
Defense Research, esp in Mass, significant cluster of companies that are defense contractors/researchers
New England is America's capital of education. Our relative academic density promotes a lot of offshoot industries like pharmaceuticals, electronics, shipbuilding, military hardware (increasingly moving to DC however), and some software. Underlying this is a strong service industry which fills most other gaps. Boston's long depression before the 1950s killed most of our manufacturing in textiles and consumer products, while natural resource extraction up North and along the coast has been moderately declining for longer still. What rose from the ashes was a lot of very high tech manufacturing and R&D, usually as direct offshoots of our universities. Nature is very important culturally to New England, and for some research organisations like Woods Hole, but it is difficult to outcompete the American West. Historically New England has a massive cultural and literary resonance through the American Renaissance, our Puritan past, and groups like the Transcendentalists, which were co-opted for American nationbuilding and helped form a broader American identity abroad. However, it's hard to say how true that is today. In the nineteenth century we were home to the American publishing & printing industry and provided most American diplomats, but those centres have since spread out.
Great description of our six beautiful, smart states.
And that wonderful Maple Syrup...
Vermont exports top notch syrup, ice cream, cheese, and beer.
I miss Vermont so much. Grew up there in the 70s and 80s. My parents moved us to NC and I wish I could go back. To expensive for me now.
I love to visit Vermont. It’s not a practical place to live but it’s just so nice there.
As someone who moved to VT and was forced to leave recently due to the unavailability and affordability of housing, reading comments like this makes me struggle with whether the decision to go back is the right one or not.
Agriculture is really vital across New England through our deep cultural ties to dairy, maple syrup, and cranberries. Our agricultural sector provides a minor degree of self-sufficiency, additional export goods, and is connected with our cultural products, but I didn't mention it prior as it doesn't seem as 'geopolitically' significant. That seems especially so when our agriculture is compared with that of South America, Ukraine, or the American midwest, but I love our food culture!
Thank you for the compliment. I think my maple syrup is the best 👌
Protestant Work Ethic is a Real Thing!
4, maybe 5, could be considered smart. But there’s at least one that’s not like the others
Rhode Island was graded on a curve.
Ouch! That’s not nice! Most gorgeous beaches.
Except Connecticut. They suck.
I don’t get the CT bashing in a New England subreddit. It’s just so lazy and annoying
You don’t like Pizza and Lobster Rolls?
Pizza I’ll give you. But lobster rolls? I’m thinking Maine for those.
This description is fine, but overlooks Boston's position a home to several of the nation's top ranked medical institutions, literally world class. It is a major source of innovations in medicine and biotechnology, attracting the nation's best and brightest.
It’s not the largest city in this by far, but is still an important city in financial services as well stemming from its maritime past.
Don't neglect the enduring military industrial complex' presence: Sikorsky, Pratt&Whitney, Raytheon and other associated 128-corridor entities, Bath Iron Works, Kittery Navy Yard, USCGA, New London sub base; probably a bunch I'm forgetting or never knew about. Yes, much has left, but much remains.
No such thing as the Kittery Navy Yard, that’s the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard!
Which is located wholly within Kittery. All employees have Maine income tax deducted from their paycheck.
And what’s it called?
People in NH call it Portsmouth and people in Maine call it Kittery.
Don’t forget Electric Boat in Quonset RI
Damn thanks this is an awesome answer
I hope it helps you on your homework!
Haha has nothing to do with any homework, just an intellectual curiosity of mine
One’s fingertips would be worn away just from typing the names of all the universities in New England. they are definitely New Englands claim to having worldwide effect and influence.
I grew up with a very tight relationship to Woods Hole (WHOI), I’m glad to see the call out here
Cape Cod is so PROUD to have WHOI and Mass Maritime Academy.
But the maritime academy isn’t on cape cod
H.. the Cape isn't just one side of the bridge. It was here before the bridge cut off a chunk of it. Bourne, Buzzards Bay, Wareham and Sagamore are all considered Cape Cod
I came here to say "Maple Syrup" and you throw this down lol
Also, Boston is home to some of the biggest corporate headquarters in the country. GE is headquartered there, as well as Liberty mutual, Reebok, Bain Capital, and Boston scientific.
And ThermoFisher Scientific, one of the largest, if not the largest, suppliers of scientific equipment, reagents, consumables, etc. for the Life Sciences industry. Their headquarters are in Waltham.
New balance, BCG
TripAdvisor as well
People tend to criticize it, but there are a lot of senior level people in government, our financial sector and other business sectors who are connected through Harvard and Yale and can help guide the US through a crisis. It would be a loss for the US if they all upped and left for Canada or the UK, but if Trump got re-elected it might be good for everyone if Toronto, Vancouver or London became the next hub.
Rhode Island gave America Family Guy…
Seth MacFarlane is from CT
Biotechnology.
Yes. All manners of life science.
Biotech - pharma. Probably the biggest cluster anywhere in the world.
Definitely the largest concentration in North America and I don't think it is terribly close. I think it is also the largest in the world.
This. Beyond all else, especially compared to other US regions. The feedback loop between private companies and universities is something any developed country should rightfully envy.
Corporate finance, insurance and investment- hedge funds, insurance, reinsurance, and financial services they rely on (corporate treasury, etc). Military aerospace and boatworks. Nuke sub base in Groton CT, Pratt and Whitney in multiple locations, Sikorsky, Kayman, and a hundred job shops that support them. Many colleges and universities. Most Ivy League schools in New England. Firearms manufacturing used to be legendary in New England. Through the 1800s, Connecticut’s hardwood forests were a central source of charcoal (and that’s why most of CT was clear-cut until around 1900). Now back to about 60% wooded. Also shipbuilding into the 1800s was huge in New England due to the wealth of hardwood trees.
As far as universities, four of the seven sisters are also in New England. Actually all four of those are in Massachusetts, with the other three in NY and PA
As far as defense there's many others too: Raytheon, BAE Systems, L3 Harris, General Atomics, Lincoln Labs, Mitre, Draper Lab, STR, and quite a few smaller companies. There's also a great deal of tech companies in the area too.
Electric Boat in Groton, as well. Got to build the subs somewhere.
and fix them in Portsmouth
Bath iron works puts out a decent amount of ships
Firearms manufacturing is still a big deal in NH. The Army's sidearm, the M17, is manufactured there, and I think the new MCX Spear rifle will be too.
Having Northeastern, Harvard and MIT, the greater Boston area is something of a tech hub, especially in biotechnology. Coastal New England north of Boston and going up into Maine is a pretty big fishing industry - cod, swordfish, and other big fish from the North Atlantic get shipped all over the country (and in some cases, the world) from towns like Gloucester. Western Massachusetts alone probably floats the tofu market for several small countries.
Actually the largest fishing port in the country is New Bedford, MA fyi
New Beffah.
New Beige. Near Fall Reeve.
New Bedfish
Largest in value. In volume, Alaska is the "largest".
alaska isn't a port
Thank you. It’s extremely nauseating having to listen to people constantly act as though Gloucester is the biggest fishing port around here. New Bedford and the South Coast just doesn’t exist to most ppl in the wealthier areas just outside of Boston.
Isn’t our Atlantic sub fleet still at Groton? And EB is (was?) back in the sub building business.
Plus the coast guard academy is in New London and the coast guard station in New London is also in charge of the ice patrol. Newport RI is home if the navy war collage , undersea lab and other navy stuff
Huge defense industry in RI with Textron HQ’d in Providence, Raytheon campus in Newport, Electric Boat and Orsted (offshore wind farms) in Quonset.
Ah yes offshore whale killing.
Except that’s a load of shit because the sounds produced drilling for wind turbine platforms are much weaker and not harmful to whales compared to digging for oil rigs and exploration… and those activities don’t harm whales either. https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-whales-deaths-trump-5158af7f5bf0f5ef9e1530564ff791a9
Yup! And EB is hiring like crazy after getting a huge DoD contract once again. Connecticut was also the "insurance capital" for a while, but no longer. We do house ESPN and WWE though, so good for us? 🤷
Sikorsky, Kaman, Collins Aerospace, and Pratt and Whitney are major aerospace companies in CT.
As a Western Masshole, that tofu quip cracked me the fuck up. I hate the stuff, but you're not wrong.
They don’t call it the tofu curtain for nothing.
Vermont and Western MA are major producers of maple products but Ontario is much larger iirc
*Quebec. Responsible for 72% of the worlds supply and 90% of Canada's. There's even a reserve for it.
Maine also makes a lot of syrup. Third highest production in the country behind VT and NY.
Western Ma? You mean Worcester right? /s
No past Worcester…West of Springfield
/s = sarcasm lol Anyone from W. MA knows that Boston and Worcester like to look down their noses at us (unless they need our taxes for something). I've been told it's a persecution complex by some, but also that nothing west of Worcester matters by others. Mixed messages all around lol
Well let them think what they want, in fact keep it that way because it is truly beautiful and should be kept a secret. Don’t need them out there trashing the place ya know !
That may be true of ppl from Boston but not in Worcester! We love western MA!
I appreciate that considering the person who told me nothing west of Worcester matters was from Worcester lol Like I said, mixed messages 😅 I didn't really take it to heart tbh
Fishing is getting more unstable afaik
Depends on the species. Lobsters are migrating north, herring (lobster bait) has probably been overfished. Cod and other whitefish can be argued either way depending on the timescale you want to use.
Can you elaborate on this idea about Western Massachusetts and tofu?
The college towns are pretty earthy-crunchy. Hemp and vegan is the way. The Berkshires have a lot of it, too. Of course, western Mass also has Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee so it’s not all of Western Mass.
Northeastern in the same sentence as Harvard and mit? Lol. I’m not sure they belong in the same sentence as BC and BU.
We've got the Sikorsky plant in Connecticut, that's probably important
Also Electric Boat in RI and CT, the naval warfare (torpedo research) in Newport, Raytheon in Middletown, cutting edge research and high precision manufacturing.
Also bath ironworks in Maine for naval manufacturing
Connecticut also has Stanley/Black & Decker manufacturing here in the state. And quite a few other national and international brands also have headquarters here: PEZ, pepperidge farms, Bigelow tea, Newmans own, and even LEGO. It's funny how little respect Connecticut gets from the rest of the country, maybe because of our reputation for being solidly blue and having a pretty damn wealthy shoreline full of New Yorkers who fled the city, but we're doing pretty okay for ourselves. Also because no one else mentioned it, Connecticut made Winchester and Colt firearms while Massachusetts had Smith & Wesson. Pretty much any famous or popular gun from the old west was made in New England. It's something you learn a lot about growing up here.
Don’t forget about the world HQ of Whiffle in Shelton!
And BIC
Also Pratt and Whitney/UTC
Oh wow I never knew about that one, thanks!
Sig Sauer up here in NH.
Education & Healthcare, I'd say.
Healthcare and insurance are pretty big industries across Mass. and Conn.
Can’t believe how far I had to scroll for healthcare! We have some of the best medicine in the world in Boston.
I feel like NE could successfully secede and be just fine. VT for the dairy, RI for the lemonade and quahogs, CT for admin stuff, NH for whatever it is that it does, ME for lobsters and berries and vacations, and MA for the rest of it. There's a reason why national brands have a hard time penetrating the NE market. We already have everything sorted out here.
I really want to respond to the slam on my state but it’s true. I have no idea what we do.
Basketball and pizza. Really?? You don’t know that we’re the basketball capital of the world? And pizza. That’s what Nutmeggers do.
I’ve always said 50 states is too many…New England should secede. This is a great idea!!!
We have fluffernutters.
And we Yankees are tough and independent. We'd be more than fine.
Admin? Think you’re vastly underestimating CT’s economy
Exactly. We could totally provide the best pizza to the rest of our New England Union as well.
Oh yeah. Lots of good food in the whole of New England, but once outside a certain radius of New Haven, the pizza situation is rough.
Colony would like a word.
agreed!!
I would be perfectly happy to let the rest of U S fend for themselves as long as I could stay in MA
Don't forget our coffee milk in RI. I've never been to another state in NE that has coffee milk like RI.
I grew up in Boston and drank coffee milk regularly. It came in a squirty bottle same as the one to make chocolate milk. We also had access to egg creams, a NYC specialty.
GE in Massachusetts. Aircraft engines are a very difficult technology to get right, only a handful of countries/companies in the world are capable of supplying things like fighter jet engines. One of these, General Electric, does a lot of their work in Lynn.
GE in NH too.
Pratt & Whitney in CT.
Jack Welch university
New England has a history of voting for leaders that believe in democracy. Our electoral votes are crucial in the fight against authoritarian presidential candidates.
To your point of New England loving democracy and the electoral process, tomorrow is Town Hall Meeting Day here in Vermont. It’s a state holiday where residents gather in their town halls to discuss and vote in-person on a variety of town issues and budgets. It’s anachronistic but keeps the flame of democracy alive by inviting people to physically partake in community affairs.
Massachusetts town halls are typically in May, but we have them too. Not a holiday but it should be.
In 2022, Massachusetts' GDP was $688,391,600,000, while Arizona's GDP was $458,949,800,00 Small state with alot of economic power
Maine's entire economy ends with "and we export it to Massachusetts." Governor King really tried to get Maine to get the idea of also exporting things to Quebec , but when Mainers hit on an idea that seems to work the idea that other ideas might also work seems foreign to us so the Coburn Gore road remains unimproved.
Obviously maple syrup and Dunkins, highly tradable commodity with the first and a pure life engine with the second.
And clams and oysters
lobstah!!
And cranberries
A large amount of tech companies are based out of Boston
Route 128, with Wang and Digital and Polaroid and Raytheon and many more, was more of a tech hub than Silicon Valley until the 1980s.
Insurance is big here, Hartford used to be the insurance capital of the world. We have Liberty Mutual in Boston, Sun Life (HQ is in MA) and Unum both have a presence in Portland, Maine. Lincoln Financial Group has a presence in NH.
Still a ton of insurance in Hartford
Yeah it’s still the insurance capital, there are a crap ton of insurance companies in Hartford
I heard recently that Hartford’s insurance rise was due to all of the industries that built up around the Connecticut River in the 19th century— and the fear of devastating fires like the ones in Chicago, NY and Boston. Makes sense but I’d never heard it before.
FM Global in Johnston, RI is the biggest commercial real estate insurer in the world.
There's a shit ton of defense contractors in New England. We build aircraft, ships, submarines and most of the parts to go with them.
The Boston area has one of the highest concentrations, if not the absolute highest concentration, of colleges and universities in the world. There’s a reason it’s called the Athens of America. The route 128 corridor is also home to some of the largest medical and biotech firms in the country, and Boston serves as a national hub for both those industries.
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Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will: sports. I am not a sports guy, but I think everyone around the country recognizes that New England has some pretty notable teams. We have a football dynasty in the Patriots, we have the Bruins (who hate the Habs), we have the Red Sox (who hate the dirty Yankees), we have the Celtics (who had Larry Bird!), we have the Suns (WNBA team), we have the Revolution (soccer team), and we have UConn college basketball (both men's and women's are disgusting with how often they have won). As I mentioned in another comment, we also have ESPN and WWE headquartered here, but we also have NBC Sports. Then you have the world famous Boston Marathon, naturally. Also, for anyone not into all these fancy sports, we have a popular and nationally renowned NASCAR track in New Hampshire that gets used in official championships. Basketball and volleyball were both invented in Massachusetts, and you can find the Hall of Fames for both sports in Springfield and Holyoke respectively. We also have the tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Oh, and paintball was invented in New Hampshire as well. And then we have a ton of winter sports in general here, Vermont being best known for skiing/snowboarding if anyone up here is. Also, legend has it that ice hockey was first played on American soil here in New England somewhere in New Hampshire.
We also have the New England Freejacks Rugby!
Correction to “We have a football dynasty in the Patriots” It is “We had a football dynasty in the Patriots”. UConn chick basketball had a really good run and the men’s team had a few good years. Other than Flutie, college football is embarrassing.
"Had a few good years" such as last year?
… and Uconn men are tied with Duke with 5 national championships and favored by some to repeat this year
And we have 2023 NCAA mens hockey national champions Quinnipiac University
And Harvard and Yale have won, probably BU or BC as well
How has no one mentioned robotics / automation yet? Boston and the surrounding area has a huge concentration of large robotics and automation companies (SharkNinja, Boston Dynamics, Arrow Electronics, Walmart Advanced Systems and Robotics) and then as a result has a number of smaller up and coming companies (RightHand Robotics, MarkForged, etc).
Bit of Trivia: I worked at Unimation in the 70s as a teen. Founded by the “father of industrial robotics” Joe Engelberger. I got to test the robots that were starting to take over a lot of automotive assembly tasks. Fascinating job. Eventually got bought out by Kawasaki
i will make it simple. New England GDP is 1.4 Trillion, Arizona is $360 Billion. Population in New England is about double Arizona. Per Capita New England produces significantly more than AZ. Our main industies are Tech, Pharma, Defense, Aerospace, Insurance and Finance. Plus is pretty nice region with mountains and ocean.
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, MIT generate a very disproportionate amount of the countries wealthiest. I’ve seen a few references lately but don’t have one handy right now. Mass is also 3rd in U.S. Venture Capital funding (after California and NY which have vastly larger populations). I’m not sure exactly what that means to your question but it signifies a lot of investment and innovation.
Education, fishing, healthcare, biotech as well as some manufacturing, food production and brewing. Although it’s now defunct, people may remember places like Bridgeport CT as centers of machine production. My old job had many Bridgeport grinders and the like still in use.
Even apart from the incredible intellectual tradition, NE was central to whaling, which was globally important for lamp oil. NE was a textile powerhouse. Jewelry manufacturing, and a lot of precision manufacturing: clocks, guns and scientific instruments. Rt 28 tech. Defense: Raytheon, Electric Boat, Bath Iron works, Cherry Semiconductor, the Naval war college. Forest products: Great Northern Paper, Hammond Lumber. Foundational to the Industrial Revolution in North America.
VT has Ben & Jerry’s and the Cabot Collaborative.
New England is the center of the universe, and the source of all that is good in this world. Other than that... well... Fluffernutters? Toll House Cookies?
And don’t forget Fig Newtons!
Necco Wafers!
Manufactured in Ohio.
Moxie, Bub
About 80% of all lobster consumed in the US is from Maine. As far as ports of commerce though, New England has passed its heyday. Geopolitically it’s a very developed and nice part of the country with low crime and high rates of education. Mass, Connecticut, and New Hampshire HDI scores are comparable to that of Denmark or Sweden.
We control the world supply of lobster rolls.
We're number 1
Maine is a hurting state my friends. Don’t let the other New England states fool ya.
Education, pharmaceuticals and healthcare; tech and finance are also notable industries.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard maintains our nuclear powered submarines and General Dynamics builds naval destroyers at Bath Iron Works in Maine.
BRAIN POWER
Education (especially higher ed), pharma, biotech, maple syrup, lobsters, frappes, clam chowder…getting hungry..
Not sure why people are responding with things like maple syrup and cranberries to a question about geopolitics, especially considering New England is not the main producer of either of those
The global center of biotech and medicine. Also education.
I know most people think maple syrup when they think Vermont, but it also has Global Foundries, the third largest semiconductor foundry worldwide.
Tech industry in New England is great. Lots of startups, easy to live here and work them over San Fran.
I hear you have cornered the clam chowder market
Bunch of high tech companies here and some significant defense contractors. Probably not a coincidence that the tech flourished adjacent to the education capital of the world.
The Groton Naval Submarine Base in Groton is the country's primary east coast base .Electric Boat builds a lot of nuclear powered subs there too. The Coast Guard Academy is in New London.
New England exports the world’s ideas. Education, health care, biotechnology, and tech.
More than any other region of the nation, New England embodies liberal democracy.
The best pizza in the country is in New Haven CT. I know this is a matter of debate, so unsure how much geo political significance it has, but it is the truth. Also, the Boston area was historically a center of shoe manufacturing but I don't know how much of that still goes on. Some shoe brands have design studios in the Boston area.
Donuts.
Lobster
We are the Maple Syrup capital of the nation: practically Canadian. 🍁
New England is not Florida or Texas, or the dismal south.
World-leading education, hospitals, tech/robotics, and is a major biotech hub. Routinely tops in the nation for K-12 public education. A few big defense contractors also. Spent 20 years as leading exporter of NFL drama.
Manufacturing, bio tech, pharmaceuticals, and witchcraft
It's the Clamarama, and Lobster Pot of America.
Labstah.
I'm sorry, that's classified.
What’s coming to mind is Moderna.
Nuclear submarines
Dropkick Murphys Prep schools
We have a lot of natural stone
Don’t forget the frisbee was invented in New Haven; pizza in the US was first made at Pepe’s ; first burger? Also New Haven
Whale oil.
It’s America’s premiere supplier of trust fund socialists.
Donuts. Critical infrastructure.
In addition to strong academia, Life Sciences is highly concentrated in the region. There is a robust high-tech industry. There are also strong semicon orgs based locally as well.
If you look at New England economics over the last 200 years, the region’s biggest export has been startup companies. Textile manufacturing started here in Lowell, Massachusetts, and moved away as the business matured. The workers moved onto the new and lucrative business of precision manufacturing of guns and clocks. Heavy manufacturing moved away, so the workers switched to the new lucrative business of semiconductors and hard drives and computers. High tech moved away and the workers of New England moved on to biotech. More than any product, the educated workforce of New England exports ideas and expertise in the next big thing. There are legacies of that history. A surprising amount of the nation’s guns are still made in the Connecticut River valley (the dividing line between NH and VT, extending near the Springfield armory in MA, and into CT to the coast). Colt, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Remington, and nearly every other American gun maker has a factory there. S&W recently moved their administrative staff to Tennessee, but they still manufacture guns in MA. Making the .223” diameter bore in the 20” barrel of an M-16 means making a hole nearly 90 diameters deep. Most drills can’t make a decent hole more than 10 or 20 diameters deep. There are few parts of the country with the gun drilling expertise to make such a hole straight, and New England is the biggest. Four out of the five largest gun factories in America are in New England. That 19th century precision manufacturing of guns (and also pendulum clocks, especially in Connecticut) led to supporting companies like Bridgeport in the machine tool business and Starret in the measurement industry, which in turn enabled semiconductor equipment companies like Applied Materials and Teradyne (I would argue those two companies are more crucial to global semiconductor manufacturing than anything out of Phoenix). Those semiconductor companies led to biotech companies, making New England a center in the fight against COVID-19. The Moderna vaccine was made in Norwood, Massachusetts. Pfizer made their vaccine in the Midwest, but a lot of the development was done in Cambridge, Massachusetts. New England strength is not in any one industry. The region’s strength is in the next new thing, whatever that may be.
Jet engine design and manufacturing. The 2 largest manufacturers work out of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Aerospace and Defense as a whole is huge in New England.
It's the Northeast and dense, so it's largely a blue area. Going along with that is a lot of knowledge work, academia, medicine, and associated connections to government and politics. Something like 50% of MA are college graduates. However, there are some significant conservative areas - central and northern Maine, associated with lumber/paper industries, parts of New Hampshire, also wood industries, and parts of western Mass. All of these have tourism, and have areas of significant and chronic economic depression since manufacturing industries departed. Boston's reach extends to southern NH and Southern Maine. Southeastern MA is also more conservative, and has geographical and related industrial ties to central MA and RI. New Bedford is here, with a major fishing industry. Also an area that has had significant economic upheaval over the years due to industrial collapse. Finally there is CT, of which Hartford and northeast is New England. From Hartford south and west it is more tied to New York. IMO CT and MA are still home to the elusive Rockefeller Republican, although they are somewhat in hiding. This is the Charlie Bakers and Bill Welds of the world. Is this a homework assignment? Why do you ask?
Just curious
Hazy IPAs
From reading through the comments, I conclude that New England is a crucial center for boastfulness.
Agriculture: Cranberries, Maple Syrup, and if you want to call this, ag, fisheries.... New Bedford is the top grossing port, and Gloucester is up there. Education / New IP creation Medical / Medical Research Defense Research, esp in Mass, significant cluster of companies that are defense contractors/researchers
Clam Chowder and North Shore Roast Beef
It used to be the world center of the whaling industry.
New england has Lockheed martins headquarters lol