New York State
New York State consists of two parts:
- Downstate, including New York City (meaning us), Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley counties, especially Westchester and Rockland
- Upstate, a vast wilderness containing decaying cities like Buffalo and third-tier universities such as Cornell
The government of the state is incredulously located in a dump called Albany, which is far away and poorly accessible from Manhattan. As such, it often imposes insensibly burdensome taxes and regulations on the people from which it is so estranged.
Your only experience upstate could well be one of the COOP programs.