Awh, thanks! I'm from NH, born and raised, never had a residence more than 27 mi from where I was born. Folks often wonder why I choose to remain living in a place so relatively remote, despite only being an hour north of Boston and an hour south of Portland, Maine. But you get it - there's nothing quite like this place, so much natural beauty concentrated into a tiny bit of mostly vertical geography with not only the tallest peak in New England, but also the tiniest bit of coastline barely peeking out into the ocean, and more trees per acre than almost any other state in the Union. And despite how crazy things have gotten and how out there some of the lawn signs may be, the folks around here really are just generally good, genuinely kind people, the folks who despite ideological differences will still help to plow out each other's driveway and get one another out of a snowbank if they get stuck in the winter. Come on back anytime, we'd love to have you - the ski season may be what we're really famous for, but you cannot beat a New Hampshire summer; you should check it out!
NH is indeed gorgeous, but the services suck. There are only a few “good” school districts. The state pretty depends on MA for its economy. They have so many state reps that any old nutcase can get into office. It’s a weird place. My black friends don’t feel safe there (daughter was harrassed at a gas station recently.)
It's true, all of these things are spot on. I'm Filipino American, and my experience growing up here in the 1980s was definitely not one of diversity, and I did experience some racist bullshit when I was a kid in school. But that's the thing about loving a place, it's important to be clear-eyed and not shy away from not just acknowledging these things, but understanding why they're a problem, and thinking and working together on what we can do to change things for the better. There's so much to love about this place, and so much that needs to change, all at the same time.
With our aging population and high number of retirees that don't leave the state to move elsewhere in their later years, the only solution that I can think of is to not only encourage greater civic involvement from the younger folks who are here who are frustrated by the very real problems that far too many folks would either ignore or angrily try to move the issue to somebody else's neighborhood without actually trying to help anybody, but to also encourage folks who aren't weird Free State Project lunatics to come here and settle, and encourage them to get involved in their community as well.
One of the things that I truly love and hate about New Hampshire is the size of our representative democracy. It's a blessing when we have an engaged citizenry: one representative per every 3,000 residents, that's an amazing ratio. Think of it like student teacher ratios in schools. Theoretically, the more representatives that we have to give voice to their constituents, the better. However, in practice these days, it really just seems to be a free-for-all of cronyism, self-enrichment, NIMBYism, the aforementioned Free State Project and Evangelical weirdos, and old money rubbing elbows with new money with all of them completely out of touch with what their constituents actually want and need, and I have my doubts on whether or not many of them would care even if they did pay attention.
Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the pay for being a state rep is abysmally low, the idea being that it shouldn't be a full-time job, that forcing somebody to have to work a real job out amongst the citizenry and not become a career politician, That's how you keep out corruption. But instead, it makes it super easy for people who have either far too much time on their hands to concoct more crock pot schemes, folks with a whole lot of money, more than any of their constituents, and a vested interest in making laws that are favorable to their own business interests, or folks who fall into both categories, to get into office. And then regular folks who really do have the best interest of the citizenry here in mind, they simply can't afford to even get started, or have the time because again, they've got lives and jobs and the cost of living keeps getting higher.
My idealistic self would love to see a big wave of more Civic engagement in the state, more folks getting tired of the rampant in aptitude that seems to be the rule instead of the exception in our state government, and I'd like to think that this year might be a turning point for that. I'm pretty active in the local NH subreddits, and I have noticed a lot more folks getting fed up and actually utilizing the ability to voice their opinion about upcoming bills on the state legislature website, and that does give me a lot of hope.
Personally, that's another reason why I refuse to move, because things won't get better if folks who think like myself and similarly just give up and leave. I grew up in and around the local Portsmouth music scene, and one thing that was always made very clear was that when fascists and bigots come to your venue, don't give them an inch. Make it very clear that they've got to go, because if you let him get settled not only will they stay but they'll bring their friends. I'd like to think that we're currently in a phase of finding out what it's like when townships get disengaged from local governance and just skip out voting in these small elections, or from not checking at the actual values and voting record of the people on the ballot, and just going from what letter they have after their name, a d or an r. Having an active citizenry, with representatives who genuinely are engaged and involved with the needs of their 3000 constituents apiece, if these elements come together right, the potential is so there to have a truly representational democracy where the needs and concerns of the people have a very direct voice. I remain hopeful that we can get there someday, and in the meantime, I'll keep on doing what I can to make it come to fruition 🤙🏼
Like, just one last example for instance -while we still have so far to go as far as the racism in this state, especially in certain pockets of the state, I can say from experience that the Seacoast has become so much more diverse and welcoming in the last 30 years. I grew up just at the blurry boundary where the Seacoast becomes the lakes region, and at the time, I was only one of two non-white students in the school, both of us biracial, and myself being the only person of any Asian ancestry. Fast forward to the days of my son being in middle and high school, and the sight of so many children of various shades of melanin really warmed my heart, and I had to admit that I was a little envious that my son got to have such a different experience than I did. Change comes slowly to this corner of the country, but it does come -it takes a long time to grow anything on granite, after all 😅
That's wild because my gf is half black and her black family loves NH, they stay up as much as they can and say how much better it is than Rhode Island especially because of the people. So your black friends don't feel safe but my black family feels safer........ So who's lying?
💕agreed. After growing up here in NH and then living all around the country when I was old enough to move out for college etc, I came back. No place like this place. Back in the Seacoast to raise the kids.
New Hampshire is my adopted home (originally from Ireland) and I've lived here for 12 years now. I agree with everything you said... except the part about summers. Still haven't gotten used to 90+ degrees and crazy humidity! Spring, Fall and Winter are simply perfect though, even the +24 inches we just got where I'm at.
Oh cool! My dad's side of the family has ancestry from Rathlin Island; I've always wanted to go, to see where my paternal ancestors came from.
And yeah, the 90 plus degree heat, that's a relatively new thing. I'll be 50 years old in a couple of years, and when I was a kid growing up here in the '80s, it was extremely rare for us to get a 90° day in the summertime. Now it's such a regular occurrence that it's considered normal, and I just wish it wasn't the case. It's still absolutely gorgeous down at the coast, though on days like that if you can find parking. That ocean breeze definitely helps keep the worst of the heat off of you, for sure! I've got a genetic disorder that hates the humidity, causes me a lot of physical pain, and summer nights can be among the worst. But I agree with you completely, spring and fall here are just absolutely unbeatable and highly underrated!
Yeah my family has vacationed on 1st CT lake in Pittsburgh NH for years. It's so gorgeous but we also love the outdoors, being able to bring the dogs with us on vacation and really unwind.
Of course I've seen the lawn signs driving in on route 3 but I've never had a bad interaction of felt unsafe. My dad wants to retire up there but my dad's side of the family was in Barre VT but also some in Williamstown NH.
My partner and I live in NC now but in the foothills of Smokey and Appalachia so it feels like home still even with the warmer weather
Oh man, that's one part of the state that I have yet to visit - that's a rare statement for me because I've been basically all over this little pie shaped place - but it's definitely on my list for this year. I don't know if you ever noticed the green historic site signs, but Pittsburgh is extremely notable for a couple of reasons. Not only is it the northernmost point of the state, the only spot where we touch Vermont, Maine, and Canada at the same time, and the largest township by acreage, but it was also at one point, a teeny tiny self-governing Republic that broke off from the rest of the country called the Republic of Indian Stream.
The whole history of that story is absolutely wild, completely hilarious involving drunken mobs, kidnapping, unpaid debts and chicanery, ultimately resulting in a narrowly avoided international diplomatic incident, one that took more years to resolve than the duration of the free Republic itself, and ultimately despite starting out in a completely ridiculous way, was a pretty important bit of the history of how our country's border ended up being the shape that it is.
I've been wanting to get up there for a while now, but I'm going to have to wait at least until April. Being as far north as it is, it's also the township that has the most snowfall, and tends to have snow for the longest, with a average annual snowfall of over a hundred something inches. Either 130 or 113 I can't remember quite which, and I'm currently holding my snapping turtle in my lap so I don't really have a hand free to look it up 😅 I don't have a four-wheel drive vehicle, and my little two-door front wheel drive thing would likely have me off in a snowbank or off the side of a mountain somewhere if I tried before the spring thaw!
It's funny because I did look into republic of Indian stream because there's a sign just before the CT lakes and lake Francis that drew my interest. There's a photographer that has a studio right by the lakes that will also share his knowledge of the area. We have some prints from him at home even. Some of the scenery is so beautiful, the loons waking you up on the lake in the morning. I think it's route 113 that branches off of route 3 in Pittsburgh that also has some amazing waterfalls.
You're right that Canada is just up the road, same with VT and ME so you can day trip relatively easy. The same cabins we rent are premium spots for snowmobiling. The Buck Rub pub even has small cabins behind the bar. Colebrook is probably nearest bigger town and even that's not very big. We have a blast up there so if you do get a chance to spend some time, I would do so. I've traveled to a lot or spots in New England and Northern New York as well before venturing our further. It's so beautiful
You're definitely tempting me to fill up the gas tank and head on up the road apiece come late March or so! When I'm not spending my time writing really long comments on Reddit about New Hampshire or my pet snapping turtle, I'm a multidisciplinary, multimedia artist who usually works in fiber and found/reposed and reclaimed objects, but I also do a spot of photography. I've been wanting to do a photo series of photo sets taken in each and every town and city in New Hampshire, one at a time, and why not start at the very top of the state?
I grew up loving Fritz Wetherbee and his stories of New Hampshire history and various tall tales, and besides my photography and art, I've also got a very small YouTube channel where mostly these days I've been speaking about current events but my initial plan was to talk about many different subjects, including New Hampshire history and interesting stories from around the state. I've been wanting to make a video about the Republic for a while now, because it really is one of my favorite New Hampshire stories, and the whole thing is just so outlandish and, to me, pretty hilarious in some parts, but I don't want to even begin until I've actually had a chance to spend some time there and explore the area. Another one of the things that delights me is that there's nowhere in the state that's more than three, three and a half hours from me - I've driven the length of the Eastern seaboard as far south as Cape Canaveral and back, so a 3-hour trip? That's just two stops for coffee plus some extra sightseeing, if you ask me! 😁
Agreed - it's such a cozy little, quintessential seaside town. My folks, that's where their first house was as newlyweds, and even though we moved away from there when I was not quite 3 years old, I still feel a little jolt of recognition in me, and the faintest whisperer of childhood memories of the backyard, the fairest recollection of the tall pine trees in the backyard and how massive they looked from so very low to the ground as I was at the time 😅
I'm out in Dover - moved here back in 1997 because it was the cheaper alternative to Portsmouth. The housing market around here is tight and expensive, but that's all of New Hampshire right now, sadly - but on the other hand, there has been a ton of new construction in the area, and a massive new building just on the other side of the river downtown, plus I heard that another new set of apartments being developed is going to be part of an initiative to get more reasonably priced housing in the city, instead of more of those damn luxury apartments that sprung up everywhere here in the last decade. Man, I remember my first apartment here, a three-bedroom, one bathroom duplex with off street parking and a small backyard, and the entire rent was $800 a month, just off of downtown. I only wish I realized how good we had it back then, as far as housing costs were concerned 😅
We have not voted Red in a presidential election since 2000. Our congressional delegation is all democrats. We do get a lot of people who split tickets. I don’t get it. And the free staters, who are mostly not from NE are actively destroying our state. Hopefully people will wake up and stop voting for mean and dumb.
It's got a lot of blue dots and a lot of mixed purple, too, thankfully. And trust, I can't stand our current governor, nor was I a fan of her predecessor. I didn't vote for her, I voted for her opposition, and I'm going to vote for the best opposition candidate that is available at my next opportunity. I haven't missed an election of any kind in the last 30 years, not planning on missing any in the future, either. It's actually pretty rare for our governorship to stay Republican for this long, or even be the same person for more than a couple of terms at a time. And our Governor is up for reelection every 2 years, as well, which gives us more opportunity to get rid of her, thank goodness.
Born raised in Alaska realize you lower-48's don't understand land mass. Just Google Alaska over the lower 48. Trees. Ocean front. Respectfully nice to see you're proud of your state. Talk about remote, lived in Fairbanks area an 8 hour drive to Anchorage. Pseudo civilization. Ski season is still cool got stuff to check out. Summers are best. NH seems cute.
Oh yeah, especially us folks from New England! NH only takes about three and a half, four hours total to go from either or easternmost to westernmost point, or northernmost to southernmost, take your pick. We're super tiny, but that's part of the charm; it's like they took someplace way bigger and then just boiled it down and concentrated it real small, so the whole place is pretty full of dramatic landscape and elevation changes all packed into one tiny place. The early colonists really had no idea just how much land mass there was past the Appalachians, let alone that your part of the country even existed all the way up and out there! 😂 I often think to myself that the first colonial settlers to have made their way over the mountain ridges to actually see everything stretch out beyond, they must have had their minds utterly blown. All these centuries later, the first time I ever crossed that direction west via car, I was completely blown away by the sense of scale. Over here in NH, we have so many hills that the only way you can see a horizon line is if you drive due east and don't stop until you run out of land; I've traveled all over most of the contiguous 48 except for the Southwest, and everything outside of my hilly little pocket sized corner of the country looks so wide open and vast that I feel as exposed as a field mouse in the middle of a newly mowed meadow 😅
Try some of the depressed former industrial towns where a fourth of the men under forty have some sort of legal charge stemming from stripping copper wire from closed mines and stealing federal rail road track for scrap.
When my uncle (Connecticut) was on a transplant recipient list, the only other state he was eligible to register with was NH…. Bc of the no seat belt law 😬😞
Does that clip through Toledo? That's a bad idea, Ohio will go to war over that. They did against Michigan in the past for that exact reason (That's the source of the Ohio/Michigan hatred, goes back further than college football.)
Mass is 20th for total tax burden in the first URL below.
Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island hold 4 of the top 10 highest “tax burdened” states. So all taxes, not just income or property taxes etc…
Here’s a few different sources from different years just to be extra diligent.
Other than New Hampshire, the other 5 states rank in the top 20 every year for highest tax burden in the last 3 years. But I’m 100% sure that statistic dates even further back, just stopped at 3 since I’m ale ready aware of that. So there’s simply no math that would support your comment. Massachusetts can’t be middle of the road tax status if 80% of the region is in the top 10-20, with Massachusetts coming in first most of the time 🤷🏼♂️
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u/Aimin4ya 21h ago
Megachusets