Twelve states

You thought there were six states in New England? Economists and other commentators count more.

Mainers have long referred to the "two Maines" because of the cultural and economic differences between the rural north and the suburban south.

More recently, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has identified two commonwealths of Massachusetts: the knowledge-intensive Boston area, which lost 10 percent of its jobs in the recession of the early 1990s but more than recovered by 1997, and the more traditional Massachusetts beyond Route 495, which lost a quarter of its jobs in the recession and still hadn't recovered by 1998.

Vermont legislators and educators taking part in a recent New England Board of Higher Education "focus group" meeting similarly worried about two Vermonts: one doing quite well, the other struggling.

Copyright New England Board of Higher Education Summer 1999
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