Also - “downstate” does not control the cultural consciousness of Western New Yorkers.
I’ll admit that referring to any area north of NYC as Upstate is partly due to laziness. However, when speaking with people not familiar with the state of New York it is way easier to just say you live in Upstate. If I were talking to someone who is familiar with the whole state, then I would for sure say I went to college in the Finger Lakes region. Therefore, I will concede to say you’re right.
I’ve always thought that upstate meant up the Hudson River from NYC.
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Which is, technically, the entire state, lol.
I take issue with Rochester/Monroe Country being considered “Finger Lakes” region considering we’re just as far away from the Finger Lakes as we are from Buffalo lmao - in that case, ROC could be “Western NY” too. I just say I’m from “New York” though to be quite honest. When Southerners assume that means I’m from New York City - I remind them that there is an entire state that shares the name, believe it or not! 
If anyone is still confused/doesn’t know where Rochester is, I just clarify it’s the “Great Lakes region” which usually clears up confusion. EVERYone knows what the Great Lakes are!
I am no expert, but I’ve always felt like the idea of upstate went about as far as the Albany area and that’s about it.
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I’m glad I’ve been able to spark such lively debate!
I use it when talking to people from outside NY to let them know when I say I’m from New York, I don’t mean NYC because many people assume that. I didn’t tell anyone in Niagara Falls or Toronto or the Finger Lakes that I was from Upstate NY. I told them the area, because they could place it.
Speaking of Toronto, I found a name tag to buy.
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Gucci what are you doimg
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Hey Jon - I agree with most of what you have said here - just want to point out something in:re the Target closures - it looks like Target is blaming “crime” for the store closings, a narrative which has been parroted frequently in the mainstream media. The truth is that crime at these stores is in many cases lower than at similar nearby Target locations that aren’t being closed. This isn’t to say that crime isn’t an issue - my point is just that we should be questioning what corporations are trying to tell us, how they benefit from the narrative they spin, and not just accepting at face value that they are telling us the truth.
One quick source I could find - Target says it's closing 9 stores due to theft. The crime data tells a different story.
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Isn’t it fair to say that crime data is based on crime that’s actually documented? Isn’t it fair to fully understand what is and what isn’t being documented?
It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a gap between what a store understands what’s missing from their shelves and unpaid vs what a municipality has documented as a crime. Retail is not a high margin business, and I suppose that unreported shoplifting can make or break a business.
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Wall Street has known for a while that the store closures due to “organized crime” are largely cover for executives that have made bad bets or do not want to admit to the other factors at play:
"Still, some aren’t entirely convinced the retail theft is really that bad. Industry data on the problem is hard to solidify, and it hasn’t exactly shown a massive upswing in shrink either. Others say retail theft, while certainly an issue, might be overstated as an excuse to write off mediocre sales — or harebrained strategy shifts. What’s more, historic inflation (from which, of course, [mega-brands have benefited] might be a key reason why we’re seeing any theft bump at all…
Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, said retail theft is a real issue. But he also noted that it’s a very convenient excuse for, well, maybe not the best business choices.
Take Target’s store closures, for example. Saunders pointed out that Target says shrink is up but won’t specify how much of that is because of crime or simply pallets gone missing.
“Theft is the ultimate excuse because it’s like, ‘Hey, look, it’s not our problem,’” Saunders said. “‘We try to prevent this but people come in and steal things.’”
S&P Global Ratings retail analysts said in a note that some retailers may be “overstating the contribution of theft this year.” Poor merchandise execution and inventory management could also be major contributors to the uptick in shrink.
Drilling deeper into Target’s nine urban store closings, Saunders said it’s likely that other factors were at play in addition to theft. A key one is the fact that the urban store model is somewhat out of Target’s wheelhouse. The average basket size of a suburban big-box location is going to be much larger than a city one, where customers can’t load up their trunks with impulse buys galore. The impulse buys in a New York City Target must be limited to what you can carry home (or hastily stash in an Uber)."
[Inflation uptick] applies to consumers and the actual workers of any retailer. The second largest contributor to retail shrink is, after all, internal theft."
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Guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Max sentence of 5 years.
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He got off easy 
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Hopefully this will be the end of Taz’s store altogether
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disagree - regardless of what you think of the man, I don’t think anyone on this forum is looking to see anything else close in DTR
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I bet you most of the other businesses along that street would disagree with you.
You won’t see downtown boosters or the downtown business community shed ANY tears if Taz’s finally closes.
Taz adds ZERO value to downtown
If Raleigh is to become a “cleaned up” downtown with middle to upper class establishments only, then sure perhaps this is for the best. But the loss of DGX and potentially Tazs does not bode well for the healthy diversity and self-policing any city should strive for.
I don’t know the case, and obviously Taz killed someone resulting in manslaughter charges, but shop keepers policing the streets is a tale as old as time. He should have left the enforcement up to police, but I’m sure there are years of defending his shop leading up to this event.
Is the store a heathen breeding nest? A place where the city rift raft can loiter without feeling completely out of place? A chicken or egg in the problem of drifters and problem makers?
The heart of question: is Tazs the problem or the lack of diversity within our retail and 3rd place offerings downtown?
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