Worst county in your state?

[Scott5114]

Not on its own, but as one example of several factors that can't be shown to make a county objectively the worst, because the factors depend on one's personal opinion about them. That's the crux here, it's not the beach per se.

It does, however, make it worse than all the other counties with a lakeshore, so that narrows the search for a worse county down considerably.

It makes it worse to you that there's no good public beach in Orleans County. If you were a businessperson who wanted to charge for lake access, or a developer of private lakefront property, you'd probably say that it's better that it doesn't.

... except that any sensible businessperson or developer wouldn't be investing Orleans County in the first place.

How many businesses have you owned?

[hotdogPi]

... except that any sensible businessperson or developer wouldn't be investing Orleans County in the first place.

How many businesses have you owned?

I imagine putting a business in Orleans County would be similar to putting a business in Youngstown, OH. Unless it's large enough that they think it can singlehandedly revitalize the region, they'll opt for a place that's not declining.

[Scott5114]

... except that any sensible businessperson or developer wouldn't be investing Orleans County in the first place.

How many businesses have you owned?

I imagine putting a business in Orleans County would be similar to putting a business in Youngstown, OH. Unless it's large enough that they think it can singlehandedly revitalize the region, they'll opt for a place that's not declining.

Well, yeah. But if you were a high-end developer who wanted to develop lakefront property, you'd see a declining county as equaling declining real estate prices, and you could buy it up for cheap and build fancy lakeshore houses that you sell for a big profit, without the nuisance and competition of a public beach nearby. I'm sure someone who's more up on planning could say more, but I believe this is the same process by which gentrification happens (buy up cheap projects because they're cheap and invest in them to make them desirable to higher-end consumers).

The point is not necessarily that this is a great idea or even that it's a viable business strategy, but rather that webny99's insistence that Orleans County is objectively the worst and must be seen as the worst by everyone always is bizarre, and because it is so absolutist, must inherently be wrong. Or rather, the things that are seen as making it terrible to webny99 are also things that could be seen as positives to someone with different motivations than webny99.

[The Nature Boy]

I will say that this thread has taught me a lot about Orleans County, New York, which I had never heard of before this thread and would have likely never heard of otherwise.

[webny99]

How many businesses have you owned?

None yet, but I'm close to a number of people who have, and I'm quite familiar with the business I work at and the business environment in general, having taken college-level business courses in high school and an additional one since.

But if you were a high-end developer who wanted to develop lakefront property, you'd see a declining county as equaling declining real estate prices, and you could buy it up for cheap and build fancy lakeshore houses that you sell for a big profit, without the nuisance and competition of a public beach nearby. I'm sure someone who's more up on planning could say more, but I believe this is the same process by which gentrification happens (buy up cheap projects because they're cheap and invest in them to make them desirable to higher-end consumers).

And that might even work in some places; perhaps Hamlin or western Wayne County, but Orleans is too far away from both Rochester and Buffalo to have the market for a significant number of high-end homes. Being "on the lake" isn't a big enough draw when it's in the middle of nowhere with no major attractions, including beaches, nearby. If someone wanted a summer-only home on the lake, they'd want proximity to conveniences and attractions with perhaps a bit of small-town charm, all things that Orleans lacks.

The point is not necessarily that this is a great idea or even that it's a viable business strategy, but rather that webny99's insistence that Orleans County is objectively the worst and must be seen as the worst by everyone always is bizarre, and because it is so absolutist, must inherently be wrong. Or rather, the things that are seen as making it terrible to webny99 are also things that could be seen as positives to someone with different motivations than webny99.

I think I've sufficiently acknowledged that it isn't provable and that the use of "objective" was poor word choice on my part. I do think there's a fairly reasonable, albeit non-objective, case for it, though, and my search for general agreement (or disagreement, as the case may be) has been interesting and perspective-broadening.

[Scott5114]

How many businesses have you owned?

None yet, but I'm close to a number of people who have, and I'm quite familiar with the business I work at and the business environment in general, having taken college-level business courses in high school and an additional one since.

Okay. Well, I currently own two, not that either of them have made a net profit, but I do have some practical experience myself here.

But if you were a high-end developer who wanted to develop lakefront property, you'd see a declining county as equaling declining real estate prices, and you could buy it up for cheap and build fancy lakeshore houses that you sell for a big profit, without the nuisance and competition of a public beach nearby. I'm sure someone who's more up on planning could say more, but I believe this is the same process by which gentrification happens (buy up cheap projects because they're cheap and invest in them to make them desirable to higher-end consumers).

And that might even work in some places; perhaps Hamlin or western Wayne County, but Orleans is too far away from both Rochester and Buffalo to have the market for a significant number of high-end homes. Being "on the lake" isn't a big enough draw when it's in the middle of nowhere with no major attractions, including beaches, nearby. If someone wanted a summer-only home on the lake, they'd want proximity to conveniences and attractions with perhaps a bit of small-town charm, all things that Orleans lacks.

Sure, but you say that without having a million-dollar marketing campaign behind it. Marketing got people to believe you can't get married without buying a diamond, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and it's better to buy tap water in a plastic bottle than to just get the same water out of the tap. None of these things are true, but people believe them because there was ingenious marketing to brainwash persuade them otherwise.

When you take a course on marketing it will blow your freakin' mind what's possible. It's about selling a feeling, not a reality. And once people get hooked on a feeling, they will happily deny reality even if it's staring them in the face. (See every political campaign ever.)

So yeah, you could actually sell expensive lakefront property in Orleans County. Come visit our scenic, rustic lakefront retreat, far away from the distractions and stress of the big city life. Your own private getaway, you'll love being able to live your life at your own pace down at the lake.

...And that's with me having two days of marketing classes and zero financial stake in it. Imagine if someone with a marketing degree actually cared about selling it.

I think I've sufficiently acknowledged that it isn't provable and that the use of "objective" was poor word choice on my part. I do think there's a fairly reasonable, albeit non-objective, case for it, though, and my search for general agreement (or disagreement, as the case may be) has been interesting and perspective-broadening.

Oh, I think there's a reasonable case for it, and it is clearly the worst county to you. But I was simply trying to illustrate that, well, one man's trash is another's treasure.

[empirestate]

Not on its own, but as one example of several factors that can't be shown to make a county objectively the worst, because the factors depend on one's personal opinion about them. That's the crux here, it's not the beach per se.

It does, however, make it worse than all the other counties with a lakeshore [...]

Not objectively, though.

No, not as compared with other counties, just the entirety of Orleans itself. It isn't all run down, in my observation, as you said it was in yours. Since our observations differ, they can't be reconciled in a way that makes this an objective criterion.

This is where the logic gets a bit dogdy, for two reasons. First, I don't recall saying it was all run down, but rather, just run-down in general.

Here's the statement I was replying to:

[...] the difference with Orleans is that it's the whole county, not just parts of it.

Second, your observation that non-run-down buildings and areas of the county exist is only relevant to the extent that it can be used to show that Orleans is better than another county. I haven't seen that, so far.

No, the relevance is just to contradict the above statement, by showing that there are places in the county that aren't run-down, as opposed to the whole of it being run-down. Remember, I'm not arguing a case for or against Orleans County being the worst, I'm only discussing whether the case you made was an objective one.

I noticed that there must be at least some benefit–some aspect of value–that still lies that short drive away, in the city proper, rather than existing also in the suburbs. The evidence was that, as many people would, you had given your location as the city proper rather than any of its suburbs. You may not actually need to take the short drive to exploit that bit of value, but it's there nonetheless.

Sure, that's an aspect of value, but it's neither tangible nor directly comparable to the other types of benefits we were discussing.
[/quote]

Right, that's the point. It's a value not comparable to those found in a suburb–it's something over and above them.

[vdeane]

Anybody else getting "Beltway vs. sprjus but in slow motion" vibes from this argument?

[1995hoo]

Anybody else getting "Beltway vs. sprjus but in slow motion" vibes from this argument?

Much more civilized in tone, however.

[webny99]

So yeah, you could actually sell expensive lakefront property in Orleans County. Come visit our scenic, rustic lakefront retreat, far away from the distractions and stress of the big city life. Your own private getaway, you'll love being able to live your life at your own pace down at the lake.

...And that's with me having two days of marketing classes and zero financial stake in it. Imagine if someone with a marketing degree actually cared about selling it.

Yeah, I'm not disputing that you could market it. Certainly it's not an impossible thing to do. The second part, though, is the key... finding someone to spend the time and resources on marketing lakefront property in Orleans County when there's so many more attractive places (from both the seller and the buyer's perspective) just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[webny99]

It does, however, make it worse than all the other counties with a lakeshore [...]

Not objectively, though.

So the lakeshore being the worst doesn't necessarily, on its own, make the county the worst. That's why I mentioned several other potential factors.

Second, your observation that non-run-down buildings and areas of the county exist is only relevant to the extent that it can be used to show that Orleans is better than another county. I haven't seen that, so far.

No, the relevance is just to contradict the above statement, by showing that there are places in the county that aren't run-down, as opposed to the whole of it being run-down. Remember, I'm not arguing a case for or against Orleans County being the worst, I'm only discussing whether the case you made was an objective one.

Again, "being run-down in general" and "having places that aren't run-down" are not mutually exclusive. It's run-down in general, that is objective.

I noticed that there must be at least some benefit–some aspect of value–that still lies that short drive away, in the city proper, rather than existing also in the suburbs. The evidence was that, as many people would, you had given your location as the city proper rather than any of its suburbs. You may not actually need to take the short drive to exploit that bit of value, but it's there nonetheless.

Sure, that's an aspect of value, but it's neither tangible nor directly comparable to the other types of benefits we were discussing.

Right, that's the point. It's a value not comparable to those found in a suburb–it's something over and above them.

You've construed that in a way that I'm finding challenging to untangle. When I said "not comparable", I meant that it was not directly comparable to the other benefits of the suburbs that we discussed because it was intangible.

You seem to be saying that it's not comparable because it doesn't exist in the suburbs. Although that may be true in the specific example of me using Rochester as my location, it's very dependent on the circumstances, and certainly not a universally applicable value-add for all cities over their respective suburbs.

[webny99]

Anybody else getting "Beltway vs. sprjus but in slow motion" vibes from this argument?

Surely you haven't forgotten "sequential vs. mileage based exits"! 

[kphoger]

If one's idea of a good county to live in consists of these criteria ...

1.  A rural/small-town lifestyle without the hustle and bustle of the big city;

2.  Availability of lakefront property without a bunch of annoying beach-going tourists and vacation traffic;

3.  The opportunity to go rifle hunting for deer;

4.  A lake with bass fishing and a boat ramp;

4.  A Wal-Mart Supercenter;

... then Orleans County (NY) actually looks to be a pretty good place to live.

[hotdogPi]

For New Hampshire, I'm going to say Rockingham County, although no county is truly bad.

Negatives:

• In a state filled with mountains, lakes, and covered bridges, it has very few. The coast is very touristy, but see my note below.
• Except for the coast, it's the conservative part of the state.
• Some of the towns, particularly the ones on the Massachusetts border, are retail hell for Massachusetts residents (no sales tax in NH), rather than their residents.
• Of all the places in the US where the minimum wage is the federal minimum wage, Southern New Hampshire has the highest cost of living.
• Some other counties have well-known universities going for them, such as the towns of Keene (Keene), Durham (UNH), Henniker (New England College), and Hanover (Dartmouth). Rockingham County has none.

Note that except for #2, these also apply to Nashua; county borders don't mean much in New Hampshire. If I could break it down to a 20-town region or so, I would also exclude the coastal towns as being in the worst. I'm not sure if I would include Nashua or not; while some of it is retail hell, it's also the second largest city in the state, and you would expect to have a lot of businesses there.

[empirestate]

So the lakeshore being the worst doesn't necessarily, on its own, make the county the worst. That's why I mentioned several other potential factors.

Right, and those factors were, in general, not objective in nature.

Again, "being run-down in general" and "having places that aren't run-down" are not mutually exclusive.

However, "the whole of x has the quality y" and "a portion of x does not have the quality y" are mutually exclusive. Because the second statement refutes the first, the first cannot stand as objective evidence of something.

It's run-down in general, that is objective.

That something is "run-down" might be objective if there's a measurable definition for that term. "In general" may be too–well, general–a phrase to stand as indisputably objective. But you could establish, perhaps, that a greater proportion of Orleans than of any other county meets the criteria for "run-down". That could be a factor in an objective argument (although even then, there's still the question of whether "worst" itself has an objective denotation at all).

You've construed that in a way that I'm finding challenging to untangle. When I said "not comparable", I meant that it was not directly comparable to the other benefits of the suburbs that we discussed because it was intangible.

That's how I construed it also.

You seem to be saying that it's not comparable because it doesn't exist in the suburbs.

I'm saying, in essence, that it's not comparable because I'm not comparing them. In this branch of the conversation, I'm making a new observation, cumulative to those already made, but not standing in direct contrast or comparison to them.

Although that may be true in the specific example of me using Rochester as my location, it's very dependent on the circumstances, and certainly not a universally applicable value-add for all cities over their respective suburbs.

Well, it would be true for any central city that serves to identify people with bodies politic other than itself. Whether this factor adds value for all persons in all places, well, that is of course subjective. :-)

Surely you haven't forgotten "sequential vs. mileage based exits"! 

There's definitely a similarity there! My viewpoint in that question is, at is heart, a subjective one. And there was a pretty extensive attempt at making an objective case to persuade me otherwise.

[webny99]

However, "the whole of x has the quality y" and "a portion of x does not have the quality y" are mutually exclusive. Because the second statement refutes the first, the first cannot stand as objective evidence of something.

Here again, though, it depends on how "in general" is incorporated.

That something is "run-down" might be objective if there's a measurable definition for that term. "In general" may be too–well, general–a phrase to stand as indisputably objective. But you could establish, perhaps, that a greater proportion of Orleans than of any other county meets the criteria for "run-down". That could be a factor in an objective argument (although even then, there's still the question of whether "worst" itself has an objective denotation at all).

Well, "run down" does have a definition:
(especially of a building or area) in a poor or neglected state after having been prosperous.
(of a company or industry) in a poor economic state.
In this context, I think both of the above are applicable, but how to measure it in an objective way presents a challenge.

I'm saying, in essence, that it's not comparable because I'm not comparing them. In this branch of the conversation, I'm making a new observation, cumulative to those already made, but not standing in direct contrast or comparison to them.

Got it. No objection from me on that, then. I'm just fine with Rochester having a value that I don't need to visit to exploit! 

Surely you haven't forgotten "sequential vs. mileage based exits"! 

There's definitely a similarity there! My viewpoint in that question is, at is heart, a subjective one. And there was a pretty extensive attempt at making an objective case to persuade me otherwise.

Right, although interestingly, I never thought about it in the context of objectivity/subjectivity at the time.
This has been, essentially, somewhat of a reverse-engineered version of that: an attempt at a case for "the worst" instead of "the best" (or really in that case just "better").

[empirestate]

Here again, though, it depends on how "in general" is incorporated.

No, "in general" isn't part of the statement I'm rebutting. Here's the whole thing:

Of course, every county has its run-down areas, but the difference with Orleans is that it's the whole county, not just parts of it.

I responded that, since there are parts of it that are not run-down, then it is indeed "just parts of it" that are, and hence the "whole county" isn't run-down. Now I'm sure you didn't mean to be that literal in writing "the whole county", but in order for the statement to stand as an objective one, it would have to be able to withstand such a literal construction.

Well, "run down" does have a definition:
(especially of a building or area) in a poor or neglected state after having been prosperous.
(of a company or industry) in a poor economic state.
In this context, I think both of the above are applicable, but how to measure it in an objective way presents a challenge.

Right, the commonly-understood definition, while applicable, is fairly subjective. But you could probably find some kind of way to measure the decline in property values and its relation to the cost of deferred maintenance on them, etc. There's probably some such metric already established, somewhere.

Got it. No objection from me on that, then. I'm just fine with Rochester having a value that I don't need to visit to exploit! 

And I'm happy to offer an observation that isn't automatically subject to objection.

Right, although interestingly, I never thought about it in the context of objectivity/subjectivity at the time.
This has been, essentially, somewhat of a reverse-engineered version of that: an attempt at a case for "the worst" instead of "the best" (or really in that case just "better").

Yeah, that's the struggle I keep seeing. In that question, my viewpoint was, "I don't think the conversion to mile-based numbering is beneficial enough to be worthwhile." The opposite of my viewpoint would then be, "I think the conversion to mile-based numbering is beneficial enough to be worthwhile." While a number of arguments were presented to support that "the conversion is beneficial", there didn't seem to be any that supported "I think the conversion is beneficial."

Conversely (or is it inversely?), in this case there are arguments being made to support "you think Orleans County is the worst," but not to support "Orleans County is the worst." (As with most disagreements, in my observation, the dispute lies not in what the answer is, but what the question is.)

[kphoger]

I've never been there, but Albion doesn't look very run-down to me from what I've seen on GSV, and the lakefront properties along Lake Ontario appear to be quite charming.  Also, this looks like a pretty cool place to visit.

[hbelkins]

For New Hampshire, I'm going to say Rockingham County, although no county is truly bad.

Negatives:

• Except for the coast, it's the conservative part of the state.

Everything in perspective, I suppose. I would consider being a conservative area a positive, not a negative. It's one reason Jefferson County, Ky., is the one I rank as "worst." It's the most liberal county in the state, and the only liberal in Kentucky's congressional delegation is from there, as are the majority of liberals in the state legislature.

I've never been there, but Albion doesn't look very run-down to me from what I've seen on GSV, and the lakefront properties along Lake Ontario appear to be quite charming.  Also, this looks like a pretty cool place to visit.

I had to Google Orleans County to see where it is. I've been there, but I don't remember the circumstances of how I visited it (probably a short detour when I attended the Rochester meet many years ago.) Obviously, nothing stuck out as memorable in either a good or bad way for me. But looking on the map, I wouldn't rank it negatively for a number of reasons, since it's sandwiched between two metro areas (Rochester and Buffalo). I'd liken its location to Franklin County, Ky., which is between Louisville and Lexington for those who want big-city amenities but don't want to live in an urban area.[/list]

[Flint1979]

I must say thanks to this topic here I now know more about Orleans County, New York than I ever have. I didn't even know of it before.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I must say thanks to this topic here I now know more about Orleans County, New York than I ever have. I didn't even know of it before.

Whether I find all this newfound knowledge about the county to be personally useful, though, is another story.

[webny99]

I responded that, since there are parts of it that are not run-down, then it is indeed "just parts of it" that are, and hence the "whole county" isn't run-down. Now I'm sure you didn't mean to be that literal in writing "the whole county", but in order for the statement to stand as an objective one, it would have to be able to withstand such a literal construction.

Well, the only realistic revision I could make is to "a majority", or perhaps "a greater percentage than other counties", but that gets iffy in terms of provability.

Right, the commonly-understood definition, while applicable, is fairly subjective. But you could probably find some kind of way to measure the decline in property values and its relation to the cost of deferred maintenance on them, etc. There's probably some such metric already established, somewhere.

I could dive into that, but it sounds like a lot of work because, as you mentioned, it's a fairly subjective term when used as a broad header, and for that reason, I think this sub-topic has pretty much run its course.

Yeah, that's the struggle I keep seeing. In that question, my viewpoint was, "I don't think the conversion to mile-based numbering is beneficial enough to be worthwhile." The opposite of my viewpoint would then be, "I think the conversion to mile-based numbering is beneficial enough to be worthwhile." While a number of arguments were presented to support that "the conversion is beneficial", there didn't seem to be any that supported "I think the conversion is beneficial."

As for your last clause, if you mean that there was no evidence that you thought the conversion was beneficial, then yes, that seemed to be the case, although it wasn't for lack of evidence so much as your refusal to let the evidence sway what you think.

Conversely (or is it inversely?), in this case there are arguments being made to support "you think Orleans County is the worst," but not to support "Orleans County is the worst." (As with most disagreements, in my observation, the dispute lies not in what the answer is, but what the question is.)

It really does come down to whether something is provable, and in most cases, if people are disagreeing, it isn't. But that doesn't prevent it from generating interesting debate and discussion.

[webny99]

I must say thanks to this topic here I now know more about Orleans County, New York than I ever have. I didn't even know of it before.

I will say that this thread has taught me a lot about Orleans County, New York, which I had never heard of before this thread and would have likely never heard of otherwise.

And that makes the whole thing that much more worthwhile, because you never know what you might learn or when it might come in handy! If this was between two other users about a county in their home state, I'd still be following along, perhaps with a few chuckles to myself, for that very reason.

[Scott5114]

Cruising around on Zillow, I see a number of lakefront properties in Orleans County that only cost about $50,000 more than my house in Norman does. If I were looking to move somewhere in the area, I'd probably give them a serious thought.

[webny99]

I've never been there, but Albion doesn't look very run-down to me from what I've seen on GSV, and the lakefront properties along Lake Ontario appear to be quite charming.  Also, this looks like a pretty cool place to visit.

All this praise for one of New York's lesser counties really just goes to show what a great state it is! 

Joking aside, as for the houses being charming, that's very relative. Much of - if not almost all - the rest of the lakeshore is more "desireable", and nothing in Orleans is going to compare to say, Lake Road in Webster in terms of the cosmetics, investment, and general affability of the area.
I do want to thank you for pointing out Medina Falls, because, although I've driven through Medina several times, I've never noticed or been to that waterfall, so you've given me something to check out next time! 

Whether I find all this newfound knowledge about the county to be personally useful, though, is another story.

Well, sure, but the extent to which that's the case actually reflects on the county itself. In other words, if this whole conversation were instead about next-door Niagara County, home to Niagara Falls, there's a much greater chance you'd find that to be useful because you might end up there on a visit to Niagara Falls someday.