Empire State Plaza, New York State Capitol Building, Albany

Lake Placid, Adirondacks

Erie Canal

Taughannock Falls State Park

New York State Capitol Building, Albany

Niagara Falls

Adirondack Lakes

Watkins Glen State Park, Finger Lakes

Walkway Over the Hudson

State University of New York at Albany


Welcome to the The Other Third: An Upstate New York webpage!

To people who don't live in New York, when they hear the words "New York" they automatically think of New York City. State residents often add the word "city" after the state's name or refer to "the city" to distinguish New York City from the state. Even research about New York frequently focuses on the city and its surrounding suburbs. As a result, little attention is focused on the nearly 7 million people who do not live in the greater New York City area. In 1990 they represented 38% of the state's population. Though the upstate population has declined a bit in recent years, according to the most recent estimate it is still home to more than one third of the state's population. It is time to broaden the scope of research about New York to include these people. This is fitting given the fact that even Lewis Mumford, the great commentator on the city, did not spend all his time there.

Upstate New York is very geographically diverse, home to the state capital, Albany, large cities such as Buffalo and Rochester, as well as small towns and farms. Spatially 92% of the state's land area is in upstate, so it covers almost 12 times more land area than downstate.

We hope this page will serve as the backdrop to a number of exciting new projects focusing on New York State. Some are initiatives of the Mumford Center itself, others of CSDA, and we are actively recruiting other collaborators. Each project will have its own "front page" which gives credit to its creators, highlights results, and links to reports, yet all data and mapping will come through this site. As a result, people interested in one site will automatically have access to the data and maps relevant to all the projects, perhaps enticing them to explore those topics as well.