Upstream. A Mohawk Valley Blogzine.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Defining The Mohawk Valley. Part 4. Identity Confusion.

The Mohawk Valley is generally divided into three sections. The first section, or the lower Mohawk covers Waterford to Schenectady. The second section, or the middle Mohawk, covers Schenectady to St. Johnsville, and the third section, or the upper Mohawk, covers St. Johnsville to Utica.

The problem is that the lower Mohawk is part of the Capital District and is more often referred to as the Capital District than the Mohawk Valley. Similarly, the upper Mohawk is often called the Utica-Rome area.

The middle Mohawk has no such identity confusion. Maybe that's why in my mind I often think of the middle Mohawk as the real Mohawk Valley. Of course, I live in the middle Mohawk which may prejudice me a little.

1 Comments:

  • Here at the Western end of the Valley, we are going thru an "identity crisis" of a sort. We don't know what to call ourselves -- which is particularly distressing for "branding" purposes. While Utica-Rome Metro probably is the most accurate (including both cities and surrounding suburbs into Herkimer County), it has fallen out of favor, perhaps due to a desire to eliminate a "Utica" designation. "Upper Mohawk Valley" could be an alternative, and was appended to the local water board -- but they recently rebranded themselves as the "Mohawk Valley" Water Authority -- which sounds like it belongs in Amsterdam tho they go no further east than Schuyler. The Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce has rebranded itself as the "Mohawk Valley" chamber even though it is primarily Greater Utica area businesses. So consider yourself lucky -- at least you know where you are.

    By Blogger Strikeslip, at 10:41 PM  

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