Ms Harris
Thank you for your writing about Native New Yorker.
in Epoch Times, it definately struck a chord with me as a native New Yorker.
I am in my mid sixties, practiced Architect in NY for over 30 years, travelled all over the State witnessing plenty of cities and towns like Fulton. I certainly know Utica. I am old enough to remember a different NY, and witnessed the decline with my own eyes.
My great grand parents immigrated from England and Scotland in 1915. They settled in a rural area north of Utica, great grandfather was a stone mason, my grandfather was a mechanic. They built businesses, ran a post office and general store, hauled ice and timber, and grew their own food. NY was the land of opportunity if you worked for it. It kind of was for me too, only now realizing the shackles on my profession, it could have been much better for my family. I know now.

I graduated college, moved back to NY with my wife, a native girl from Tenn.. We both worked hard, bought a small farm South of Rochester -where we lived for decades. One day we woke up -how could we ever afford to pay our taxes in retirement? Our house was paid but property taxes alone were $13K a year.
We had a modest home, but do not have lavish public pensions to keep paying that.
I came to be belief years ago, dealing with School Districts, and government projects, employee benefits, pensions, etc,….that NYS the way they were funding these entities was unsustainable.

We left NY in 2017 to East Tenn, built a home, and thank God every day for our decision. My architecture work is flourishing.
We have literally saved over $100K in taxes in 7 years.

We drove back to NY last year to visit friends. Driving around those days, felt like we drove into a depression. No new construction, boarded up businesses and houses.

Unless you get out of NY, and can see there is a better way of life…some NY people don’t know. It makes me sad, and angry what they have done to our beautiful State of New York.
Life is short, we did not see any other way but out.