Then maybe we should spit the state in half, your downstate politicians dominate the legislature. Most pork money already goes there leaving us in a part of the state that in some cases should be called a disaster zone.

Gov. Spitzer risks dividing state against itself — Newsday.com

BY MATTHEW CROSSON | Matthew Crosson is president of the Long Island Association, the largest business organization in New York State.

On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer will deliver the first State of Upstate address, in Buffalo. The speech is a well-intended attempt to encourage the people upstate as they try to rebuild their faltering economy.

Last week, in his State of the State speech, Spitzer announced a $1-billion upstate revitalization program, a concrete commitment of cash to that rebuilding effort.

There’s no doubt that upstate New York needs economic help from Albany. But there’s also no doubt that downstate areas, including Long Island, need that help, too. Spitzer risks widening the economic and political divide that has long separated upstate and downstate with what now appears to be an imbalanced, two-state approach to economic development.

At first glance, the economic divide between upstate and downstate seems profound. More than 5,000 vacant homes are now being bulldozed in Buffalo, with another 5,000 soon to follow - 10,000 vacant homes being ground to dust. Here on Long Island, young people are fleeing because they can’t find an affordable place to live. Could there be a starker contrast?

But the real comparison between economic conditions on Long Island and in upstate New York is more complex and surprising. Long Island, despite having a gross product that almost equals all upstate metropolitan areas’ combined, faces its own impending economic problems. And it faces them largely without state help. Read more–>

var sc_project=1609654; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_partition=15; var sc_security=”26e26d49″;