CONNECTICUT was named Quinnehtukqut
by the Native Americans for the "great tidal river"
that splits it in two before spilling out into the Long Island
Sound and washing the old whaling ports of the coast. This small
and densely populated state is a sort of conservative, high-rent
suburb of New York City, enabling commuters to earn Big Apple
salaries while avoiding New York state and city taxes. Its first
white settlers arrived in the 1630s: refugees from Massachusetts
seeking liberty, good farmland and trading opportunities. Connecticut
soon became a center for " Yankee ingenuity
," prospering through the invention and marketing (often
by the notorious and not always honorable Yankee peddlers) of
many a useful little household object. Although hit very badly
by English raids in the Revolutionary War, its role in providing
the war effort with crucial supplies made it known as "the
provisions state ." After the war, the original
charter of Connecticut's first colonists was used as a model for
the American Constitution and gave rise to another nickname: "the
Constitution state ." It continued to prosper
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with steady industrialization
and lucrative whaling along the southeastern coast. Today, much
of the old industry, especially in the north, has withered away,
leaving areas of green countryside, untroubled by noisy interstates,
many verdant forests and the idyllic rural villages that typify
New England's PR image - but also unemployment and poverty. New
Haven in particular, home to Yale University, faces distinctly
urban problems like drug wars, homelessness and violent crime,
which belie New England's myth of rural tranquility.
The linchpins of Connecticut's economy - insurance
companies, medical research and military bases - hardly make for
pleasing aesthetics, as demonstrated by the rather dull capital
city, Hartford ; and even the historic and other
wise attractive coastline is marred by some unfortunate stretches
of sprawling gray concrete.
