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A NICE PLACE
TO LIVE
Connecticut Promotional Film
What makes an area a
good place to live? A number of things probably. Pleasant residential
districts for varying income groups. Good schools, centers for
cultural programs, excellent medical care facilities, recreational
opportunities the year round.
Man on the Street Interview
(MOS) #1: It's a nice place to live and it's a good place to raise a
family.
MOS #2: Connecticut is a
sophisticated, desirable place to live.
MOS #3: It's got a lot to offer and
from corner to corner it's quite diverse.
MOS #4: Money, money, money. You
think Connecticut, you think money. Um, nice country living and nice place to
raise a family.
NARRATOR: For many, Connecticut
is simply a nice place to live, the quintessential suburban state.
HERB JANICK (Historian, W. CT
State U.): I think we lose sight of a very important element of Connecticut if
we don't think of the fact that very early and maybe much more complete than
other states, we invested in the suburban solution to our problems. The suburb
has the perfect environment where we have all the benefits of urban life
without the disadvantages and we have the benefits of rural life without the
disadvantages. It has lots of problems too in the 20th Century.
COLIN MCENROE (Columnist,
Hartford Courant): I don't know what it's based on, but there's a sense that,
you know, we don't want to go any place else and we don't want to be any place
else and we want everything here exactly the way it is here and we don't want
anything to change.
JOHN FIGEROA (Connecticut State
Representative): There are a lot or people here who think, boy, this is a great
place to live because I am able to live in a community where there's no crime,
where my kids can go to school well fed. Ah, everything is taken care of and
they're a lot of people I think who in addition to, you know, have a nice
picturesque surrounding. On the other hand, you may have -- you have in
Connecticut a group of people who's reality and who think of themselves as,
when am I going to be able to get my next in order to cover my rent. What am I
going to do if my son or daughter gets sick and has to go to the hospital and
not only that, but then there are, you know, there are people who are even
questioning even more basic things than that. Where am I going to live next
week? It is part of what we are here in Connecticut that we live in two very
different realities.
BRUCE FRASER (Exec. Dir., CT
Humanities Council): One of the things about Connecticut that flows from this
sense of it as a great place to live is that it's a great place to live by
yourself and to retreat to some individual agenda.
ARTHUR MILLER (Connecticut
Playwright): There are a lot of people who admire it because it cuts them off
from other people and they don't want to have anything to do with other people
and that's one of the attractions of living this way. You take care of
yourself. And that is enviable for a lot of people in many places. They’d
love to do that if they could. That is certainly not the classical idea of
mankind, which was always social.
BRUCE FRASER (Exec. Dir., CT
Humanities Council): Other than a nice yard and access to a wonderful mall,
good shops, decent schools in some places, that's it. Is that it? It can't be
it.
THE REAL
CONNECTICUT: PART THREE
BOB ENGLEHART: We're still
searching for the real Connecticut. Let's look in this area right here along
the Rhode Island border. These people identify with Providence and Boston. Some
of them even speak with a Rhode Island accent and eat clam chowder with a clear
broth. This isn't really Connecticut. This part of Connecticut is called east
of the river. It's rural and very and very quiet, economically depressed, even
in good times. It's like Maine. We're supposed to be in the wealthiest state in
the Union, so ah, this must not really be Connecticut. So where is the
Connecticut you've heard so much about? The Connecticut of books, movies and
fables. In here (He points to his head) and in here (He points to his heart).
169 SOVEREIGN
STATES
NARRATOR: Where then do we find
Connecticut? What does hold us together? Ironically, one thing that all
Connecticut cities and towns have in common is a strong strain of localism.
When Connecticut does think of itself, it does so primarily in local terms.
"The Constitution State"
There are a hundred and
sixty-nine towns in Connecticut,
And thousand of sites along
the way.
So come and get acquainted
with the Constitution State,
In Connecticut there's
nothing far away.
And you might like it so
you'll want to stay.
COLIN MCENROE (Columnist,
Hartford Courant): I think there's a 169 towns or something like that and
really if you talk to people in Old Saybrook, they are mortally offended by the
idea that anything happening in Old Lyme has anything to do with what's
happening in Old Saybrook and I don't think there's another place in the world
that has that kind of town identity.
CHARLEY DUFFY (Exec. Dir.,
Council of Small Towns): You know, Connecticut had county government for awhile
and then they got rid of it. The tendency is to sort of add government as you
go along. Connecticut I think is unique in that respect as having eliminated a
layer of government, which indicates that this state and small town
relationship and identity is very important to people.
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER (Connecticut
State Historian): Perhaps one of the greatest myths about Connecticut and
indeed I'd say about most of New England is the idea that we are a society run
by our town governments -- that the towns are the locus of power, original
power, laying in the towns that are states are mere confederations of
autonomous towns. That's a potent myth for 200 years. It is a myth, however. In
fact, the towns in Connecticut historically and legally and constitutionally
have never been from 1633 to the present autonomous in any sense of the word.
They have always been agents of the state.
NARRATOR: The limits of localism
have come into sharp relief lately as Connecticut grapples with problems that
defy solution at the local level. As state wide obligations have increased,
federal revenue sharing has declined. Can a clear sense of state identity lead
to greater sacrifice for the common good?
HOWARD RIFKIN (Prof., UCONN
Institute of Public Serv.): I don't think that there's going to be a trend back
to looking to the federal government for solutions to problems. The financial
requirements are really going to be at the local level and the state level. I
think it in large measure sharpens the issue and really demands that the people
have a debate about what an identity is being from Connecticut means.
HOWARD RIFKIN (Prof., UCONN
Institute of Public Serv.): Perhaps the latest debate on whether we ought to
have a state income tax is somewhat symbolic of this notion that we don't yet
have a sense of real community and a sense of sacrifice.
BRUCE FRASER (Exec. Dir., CT
Humanities Council): Not in my town you don't is the explanation for a lot of
the disasters that we face as a society. This goes back to that issue of what
is it that ought to link us with those around us and if that link is solely on
a town by town or a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, none of these problems
are going to have any resolution.
JUAN FIGEROA (Connecticut State
Representative): The reality in which we live today demands that we have an
income tax, demands that we look at regional solutions to problems, demands
that we look at schools desegregation, demands that we have common solutions to
common problems that we all share, whether we like it or not. That's where
we're heading and that's what's going to produce, hopefully sooner than later
what we are all about.
NARRATOR: Our devotion to our
towns has been our common ground for much of our history. The challenge is that
we now need to extend that commitment beyond town lines.
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER (Connecticut
State Historian): To the extent that we can preserve the feeling of community
that I think grows out of the town, grows out of face to face contacts that you
find only in the town, that would be a great thing to do if we're going to have
a revised sense of responsibility, which surely we must have. Perhaps it will
come out of the town. Towns can no longer act as islands. They have to
recognize higher responsibilities and they don't.
BRUCE FRASER (Exec. Dir., CT
Humanities Council): If our sense of identity is in fact individual rather than
collective, that the function of our society is to let me get what I want, then
we've lost that opportunity to work together around something like that. What
do I owe this person that makes me willing to sacrifice something of my own for
his benefit is one of the questions that a sharper shared sense of identity
might help resolve.
CHRIS BICKFORD (Exec. Dir., CT
Historical Society): I think the challenge is to find in our political history
an area which we can come together and understand how it all fits together,
cause it does in some sense, the towns and the counties and the state as a
whole.
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER (Connecticut
State Historian): My sense is that a positive self-identity is a very good
thing and that it should be informed by a sense of history. Any kind of change
discomforts people. That's where tensions arise and I think that's what we see
today is that these changes are occurring and some people don't like them and
they have a number of choices. Either they can go on and live in their little
dream worlds and spin their world of myth and try to stay there and live with
the tension that that creates or they can recognize what's there and try to
help the transition, which is a continual transition, never stops.
THE SEARCH FOR A
STATE SONG: PART FOUR
TOM CALLINAN (Connecticut State
Troubadour): It's near the near the end of the day and Mr. O'Neil who was
Speaker of the House at that time had a suggestion, so he brought in the East
Hampton Fife & Drum Corps to play Yankee Doodle out in the corridor and
proposed right on the spot that Yankee Doodle be the state song and everyone
said that's a great idea and after a whole day of waiting around that was the
end of our efforts, Yankee Doodle.
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yankee Doodle came to town,
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his hat,
And called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And let the girls be handy.
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