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.
