The Greater Utica-Rome Board of Realtors announces name change to . . . what else? . . . the "Mohawk Valley Association of Realtors"
Google "Mohawk Valley, NY" on Google Maps and it takes you to "Mohawk Valley Airport" in Scotia.
Search "Mohawk Valley, NY" on Bing Maps and you are taken to "Mohawk Valley Estate" in Fultonville.
Search for a zip or area code in "Mohawk Valley, NY" on Switchboard and you get taken to Mojave Valley, AZ!
The best results come from Mapquest. Search "Mohawk Valley, NY" there and you are taken to a map with 9 bubbles in places stretching from Rome to Albany.
The Greater Utica-Rome Board of Realtors website dropdowns do not list St. Johnsville, Canajoharie, Fonda or Fultonville, Florida, Tribes Hill, Amsterdam, Scotia or Schenectady -- all of which are in the Mohawk Valley.
People can find Utica. People can find Rome. "Greater" Utica-Rome means places near by. And the Utica-Rome Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area is defined as Oneida and Herkimer Counties. I don't understand the problem some people have with identifying our region by the names of its two principal cities.
Calling the Utica-Rome area "Mohawk Valley" makes as much sense as calling Binghamton-Endicott-Johnson City (a/k/a "Greater Binghamton") the "Susquehanna Valley." If you were looking for a house in the Binghamton area, would you look to do business with a "Susquehanna Valley" realty company? In Binghamton they have common sense . . . but not here.
One would think that REALTORS, of all people, would know better than to hide themselves on a map.
11 comments:
Oh boy, now you have my blood boiling again. Talk about pet peeves. This is my single biggest one.
I made all of these exact same points many times over the years. Yet we still hear every one of our "leaders" use the term Mohawk Valley over and over. It's sickening. It also shows just how little they know about the area they represent.
When the county changed the name of the airport, I made the argument that it should be the Utica-Rome Airport or Oneida County Airport. That would at least put us on the map. Mohawk Valley, as you point out, is HUGE. Ask anyone in Albany where the Mohawk Valley is and they look at you like you're crazy. But say Utica, Rome or Oneida COunty and they know. It's basic Marketing 101.
Utica has a brand. That brand may have been tarnished over the years, but it's still an established brand. That's the hardest part in marketing. It's much easier to turn around an established brand than it is to build an entirely new one.
Aw, tell it to the Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce.
If there ever was an organization that contributes to our region's lack of visibility on the national scene, it is the Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce!
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! If one INSISTS on "Mohawk Valley" ANYTHING, it should be "UPPER Mohawk Valley" (like "Upper Hudson") to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the "Mohawk Valley (the Mohawk River is a tad more impressive near Schenectady.....) Let's get back to Greater Utica-Rome.....
The regional elite hate "Utica" so much they are willing to commit marketing suicide to avoid using the name.
I wish these people, especially the Chamber, would fix what they hate instead of pretending it isn't there.
I agree that if they change it to Mohawk Valley then they do need to include ALL of the areas which are deemed at the Mohawk Valley. Of course they will not do this though.
On facebook, I made a page called "The Positive Side of the Mohawk Valley". I try to spotlight most of the Mohawk Valley, not just Utica or Rome. However, I probably will not be spotlighting a lot of the areas that are more east. Maybe I should have named the page, The Positive Side of the Greater Utica/Rome Areas...but then again, I don't care for that name. So, I stand guilty for using the Mohawk Valley name while not including all of it.
However, I am just a lowly volunteer page but the realtor and chamber of commerce pages are not.
I agree with your post, they are putting shiny wrapping paper with a big bow on a present that inside is filled with nothing but space.
I don't think it is about hate at all. Take a look at Utica. Streets are a disgrace and the politics are unseemly, unethical and immoral. Sorry, but the last place I would want to be associated with is Utica. The "brand" has been destroyed by the very people who were elected to run the city. The fact that you can't see what us outsiders see is hard to imagine. Seriously.
Look at your statement, Anonymous. You've listed for us the reasons WHY you hate Utica. So your claim that its not about hate is not credible.
To be perfectly honest with you, I AGREE with your list. I can see what "outsiders" see (I've lived outside the area years at a time and I currently live in the suburbs). Utica has become a real cesspool.
My question for you is how do we solve this problem named "Utica"? Ignoring it does not make it go away. But that seems to be what you want to do. You solve the problem for yourself by moving across the municipal line to the suburbs, like so many others (including myself) have. But that does not solve the problem for the Region. Going "Mohawk Valley" may be a quick way of ignoring our problem -- but the problem is still there. And until that problem gets solved, the region will continue to decline.
Strike, I don't hate Utica. Those are simply valid observations. There is a difference you know ....
The problem goes away when Utica goes away.
In my humble ex-Utican opinion: Wow! So many cross purposes make for muddy thinking. It ain't about geography. It's about lucre. Are we trying to enshrine history here or make money? Solve a division of powers game or increase our accounts receivable? Maybe you can do all of it, but an attack plan with multiple purposes usually runs on one leg. First, to speculate that the name Utica inspires no more than derision in most people's minds is not to hate the place. OK, so it's not positive thinking, but we are talking business here and people who would step forward to invest money don't care what Utica USED to be or COULD be. They want their money to go into an area that not only has potential but SOUNDS like it has potential. They frankly don't want to even bring up the name Utica when they recommend to their Board of Directors the building of a plant in "the Beautiful Mohawk Valley." Why start an argument?
Utica is a city. To many of us a city was a hometown, but in reality a city was first an economic construct. Today, those constructions across the state are dying. The State helped to kill them. We need to get used to it.
As for Real Estate operators, they're marketers, although usually not the most critical of thinkers. Their job is not to rehabilitate the name of Utica. Rehabilitation is for social workers and is not considered a business plan. They want to sell property, and they'll call the area anything they think sounds nice. I lived in an area of the state where a swath of towns was renamed by real estate speculators in the late 1800's when the image of the American Indian swelled to the level of noble savage. The real estate people just followed a social trend and invented names that sounded Indian. There were no more Indians in the Catskills than there had been in downtown Albany. The land speculators of the time did enrage a lot of the locals, but everyone made money. Three cheers for Chief Peekamoose.
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