Purely anecdotal, but I took a roadtrip through southern Appalachia a few years ago, and the parts of West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina that I went through reminded me so much of rural Maine that it wasn't funny.
Maine is really two different states. There is southern Maine, centered on York and Cumberland counties (basically the Portland metro area), and then there is the rest of the state. The other half of Maine has very little industry, almost no white-collar work, and extremely low population density. There are entire regions of the state that are propped up by one or two paper mills that are still operating, or subsist off of tourism dollars during the summer months or the ski season. And even tourism and skiing took a beating during the recent financial crisis.
I agree with this. When people say "Hey, what about Portland" I tell them, no, Portland and Kittery are actually part of New Hampshire since they seem to get all the actual benefit.
Like, you know how when you travel between states, theres the major highways, and theres tons forest, and no actual towns or anything for miles? It isn't like that from NH into Portland, it IS like that from Portland into Augusta or on the way up to Bangor.
Oh, and as for all the paper mills? We're killing those off. And our one large major employer that isn't in Portland/Kittery? Its rumored that since Jackson Lab couldn't open a big new location here in Maine and opened it in Flordia instead, they're moving their existing location here down to Florida too (and with that, probably thousands of jobs will go with it between the people that work there and the people that support those people in that community).
Its like, can we just leave the US and join Canada already?
Maine is really two different states. There is southern Maine, centered on York and Cumberland counties (basically the Portland metro area), and then there is the rest of the state. The other half of Maine has very little industry, almost no white-collar work, and extremely low population density. There are entire regions of the state that are propped up by one or two paper mills that are still operating, or subsist off of tourism dollars during the summer months or the ski season. And even tourism and skiing took a beating during the recent financial crisis.