In short, lifestyle is the combination of specific interests, mindset, opinions, behaviors, activities & behavioral emphasis of an individual, group, cultural entity or a nation as a whole. Let’s study the creation, development and promotion of specific life style of the people of Northeast Region.

The first and the foremost influence upon the life style and culture of the Northeast Region of United States was received from the first European emigrants who landed and founded James Town as the first colony to settle there in the present day Virginia and then in the New England, present-day Massachusetts. These landed emigrants were primarily non-conformists or Pilgrims and those, called Puritans, belonging to England, who were seeking religious freedom from the relatively stick religious environment of traditional Europe. They had and still have influence upon the life style of Northeast.

Being at the pivotal geographical location of United States, Northeast Region occupies the position of richest region of the nation. Though it is smaller in overall size of population and area, it has the highest per capita income of $43,682, almost 10% higher than that of the nation. New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania rank in the top ten states in nation. This is one of the reasons that overwhelming majority of the country and the World rush to adopt the life style, adopted by New Yorkers and that of Northeast Region.

Northeast region is leading the nation in the life style stimulation while rest of the other regions are simply endorsing the excellence of choice of Northeast. Let’s study the factors, affecting the life style promotion of Northeast and its upshots upon the rest of the Nation.

Though there are numerous elements which are treated as the primary cause of life style and its change, which require lot of discussions and descriptions, but some of the most important ones are:

• Climate or weather
• Historical background of the offshoot of population
• Influence of cultural heritage
• Religious background
• Ethnicity and racial impacts
• Cuisines and eating habits
• Urban & suburban inhabitants
• Economy and financial conditions
• Role of politics in life style change – historical background
• Education & training

Detailed discussion and exploration will required prolonged chapters. So let’s have a short analysis of the effects of different factors affecting the life style and its change in Northeast Region.

Factors of climate or weather are the natural promotors of life style. Almost all the elements of climate play their natural role, silently, for the promotion of different life styles for the different areas having the different environment.

Climate of the region has the deep impact upon the life style of any region, city or nation. Climate include the hot or cold temperature, frequency of precipitation or rising sea levels. All these impacts influence our health conditions by affecting the kind or quality of the food, available in the region for the population to eat & consume, the purity & quality of the drinking water, the air – its quality, purity & refinement.

All these human-made factors affect the life style, i.e. housing styles, clothing / fashion, eating / drinking habits, nutrition & food products available as food, transportation in different weather and the health conditions.

As the Northeast is transforming, rapidly, into the service oriented economy from the old industry-based economy, its climate is becoming purer and cleaner, day by day. This is due to getting rid of industrial pollution and starting neat and clean services economy.

Rainfall in the Northeastern states spreads in the wide range of climates, i.e. over 100 inches per annum in upstate New York to 32 inches in the coastal areas of Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland. On the other hand, northern New England, the parts of New York State, north of the Mohawk River and highland areas in the Appalachians range of mountains have warm & humid summers while snowy, rather bitterly cold winters are wide spread. Such varied climatic conditions promote the housing designs, clothing trends, eating habits, transportation styles, gaming facilities, educational facilities and so on.

The culture plays the most important part in the development and promotion of life style in any specified area and environment. The three aforementioned aspects of cultural heritage play the most important part in the development and modification of life style for an area or region:

• Religious background
• Ethnicity and racial impacts
• Cuisine and eating habits

Let’s have a little detailed discussion upon what role each of religion, ethnicity and cuisine, play for the concerned life style.    

As the early immigrants to the New World were predominantly Catholics with the European origin, majority of them was Catholic. Being the early settlers, they settled in the half of the states in Northeast as majority of them migrated during nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. As majority of them migrated from Ireland, Italy, Quebec and other Catholic majority regions, they brought with them the typical life style of their previous religious background.

Like Catholics, Northeast is home to a large number of Jews as well with the largest concentration and percentage of population in the United States. Similarly, the region has highest number of Hindus and Sikhs, outside India. This is due to the fact that the Northeast has more people of Indian descent than any other part of the country, and in the world outside India.

The region is also home to one of the largest populations of Muslims and Buddhists in United States. Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox Christians are also habitants here as they are Eastern European in origin.

Whole this religious spectrum has melted into this Northeast region as the beautiful amalgamation of the American Nation. This is why; the Northeast region is called the great merger pot of the life style where each and every nation or religious community, landed in the New World of United States and merged into it, is still retaining its distinct life style.

This is the reason that Northeast Region has most distinct and unique life style, which is not found anywhere in all the corners of the Globe.

From Year 1892 to 1924, Ellis Island in New York Harbor, was America’s largest and most active immigration point where over 12 million immigrants were welcomed and processed. It was the the place for the United States where whole the United States was termed as the melting pot for the new immigrants from Europe.

The Northeast Region actually worked as the melting pot for a large number of diverse ethnicities. As in the past, almost all the Italian, Irish, Africans, Hispanic and Asians, landed on the new World of Hope, have still highest concentration of all the landed ethnicities in Northeast Region.

The three largest cities of Northeast – New York City, Philadelphia and Boston – still have the highest concentration of Africans Americans, Italians, Irish and Puerto Ricans. This is why; the Northeast Region provides the natural display of true life style, which presents the grand amalgamation of all the landed immigrants.

Though the above mentioned ethnic groups and nationalities melted there into one nation but despite decades or even centuries have passed, they retained many distinct identities of their previous cultural and national identities. And they are still reluctant to get rid of their unique identities.

Different ethnic entities have a great impact upon the promotion of the Northeast Region. This merger of different ethnicities has the largest share of the cake of new life style of Northeast Region and the overall United States.

Due to availability of the vast quantities of fishing and other sea foods, most popular among the frequent sea travelers, Northeast Region has relied mostly upon these types of foods since the colonial times. Sea food has produced a major source of economic strength for the region. This is why; the intensely developed seafood sector has promoted some of the most famous dishes in the World. This is the sea food life style which has played a major part in the economic integration among the different ethnic identities.

Taste blending, as a part of life style, has played a major part for the merger of large immigrant populations into one nation.

Since the inception of the history of Northeast Region, the immigrants were settled in urban and suburban areas. This settlement was either opted by themselves due to their background in the original areas from where they migrated or was done due to the availability of jobs in the new areas of settlement. In those timings, the jobs were available in the following three fields; farming, sea-based jobs or industries. Farming and sea-related jobs were either in the rural or semi-rural areas but the industries were specifically in the urbanized locations. The difference of life style between the rural and urban inhabitants is still felt even today.

The bifurcation of the population was not permanent as development of the West Coast and the South opened the inland migration toward the West and South. This internal shifting of the population miraculously transformed the life style of the Northeast Region to other regions of the United States.

The depopulation of the cities of the Northeast Region, such as, Yonkers, Utica, Buffalo, Syracuse, even parts of New York City in New York State, Newark in New Jersey, Lowell in Massachusetts, Hartford & Bridgeport in Connecticut and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, happened due to the conversion of industrialized cities to the service oriented economical cities and completely changed the life style of these cities.

Due to the lack of working manpower in the cities, the major change of life style was noted in the rural and suburban areas where the great part of the inhabitants shifted to the urbanized areas.

Till the World War II, economy of Northeast Region was industry-based. But, the second half of twentieth century witnessed the relocation of the industry from Northeast to the West Coast / Southern Regions. Due to the lesser wage levels, availability of the vast land resources, low cost fuel and low taxation caused many industrialists to move their industrial setup to the new industrial zones in West Coast and Southern regions. But, after the relocation of the heavy industries to the West Coast / South, the industrial vacuum at the urban Northeast, particularly the New England, was partly filled by the microelectronics, computer and biotechnology-based industries.

Being less dependent upon service sector for the intense and highly trained labor, financial, technical, tourism-based, educational and medical related labor is desired for the service sector. This is why; Northeast Region is attracting the skilled workers related to the said sectors from all around the World.

This is the reason that life style of the Northeast Region is rapidly changing with the arrival of the new workforce from all corners of the World.

Though known for political liberalism, all the states of Northeast Region voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats in 2020 Presidential Elections. Even the voters of Pennsylvania who are treated as the most democracy lovers and who are not pet voters of either Republicans or Democrats, also voted for the Democrat Presidential candidate, Joe Biden.

Let’s have the analysis of the role of politics in life style change:

Traditionally, the Northeast Region was a Republican stronghold but between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the Republicans were treated as the economic and social liberals. They used to advocate open markets and concept of free labor, i.e. they had the right to sell their labor in exchange for wages – opposing the labor unions and slavery. But, the major cities were under the influence of Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the population of the major cities of Northeast was pushed upward during the period between 1970s till World War 11. During this period, the Democrats, successfully, won the support of the incoming immigrants.

During this period, the population of the Northeast Region was basically, industrial oriented. But, the slow in-state migration had been started which caused the shifting of industrial labor to the West Coast and Southern Regions. During the same period, the rural and the suburbanized population traits had started to change toward the urbanized population. The conversion of industrial economy to the service oriented one changed life style from the suburban to the urban. Thus the total change of the culture also happened; from dress & clothing, eating habits, residential facilities and so on – everything related to life style started to change with the passage of time.

The great waves of change in life style of the Northeast Region, overall United States and even whole the World, spread from more than 1500 colleges, universities, professional schools, seminaries and other academic institutions, located throughout the Northeast Region. The educational impact of the Northeast Region has changed the educational culture of whole the United States. Even the waves of change are reaching to almost all the countries of the World.

This impact is so deep that its influence is expected to be felt for decades. Whole the life of students, their colleagues, the organizations they serve and even the countries / nations they belong and live; World is changing to great extent. This is the strongest type of the life style change, felt in the history of human beings.

The change in life style, spread with education, is particularly influencing the state of the art technological fields. This change is felt mostly in the fields of software, artificial intelligence and other computer related fields. Not a single field of life is there, which is not influence by the education, particularly the software related fields.

And whole revolution is spreading from the educational institutions of United States, particularly from the educational institutions of Northeast Region.

This life style change is that change upon which Northeast Region must feel proud.

In the presence of many critical factions, changing the life style of the whole region, the Northeast Region is presenting the unique life style which is a little different from rest of the other regions of United States. But three of many unique and specifically important factions are the conversion of industrial economic region to the service-oriented one, transformation of suburban population to the urbanized one and spread of education. All these factors along with the others played the role to set the most prevalent life style not only in whole the United States but also around the Globe.

Particularly whole the qualified and the trained work force took the pet life style, called the ‘American Life Style’ from Northeast Region and particularly from the New England area to almost all the countries, nations and corners of the Globe. And this is called the American Culture. Whole the World looks to be in the grip of the American culture, thanks to ‘Northeast Region’.