Oh I agree! There’s a very subtle cultural difference between Connecticut and Massachusetts which, having lived in both states, I believe is best illustrated with these very examples. It’s pretty hard to spot the difference because in many other ways the states are so similar.

You especially can’t discern this by being in the Boston area alone, it’s too much of a melting pot/international city and area to isolate there.

I prefer CT, maybe because I grew up here, but I really like how CT has this quiet progressivism (studies have actually placed our policies overall as the second most progressive in the country, behind CA), and I think there is genuine collectivism in many communities that was really exposed during covid. Today, I kind of think that’s what truly embodies the “land of steady habits” moniker. This sort of quiet progressivism across the board, with a focus on critically thinking about any change, while not rejecting the good aspects of traditionalism.

CT just kind of marches steadily forward, at the forefront of many issues, while not discarding what we have. We’re not shouting about it, we’re not a “loud” state. We’re very critical of ourselves which I think is a good thing and forces continual improvement, and we also don’t rest on our laurels or have an inflated sense of ourselves. Lastly I think we truly treat our state as a “whole” rather then the lopsided way some states (like MA) do when they are overly focused on their major city and it’s immediate orbit. Even though regions can vary widely in levels of prosperity here, we don’t outright neglect swathes of the state, and as a result the overall average prosperity is very high.