Talk:Upstate

Illinois

The inclusion of Illinois on this list was done a couple of years ago by an anon IP editor [1] who probably had the best of intentions. But this is just not a common term in Illinois, and just as you don't generally hear New Yorkers referring the the NYC metro area as "Downstate New York", most Illinoisians will not refer to Chicago's metro area as "upstate", even though we do refer to the non-metro area as "downstate". The single support for this is the existence of a high school athletic conference that uses the term in its name, but I would suggest that one group of eight high schools does not denote common usage. HuskyHuskie (talk) 15:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To reiterate the point made months ago: If one googles "Upstate New York" or "Downstate Illinois", there will be literally thousands of separate entries. I don't mean hits, I mean that the terms are used by scores of organizations, government bodies, and so forth. But "Upstate Illinois", absent that one athletic conference, has no official or even common meaning in Illinois (just as "Downstate New York" would strike most citizens of the Empire State as bizarre). HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this term really this common?

I gotta say, I'm not sure I buy all the entries on this list. Yeah, I know about "Upstate New York", but I have to wonder if some of these usages are primarily some editor's personal notion. I'm asking for some citations to support these, and I don't mean blogs or personal websites--I mean some reliable sources. HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:57, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]