County Map Project
MA - Massachusetts
Links updated January
16, 2008|
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Also see resources for my new course: Geography of Brockton.
County Map Project
Links updated January
16, 2008 |
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| As of August, 1997,
Massachusetts is my seventh home state. For our
first five years, we rented a very lovely home in the center of
Bridgewater from a retired BSC professor and his wife. From this home,
shown in this aerial photograph,
we could walk to work, to church, and to many other places on a daily
basis. It was truly a delightful spot! In 2002, we finally bought the
first house of our very own. It is
even closer to campus, and has its own web
page. I have not found it yet, but according to Zippy the Pinhead, Boston is home to a unique -- and somewhat disturbing -- statue of Mickey Mouse as a lobster. Ironically -- since I run a county-map page -- in my adopted
home
state of Massachusetts counties are of almost
no practical importance. On highways, town boundaries are clearly
marked, but county-line markers are an afterthought, if they exist at
all. In fact,
the abolition
of counties has begun in various ways. Each of the 351 towns and cities
of Massachusetts has a separate government, most operated by direct
democracy in the form of the traditional New
England town meeting. This form of direct democracy is charming,
ineffecient, and unlikely to change in my lifetime! Living just outside of the Hub of the Universe - Boston, that is - I have found the You Might Be from Boston page to be especially useful. The Davis Family Farm is the best place in Massachusetts to take children for an outing. It features a combination of excellent children's educational activities and a very important livestock conservation program. It is one of the few child-oriented places I have visited that also pays adequate attention to the comfort of the adults who come along. The farm includes a small maze, and across the street is a world-class field maze. Information about both is available on the web site.If -- like me -- you are a former Southwesternerner looking for real (that is, spicy) food in Massachusetts, give Firefly's a try!
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| Finally! Timothy Noah of
Slate.com debunks the myth
of Taxachusetts. In fact, Massachusetts is dead-last in funding
for public higher education and my own town
of Bridgewater is so anti-tax that it has nearly
killed its library! Unfortunately, Trashachusett may be a more apt name for this otherwise lovely place, and so, too, may be Crashachusetts. |
| One of my first explorations in Massachusetts -- and
neighboring Rhode Island -- was a HumPhy field trip to the Blackstone Valley , and I have
enjoyed returning with my family on several occasions. (HumPhy is an
autumn tradition in our geography program. It is an exploration of a
local area from both
HUMan and PHYsical geographic perspectives. Faculty and upper-division
geography students are included.)
In both 1998 and 2000, HumPhy was on Cape Cod. Dr. Domingo created an excellent HumPhy 2000 web page, with lovely and fun photos from the Outer Cape. |
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One very interesting aspect of the Southeastern Massachusetts environment is the annual migration of anadromous fish. The term "herring run" refers both to the migration and to the physical structures that have been built in many places to facilitate the migration around human-made structures (mostly small dams that provided power to New Englands mills in an earlier time). The Weymouth Herring Run is one such structure.
The Mapparium
is one of
Boston's great treasures!
Boston Links
provides links to historic sites to in and around Boston.
So far, I have visited the counties shown in yellow. In August 2001,
I visited the charming island of Nantucket,
making Massachusetts the eighth state in which I have visited all of
the
counties. Nantucket is the only jurisdiction in which the name of a
town,
a county, and an island all coincide. We are fortunate to have friends
with a moderately-priced guest house on this increasingly expensive
island, where some rooms rent for up to $8,000 per night!
Here's a funny page about Massachusetts linguistic geography: How to Pronounce Massachusetts Town Namesorcestermass. It begins with the author's home town, "WOO-STAH."
Learn about the local Cape Cod school that is erecting its own wind
turbine! Beyond teaching about sustainable energy, some officials
hope the
wind-power industry will keep the next generation working in town.
I have been to 14 out of 14 counties in Massachusetts.
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For really good maps and images, visit Color Landform Atlas: Massachusetts . |
Explore the rest of the County Map Project or my extensive environmental geography web site.
