Northeast

Northeast is a region of the United States of America.

Background
Formed after The Collapse, the Northeast is made up of the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

History
For a long time, in fact for most of this country's history, the Northeast has considered itself the heart and soul of the United States. What was fashionable in New York was fashionable everywhere. If it wasn't New England lobster, it wasn't any good. Everyone watched the New Year roll in at Madison Square Garden.

Sadly, more than fashion was exported from the East Coast. Drugs, crime, pop psychotherapy, gangs, poverty, and a Kitty Jones mentality seeped from the northeastern urban blight like leakage from a toxic waste tank. People got used to, and even claimed to prefer, the mercury-laden atmosphere, the two-hour lemming commutes, and the high-rise closets renting for $2500 per month. By the time the rest of America realized they didn't want the New England metropolitan heritage, it was too late, and many other cities, like Detroit and Los Angeles, were already spiraling down into their own urban nightmares.

Although the United States at large was beginning to realize that the northeastern urban lifestyle was nothing to look up to, it wasn't until the Collapse that the country divorced itself from the Manhattan dream and got on with pursuing their own destinies. During the darkest years since the Great Depression, the New England states were cut adrift.

So what did the average New Englander do?

If possible, he left. No surprise, really. By the time of the Collapse in 1996, the entire eastern seaboard had been turned into a battle zone. Hunger, homelessness, civic bankruptcy, public service strikes, and racial tensions had been endemic in the New England cities, and riots and violence had become the rule of the day. When the Collapse hit, the loss of jobs stripped most people of any reason to stay in the region. Those who could moved, bringing one last export from the Northeast to the rest of the country: lots of unemployed and homeless people.

The Collapse also cut down the arcologies in their infancy; they were the Northeast's last gasp at remaining in the van of American culture. Designed as new model cities, the arcologies were an urbanite's dream come true. Giant crystalline domed cities, protected from the acid rains and harsh winter storms, the arcos were designed for accessibility, beauty and comfort, and to ensure that a high standard of living was available to each resident.

The Northeast also suffers from acid rain, rampant corruption, industrial waste, and an urban/rural dichotomy. It has been washed to the wayside by the tides of the last twenty years, and it doesn't look like it will be recovering soon. Although the Northeast is the largest region in terms of number of states, it is, politically speaking, down at the bottom of the power pole, grubbing around in the mud along with Dixie and, to a lesser extent, the West.

The Seaboard Cooperative
Since the separation of Northern California from Southern California, there has been a movement in the less urbanized states to separate themselves from the rest of the Northeast Region. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have vocal minorities loo king for regional repartitioning, or perhaps even secession to Canada. Thus far, the rest of the Northeast Region has been able to prevent their withdrawal.

They have, however, formed a cooperative alliance for mutual support and, not so incidentally, against any possible depravations by outsiders. This is the Seaboard Cooperative, and this is what many would like to see as a new region. As popular support for the Seaboard Cooperative rises in New York State (the remainder of which is largely rural), regional recognition becomes more and more likely.

Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are practically the only states left in the nation that are neither polluted, urbanized, nor co-opted by agribusiness. As such, they have an immediate interest in preserving that status, and through strict anti-Corporate legislation, they have managed to do so. This has also had the effect of ostracizing them from the technical revolution, giving the states (by most accounts) the lowest standard of living of any in the union. This does not particularly bother the residents, though, as they'd rather not have the extra money everyone else spends on guns, bikes, cybernetics and security. They'd rather hang out on their porches and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic.

One would think that laid-back rural attitudes like this would be crushed beneath the wheels of the twenty-first century. To obviate that possibility, the Seaboard cooperative has a large, well-armed joint police force. Everyone must serve 6000 hours (equivalent to six years part-time) on the Seaboard Police Corps, for which they receive a nominal pay. The semi-flexible hours allow everyone to keep their own life in order. These police have a vested interest in making sure that Nomads don't come burning through their territory, and they are well known as a hard group to tangle with. What they lack in streetwise experience they make up for in camaraderie; after all, practically every cop in a given area knows every other cop, and they don't take kindly to someone trying to scrag their neighbor.