About Roseboom

The Roseboom blog is a way to communicate information about Roseboom, a place located in the rural heart of New York State. The Town and Village of Roseboom are wonderful places to live (apart from the total lack of serious broadband connectivity). The purpose of this “About Roseboom” page is to provide the world with links to, and information about, the town of Roseboom. As you can probably tell, it’s a work in progress.

About Rural New York

For most people, “rural” is not a word that comes to mind when you mention these two words: New York. But in fact, the state of New York is very rural, both historically and today.
Outside of New York City, Buffalo, and a couple of other medium-sized cities, almost the entire rest of the state is entirely rural. Of course, you might say that is true for a lot of other states–take away the cities and the rest is rural–but we beg to differ in that New York’s most populous city, which is also America’s most populous city, is very densely populated. (Technically speaking: the Borough of Manhattan, also known as New York County, is the most densely populated county in the United States.)

Consider this: the island of Manhattan would fit into Roseboom with room to spare. By one calculation, New York state beyond the cities would rank in the top ten most rural states, as rural as Utah or Kansas (less than 30 people per square mile–FYI, there are just 21 people per square mile in Roseboom). The US Census estimates that the 2007 population of New York state was almost 20 million, almost 18 million of which were urban dwellers, leaving just 1,547,795 people in the rural areas of a state that covers 54,555 square miles.

There are other measures of “rural-ness” like farm output. New York produces twice as much corn as Oklahoma. Only Wisconsin and California produce more milk than New York. Hunters in New York shot over 200,000 deer in 2007 and 1,117 black bears (numbers include archery and muzzle loaders).

About Towns in New York

In the state of New York “towns” are different. Basically, everywhere in New York is a town. In other states they might call them townships, but in New York they use the word town to mean an area of land that is a section of a county. So within New York’s Otsego County, area 1,015 square miles, there are 25 towns, one of which is Roseboom, area 33.1 square miles. Within the area of land referred to as “town” there are villages and cities, and sometimes one of these will bear the same name as the town. Thus, within the town of Cherry Valley there is the Village of Cherry Valley. Within the town of Oneonta there is the City of Oneonta. Wikipedia has loads more details about Otsego County.

This arrangement can take some getting used to, for example, when you are driving around here you might pass a sign that says “Town of Cherry Valley” but see nothing except forest or farmland for several miles. Then you see another sign that says “Village of Cherry Valley” and you think, “Wasn’t I here already?”

Another example: You will hear people say that Roseboom was once part of Cherry Valley. But the place that is marked Roseboom on the map is separated from the place marked [village of] Cherry Valley by a several miles of wetland and farmland. So you might wonder how the two could ever have been one. Was there a whole lot of homes and buildings that have since disappeared? No, it’s just that the town of Roseboom split off from the adjoining town of Cherry Valley (in fact, Cherry Valley was one the first three towns in Otsego County).

About Location

One of the things we like about Roseboom-Cherry Valley-Cooperstown is that it is very central. Now you might be thinking “Central to what?’” And that’s a  fair question. How about this answer: Central to a circle with a radius of 200 miles. Within that circle lie: New York City, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Ottawa, and Boston. In other words, there might not be a whole lot of big city action around Roseboom, but Roseboomers can get to any one of half a dozen big citiies within a few hours, as well as Utica, Syracuse, Binghampton, and all of New Jersey and Connecticut.