Originally Posted by Bah Humbug

Basically. The way it works is, there are two cultural poles in the northeast: NY and Boston. New England, other than western CT, aligns to Boston. Western CT and NJ align to New York. My family is from eastern CT, originated in Mass (prior to my generation), and vacations in Maine. Much of the rest of my family is from or vacations in New Hampshire, and sometimes Vermont.

Think of it this way: that region is smaller than Texas. It is heavily interlocked, no matter whether you can drive across three states before lunch. People just talk about Massachusetts because that's the part big enough to bother talking about, but really, it covers most of the area.