Maybe we’re finally done hating on Connecticut

A fall view in Hamden.

" data-large-file="https://ctmirror.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fall-view-in-hamden-771x308.png" /> In 2018, I wrote a column called “Let’s Stop Hating on Connecticut.” It began with a colleague telling me he loved our state. I was so surprised that I asked, essentially, what was wrong with him.

I had grown up here. Complaining about Connecticut was practically a local custom. We complained about the taxes, the roads, the weather, the cost of living. Then we complained that everybody else complained. My colleague, who wasn’t from here, couldn’t understand why people who lived somewhere beautiful seemed so determined to talk it down.

Nearly a decade later, I think he might have company.

I still hear the complaints. I make some of them myself. But I also meet more people who are proud to be here, and more people who have stopped waiting for someone else to fix what bothers them. New people are joining local boards and bringing new ideas with them. That matters in a state where so much of what affects our daily lives is decided by our towns. More people are starting businesses, too. According to CTData Collaborative, annual net business formations have climbed considerably since I wrote that first column.

Transit offers another example. Residents have spent years organizing and speaking up for better service. Now Connecticut has committed funding to increase Shore Line East service and is extending local transit pilots, including XtraMile. Those changes took people who cared enough to keep showing up.

That feels like a change.

It would be easy to call this a turnaround and credit one governor or one good budget. Connecticut doesn’t work that way. Governor Dannel Malloy took on long-neglected fiscal problems, including pension obligations and the structure of state government. Lawmakers from both parties adopted budget rules that helped the state save and pay down debt. Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature have carried that discipline forward while making room for new investments.

The results are beginning to show up in everyday life. This school year, Connecticut began offering breakfast at no cost to public school students. The state has put more money toward education, including special education, and committed funding to improve transportation. We’re paying down obligations that earlier generations left behind while finding ways to serve the next one.

None of this means the state’s finances are permanently fixed. It means the hard choices of one decade can give us more choices in the next. That is what slow and steady is supposed to look like.

There are other reasons to appreciate where we live. We have had damaging storms, and climate change poses serious risks to our coastline. But as major disasters become more frequent elsewhere, Connecticut’s relative stability is something we appreciate more than we might have eight years ago. It gives us a good reason to protect the place we have.

The federal government feels less dependable, too. Connecticut cannot make up for every loss of federal support for critical services. But our state has stepped in to help protect residents when those services are threatened. It is reassuring to live somewhere whose people expect government to keep showing up.

And, yes, there is pizza. We have finally learned to say out loud that Connecticut is the pizza state. We should. We should also brag about the restaurants worth driving across the state for, the local farms supplying them, and the farmers markets that give our towns a reason to gather on a Saturday morning. Sometimes pride is simply telling a friend where to get a great pie.

Of course, there is one reliable way to identify a native Nutmegger: Say something nice about Connecticut and wait for the reply, “Yeah, but it’s so expensive.”

It is. Housing costs are shutting people out of communities they grew up in and making it harder for young families to put down roots. The state has begun to change its housing laws, but passing a law is only the start. We have to build homes people can afford, in communities across Connecticut. So many people want to live here; let’s make room for them.

Maybe some of this new affection comes from people who arrived from New York and Boston during the pandemic. Newcomers have always seemed quicker to notice what we take for granted. Perhaps they’ve helped us see it again. Or maybe we’re finally realizing that complaining is the easy part.

Back in 2018, I asked Connecticut residents to stop hating on our state and get involved. I hoped we could become the kind of people who love a place enough to improve it. I think more of us have.

Improving Connecticut takes work. It is also extremely rewarding. The work is far from finished, but for the first time in a long time, I’m hearing less about jumping ship and more about what we can build here. For the Land of Steady Habits, that’s real momentum.

Blaize Levitan lives in Guilford.