What it’s like to live on the east coast of the U.S.

The pros and cons of living on the east coast

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, it’s Jeff and this is Plain English lesson number 688. It’s Monday, July 1, 2024. Happy Independence Day if you are in Canada.

Here at Plain English, we help you upgrade your English. This summer, we’re doing some episodes about life in the U.S. And this week, we’ll be talking about life on the two coasts of the United States. Today, we’ll talk about the east coast. On Thursday, we’ll talk about the west coast. And by the end of the week, you’ll know whether you’re more of an east-coast person or more of a west-coast person.

In the second half of today’s lesson, I’ll show you what it means to “focus on” something. Remember this is lesson number 688, so you can find the full lesson resources—the transcript, the quiz, the exercises, the practice area, all that—at PlainEnglish.com/688.

East coast living: what it’s like

The east coast of the United States is about 3,300 kilometers long. It extends from the remote forests of Maine to the sandy beaches of Florida. But when you say, “east coast,” people often understand the northeast, the region between Washington, D.C., and Boston. So that’s the area we’ll focus on today. About fifty million people live in this corridor, and it has its own culture and lifestyle.

So let’s take a look at east-coast living.

Start with the weather. On the east coast, you experience four distinct seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Winters are cold and snowy. Summers are hot and humid. Spring and fall tend to be more moderate, temperature-wise. A lot of people—myself included—like the annual rhythm of the changing seasons. The changing seasons also let you experience, close to home, different types of outdoor activities.

But the weather is not often cited as a “pro” of east-coast living. Winters can be cold and dark; people suffer from seasonal affective disorder in the winter. There are more car accidents because of winter storms. Utility bills are high: you pay for air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter.

The east coast has a rich history: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have played important roles in the nation’s civic and economic development. You can see Thomas Edison’s laboratory in New Jersey, the country’s first lending library in Massachusetts, and Ellis Island in New York harbor. That’s where millions of immigrants first set foot on dry land in North America.

You can visit Revolutionary War sites, important meeting halls, churches, Civil War battlegrounds, monuments, museums, and more—all within a few hours’ drive of each other. This is one of the great advantages of living on the east coast. You can always find something historic, educational, or cultural to do.

There’s diversity in outdoor activities, too. Most places are just a couple of hours from a beach: Cape Cod, the Jersey Shore, and Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach are some of the best ones. There are great mountains, lakes, streams, and valleys to explore, too. Skiing is an option in the winter. If you live near New York or Boston, you can get to ski slopes in Vermont and New Hampshire in a few hours.

The great cities on the east coast developed before the age of the car, so it’s no surprise that the best public transit in the United States is on the east coast. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington all have subway systems and commuter trains. America’s only high-speed rail line connects Washington to Boston in about seven hours.

The east coast also has some of the country’s best museums and cultural institutions. If you want to see an opera, browse paintings and sculptures, or hear a symphony orchestra, the east coast has a museum or concert hall for you.

The east coast has many of the country’s highest-ranking universities and hospitals: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University: all east coast institutions.

You’ll find a rich diversity of people on the east coast, in part because the universities are magnets for immigrants from around the world. There’s a tremendous amount of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity in the major cities.

If you work in traditional finance, government, or media, the east coast is probably your home. New York is the king of fashion and advertising, not to mention finance. Boston is known for its healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries; Washington, of course, for law and government.

Lifestyle-wise, people often say the pace of life is faster in the northeast. There’s pushing and shoving on the sidewalk, late nights at the office, and a hustle culture to get ahead. People dress more formally, both at work and out of the office, than they do elsewhere . Salaries are relatively high on the east coast, but so are costs.

The east coast has a greater orientation toward Europe. The workday overlaps by three or four hours with the workday in London and Paris. A flight from New York to London, Boston to Dublin, or DC to Brussels is an easy overnight direct flight.

Finally, the time zone. Any national event that has a single starting time will be optimized for the east coast viewer. Major sporting events are most convenient in the east: football games on Sundays start at 1:00, 4:00, and 8:00. They start at ten in the morning out west. Even the Oscars are optimized for the east coast: they start at 7:00 in New York and 4:00 in the afternoon in Los Angeles. The stock market opens at a leisurely 9:30 in New York, but a punishing 6:30 a.m. on the west coast.

Jeff’s take

I grew up on the east coast—I was born in New Jersey, grew up in Connecticut, went to college near Philadelphia. So in many ways, this is my home region. I’ll tell you what I like: I do like the four seasons. I like the geographic diversity. There are great parks, rolling hills, forests, ski slopes, the coast, and all that is within a few hours of the major cities. And the history is great, too.

So that’s what I like about the east coast. But that’s not the only coast we have. On Thursday, we’ll take a look at the west coast—California, Oregon, and Washington State. And so by the end of this week, you’ll know if you’re more an east-coast kind of person or a west-coast kind of person.