Perhaps I am the first Long Islander to say good things about Binghamton and the University. In fact, I turned down an offer from Cornell to come here because it doesn't really matter where you go to undergrad once you are considering colleges on the level of Binghamton and up. The school pours a bunch of money into my Bioengineering department and almost all my teachers have degrees from MIT and Harvard (and Tokyo Uni) so why should I pay another 30 grand a year. I'll save the money for grad school when it really matters. Oh yeah, then there is also the fact that 80% of CEOs today went to public school (like the guy who currently runs Disney). University is just a tool and a background. It doesn't make you successful, it just gives you a few opportunities to have you help yourself.

Yes the weather sucks in the winter, but it is beautiful in the summer time. You can't see mountains like this on Long Island. Additionally there are a number of cultural events that go on in Bing all the time. Lucia Di Lammermoor, came here to do Opera and there is the Speedie Fest and such in August I think. There is one vintage thrift shop downtown that designers from Manhattan come to to steal ideas and resell for 10x the price.

So while Bing is no Manhattan, its no bumblefuck either. Additionally, Cornell should be nicer if you are going to pay thirty thousand extra dollars a year. For that amount of money, they should powder your balls (like the gentleman below indicated of Long Islanders).

I had a friend who went to University of Hawaii at Manoa which is much lower ranking than Binghamton (but hey its Hawaii) and he went to Yale for physics for grad school, so who the fuck cares where he went for undergrad.

Stop bitching and take control of your life. Then get shitfaced

The armpit of the United States. Alternatively, A place that makes third-world eastern European countries look enticing

ive lived in bing my whole life and the thing that sucks the most about it is all the stuck up long island fucks that go to BU and do nothing but bitch about how bad binghamton is. If you don't like it fucking transfer, no one here will miss your gay asses.Bing sucks, but it's def not the worst, look at alot of schools in small towns in the middle of nowhere like oneonta, fredonia, etc... now that shit sucks...at least we have shit to do. Go home and take your fat girls in tiny skirts and toolbags w/ unbuttoned dress shirts w/ no shirts on underneath and spiky hair with you.

An absolute shithole surrounded by trailer parks (lots of them) and white-trash. Poverty. Ignorance. Beer-bellies and camoflauge. Women are overweight and just plain nasty. People from NJ are assholes? I've never encountered such a rude bunch in my life, and I've lived in 4 states, NJ included. People are just miserable. Advance Auto Parts is a zoo, full of broke-ass, rusting off the frame, 20 year old Chevy pickup trucks with their hoods up fixing their pieces in the parking lot so they can get on with their pathetic lives. Area is full of side-of-the-road redneck car dealerships run by a bunch of crooks. I've never seen so many people without teeth, or the ones they have left are rotting. Everyone smokes. Extreme uneducation. This includes the surrounding areas as well. Broome County is one of the poorest counties in the nation, #30 to be exact. A lot of petty crimes and drunks. NOT an area you move to to get ahead in life!!! Just look in the local classifieds...if you do find a job it's most likely blue-collar, no education required at an unliveable pay-scale. The pay here is ridiculously low. Real estate is worth NOTHING. If you want to cling to the lower rungs of society, move to the Southern Tier!!!

This place sucks unless you start smoking weed early in life (6th Grade) then you pretty much get shit-faced on the weekends return to school and do it again all over.

Since everyone on here is painting such a fugly image of Binghamton, I think it's only fair that someone with a brain actually shows the good AND the bad. So far, for the most part anyway, the only people who've written an entry here have been (A) students from Long Island who are bitching because in reality they miss their parents and are trying to compensate, and (B) local idiots with no culture who don't actually try to find fun and complain a lot because fun doesn't find them. The city is what you make of it, just like every other city in the country. anyway...

Unlike what others on here have said, Binghamton is a major city in New York State... right up there with Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Ithaca. It's situated on the crossroads of 81, 86, and 88, and contains a fairly important train artery. Binghamton University, one of the top-rated state universities in New York (or the country for that matter), boasts a world-renowned archeology department. The metro area is broken up into boroughs, much like New York City (hence there not being a mayor in Vestal or JC). The actual city of Binghamton is fairly small, with only 50k residents, but the valley itself has almost half a million residents. It's the carousel capital of the world, home to one of the oldest zoos in the country, and has a pretty cool local museum with interesting tidbits about the city's history. Speaking of which, in it's day (up until the mid 1980's, in fact), Binghamton was a very famous and crucial city, especially in the 1920's when it was on the map in bigger letters than even Albany or Buffalo. If you're a fan of that particular era, Binghamton is a great place to visit because it captures the architectural style of that era really well. There's plenty of culture in Binghamton, and at least 1/3rd of the city's population is actually cultured a fair amount. The other 2/3rds? Name a city in the world where 2/3rds of the resident's AREN'T morons... please, try, any city in the world. Give up? I thought so.

The Bad: Since IBM (which was founded here) left the area, the city has started to fall apart. The sudden and drastic skyrocketing unemployment effects were created by both IBM leaving and the economic catastrophe of 9/11, which effected the entire state. Because unemployment went through the rough in a matter of days, the county increased its welfare benefits, and that lead to scummy people from New York City and the south to move here so they could live off the government and send the city further into the ground. But Binghamton rebounded a few years later, and today, the economy is growing stronger. We're starting to see the southern pickup-driving confederate-wearing fucktards from down south move away because we aren't cutting them checks anymore, and that's having a drastically-positive effect on the city. Anyway, let me close with some statistics for the idiot who said Binghamton "doesn't have black people." I'm half-black, my family is mostly black... here's some stats for you to wash down your stupidity with:
38% - Black
36% - White
11% - Hispanic (88% of which are puerto rican)
9% - Asian (63% of which are vietnamese or laotian)
6% - other
^ that's the actual racial breakdown for Binghamton, New York. Maybe if you went somewhere besides State Street you'd actually know that ;)