From UpstateBlog:

Monroe County is home to nearly 1,100 Hispanic-owned firms, totaling more than $92 million in annual sales, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It looks as if it won't be easy for Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Eliot Spitzer to shake off criticism over his Schenectedy-to-Niagara-looks-like-Appalachia remark from last week. This, despite giving a speech in Syracuse yesterday billed as a major address on his plan to rehabilitate upstate cities.

Among other things, Spitzer said:

Downtowns play a singular role in the social and economic lives of our cities. They are the place where people from all walks of life come together.

Some could argue that's a 1980s worldview. In Glenn Reynolds' new book, An Army of Davids, he deals with reasons why downtowns have succumbed to modern shopping malls:

One reason why people go to malls instead of downtown is that they feel safe. Part of this is physical safety. Though that's partly an illusion...

But more important than the desire for physical safety, I think, is the desire to go un-hassled by unpleaseant people.

Malls have done what downtowns haven't done, Reynolds points out: Keep people free to shop, in private spaces, away from the hassles of public downtowns.

Shopping mall planners recognized that things like crime, parking, clean public restrooms, easy public access - issues they could control because malls are private property, and don't rely on inert government management - could be differentiators between them and downtowns. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, early in his first term as mayor, recognized that as well - he clamped down on squeegee men and petty criminals, kept the streets clean and made Manhattan a desirable place to be.

Many of those supporting Spitzer's campaign now were the same people who ripped Giuliani for cracking down on free speech, free expression, and making the city a less, well, "colorful" place to be. But New York City today is viewed as a completely different place from its "The Bronx is Burning" days.

So how does this relate to Spitzer, Appalachia and places like Utica and Rochester? Well, as the number of Hispanic businesses in Monroe County illustrates, upstate New York is a much different place to do business than in the 1970s and 1980s. The entrepreneurs are different. The population is different. People work and shop and spend their money differently.

Even the city where Spitzer spoke, Syracuse, is home to Pyramid Companies - a company that started business in 1970, built and manages 16 shopping malls in upstate New York, and now tops $5 billion in annual revenue.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Utica-Rome area saw a 5.2 percent unemployment rate in January. Rochester's was 5.3 percent. How much different was that from New York City? Not much. According to the BLS, the New York Metro area's unemployment rate was 5.1 percent.

So...Appalachia? Consider this from the City of Utica's web site, regarding its workforce:

For Oneida County

•High school graduation rates are 15% higher than the state and 5% above the national average.
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•24% of adults have four years of college, compared to 23% in New York State and 19% for the nation.
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Manufacturing productivity for New York State is 23% above the national average.
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•23.74% of our workforce is professional or technical compared to 17.77% nationwide.

Compared to years past, a more diverse, better-educated upstate workforce chooses to spend more of its money in malls rather than downtowns. Its unemployment is about the same as downstate.

The frontrunner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, William Weld, is wasting no time in making political hay out of Spitzer's remarks. In a press release yesterday, he said:

Last week Mr. Spitzer likened Upstate to those Walker Evans photographs showing kids with rickets and missing teeth. This week he proposes billions in new spending programs as the solution. If you truly want to persuade businesses to expand or remain Upstate you need a specific economic plan that reduces the costs of doing business, not demoralizing rhetoric and calls for bigger government.

If nothing else, Spitzer provided a fertile area for debate between now and November.

MORE: Democracy in Albany mocks Spitzer's critics.