kat:
I lived in the area from 1986 until 1991. You never heard people call it 'Hamp probably because you did not spend time around anyone who'd lived there long enough! In any case it wasn't something you commonly heard *in* Northampton, but outside it, as in when my bosses at the store in Amherst I worked at would say "We have to get over to 'Hamp later" meaning their Northampton location, or the women who served you breakfast at the diner in   North   Amherst would say, "Yeah, with that parade today, traffic in 'Hamp is gonna be awful!"

Other cool stuff in the area: The Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls; the Book Mill in   Montague; the tobacco farms still functioning in Deerfield and North Amherst (along Route 5/10   you can see   them); the butterfly habitat in Deerfield.