Who was born and bred in the Lehigh Valley? (Philadelphia: relocate, transplants)

[loose cannon]

Furthermore, as you can confirm I am not in agreement whatsoever with the pathetic racist, ignorant, comments from those "Dumb Dutchies!".

[karen_s]

Originally Posted by loose cannon

Im the aginghipster for your info. I am the voice of reason on that commet board!

Nice to meet you! Love the aginghipster name I have the same name on there as here, I don't comment anonymously.

I also am a "Dutchy" by heritage though.

[Lehigh Valley Native]

Originally Posted by loose cannon

Furthermore, as you can confirm I am not in agreement whatsoever with the pathetic racist, ignorant, comments from those "Dumb Dutchies!".

I can confirm that you are an equal to the ones you just ridiculed. As an "aging hipster" you should try aging a bit more graceful.

[toobusytoday]

If you look up nocturnal roosters posts on the PA forum you'll see that he consistently tires to bait the other posters with provocative comments. I would not take anything he says personally or seriously.

BTW, speaking of native Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, Southern Lehigh Public Library is going to have a 13 week Penn. dutch language class starting early next year. Let's keep those roots alive!

[karen_s]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

BTW, speaking of native Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, Southern Lehigh Public Library is going to have a 13 week Penn. dutch language class starting early next year. Let's keep those roots alive!

I would love to take those classes, that would be amazing. In my family, only my 94-year-old great aunt still is able to speak Dutch. My mom refused to learn as a kid

[bluskyz]

Indeed I am a native. Born in Easton hospital and educated locally I left the area in my 20's to fullfill my military obligation. After discharge I stayed in the area of discharge as employment opportunities emerged there. As I always had a spot in my heart for the LV I visited often, and had planned to retire to
my home area someday.
As one may expect, during the time spent in my career the LV area has changed considerably. For this particular retiree (semi-retiree) the changes were not positive. I found the ABE area no longer able to give me what I desired especially for the money I chose to spend.
Don't get me wrong--the fondness is still there and I visit the few remaining relatives I have in the area frequently. I chose a retirement area in the South and plan to stay there.
I don't miss the density, the property taxes or the cold winters. I resent the escalated real estate prices created mostly by the crush from those coming from NY & NJ. I miss the farmland. If I wanted the atmosphere these relocated people have created I would have moved to NY or NJ years ago. So much for sincerity!

[janeannwho]

I go home every other year or so and the biggest change for me is the accent. When I left, there was a flat mix of coalcracker, PA Dutch, and some Philly. Now when I go home, the city accents of Newark, Philly and NY are astounding. We could always tell where someone was from by how they said water. When I grew up there, I really lived there, I did all the cultural things, went to the schools, worked in the local businesses. I loved the place for all its fairs, school carnivals, fireworks at Liberty that would set the roofs of the houses on New Street on fire. But it is growing up now, no longer the home for hard working steelworkers (Oh i loved the Bethlehem steel club) and their upwardly mobile children... We all had to leave when they "closed the factories down"

[Tama]

McMansion is more than an outsized house. It refers to cookie-cutter "mansions"--sort of a yuppie Levittown. Row after row of lookalike mansion wannabees.
People moving into the Lehigh Valley have dreams and hopes and I wish them well in their new homes and lives. However, everytime I return to visit my mom, I see more destruction of beautiful farmland, cornfields, and rolling green. In its place are these developments of tract mini-opulence. There has to be a compromise and I sure hope these communities make an effort to curtail this scorched earth policy.
Why can't homes be built into the scheme of the landscape and the natural beauty maintained. I know the reason. It is simply a rhetorical question. The integrity of the land should be protected. It is a darn shame.

[TristansMommy]

Originally Posted by karen_s

I thought "McMansion" was universally recognized The term has been around for quite some time, or at least I've heard it so much lately with the rampant development in the Lehigh Valley.

Here's the Wiki entry on it: McMansion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wasn't trying to be rude, just make a bit of a point. The vast majority of the "natives" you are polling about could not even begin to touch one of these types of homes no matter how many jobs they work, and this creates lots of tension. In my area, this is further exacerbated by the fact that the "development" in our town has its own events and shuns the community-wide celebrations which have been going on for years.

You can also read the mcall.com comments page (warning - wear your asbestos suit if you plan on commenting) and you can see how much anger and emotion exists regarding quality of life issues in the greater Lehigh Valley.

The term McMansion is widespread.. in NY we haev them too.. only our McMansion are million plus homes... in parts of PA, what i paid for a showbox f a house (which I love.. just not hte price) I could get a brand new McMansion.. which is why a lot of transplants buy them. To them it is a great value for hte money if they are comign from NY or NJ,

[janeannwho]

I am not a fan of large houses in general as I find them to be wasteful in terms of resources and family time spent on keeping up the house rather than having fun together. That said, I was born in Bethlehem and lived there through college. Other than a few historic pockets of Allentown and Bethlehem, there were few custom homes anywhere. Row homes in town, Kaywin, East Hills, the Asa Packer area, the northeast has rows and rows of the same houses. They were industrial towns, built for working people and the families on the GI bill. I guess I am not sure why a family building a new home in the area is such a travesty. As far as new families blending in, well my ex's dad was born in the house his family built in Hellertown. His family had been there since the late 1700s in that same house. He moved away for work, and when he brought his family home ten years later, he and they were treated as strangers. So I can see how the new communities might stick together.