What Does Scranton Need to Undergo a Renaissance? (Back Mountain, Mountain Top: transplants, student loans)

[TERMINOLOGY]

Originally Posted by NYRangers 2008

Paul, I have met all of these people at council meetings. Fay, Les, Andy and Bill are all good people. They are the working class of Scranton and like myself are fed up with the current administration and the way it is run and driving Scranton right into the ground. We all live in Scranton and have a right to speak out against our government, just like all Americans have a right to speak out against the President. We can't all run for office, but we expect our elected officials to at least have our best interests most of the time. Doherty and his crew do not. Maybe their squawking gets a little tiring, but so is the way this city is run. They are not a blight to this city, they pay taxes and live here and know the real score. The meetings are the only way for citizens to speak out against the Doherty machine.

I agree with what you are both saying. There is a perception problem with the City Council meetings:

#1 It's a hostile atmosphere: You need courage to proceed to the podium here. The people behind you are out of control. The people in front of you are angry and afraid. What's her name was correct to insist on security. When you watch on TV, it's probably more exciting than watching Ultimate **** (opposite of Hen) Fighting. There's probably more beer being consumed and more toilets flushing in Scranton at this time, than during the Notre Dame Game. It's a genuine Freak Show. Somewhere we are missing point.

#2 Immediate Change can only come from the Vote. Or does the City have a provision to over throw an election?

#3 The City does need a way to diffuse anger and hostility. Maybe hire some more help. Public Relations, etc. The Mayor will call you back. That's positive.

#4 The odds for radical revolution are high. The radicals need to think about where they can realistically focus their time and effort for realistic change.

#5 Change from within this system will come faster, and easier, than revolution from the outside of it. Change from within is more realistic.

[CHS89]

Originally Posted by NYRangers 2008

Paul, I have met all of these people at council meetings. Fay, Les, Andy and Bill are all good people. They are the working class of Scranton and like myself are fed up with the current administration and the way it is run and driving Scranton right into the ground. We all live in Scranton and have a right to speak out against our government, just like all Americans have a right to speak out against the President. We can't all run for office, but we expect our elected officials to at least have our best interests most of the time. Doherty and his crew do not. Maybe their squawking gets a little tiring, but so is the way this city is run. They are not a blight to this city, they pay taxes and live here and know the real score. The meetings are the only way for citizens to speak out against the Doherty machine.

The way some of them act, there's no class about them at all.

Just because the same six speakers, week after week, disagree with what the Council does, it doesn't mean that the best interest of the city AS A WHOLE is being wholly ignored. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it) many of the council speakers find themselves in the minority. That does not give them the right to turn a government function into a farce to further their own personal agendas and sling unwarranted accusations.

Council meetings are not the only way for citizens to speak out. That misconception is rampant throughout this town. Sure, they show up at 4:00 on Tuesdays so they can be the first one to sign in and speak, but what else do they do? They waste their five minutes to whine and rattle on about their sorry lot in life and how four people are solely responsible for it, but that's it. I really don't see any of them them taking one shred of responsibility for themselves, or demonstrating any initiative to make their community, or themselves, any better.

[ontheroad]

I can see an artspace named Jane Jacobs!

I can remember her housing plan on the waterfront of Manhattan; foresight and a project that took another 30 years to mature, but, mature it has and you can not touch that area with 2m.

Originally Posted by WasPA

Particularly salient since Jane Jacobs was a native of Scranton! One could assume or at least easily imagine that Scranton itself served as a model for her urban sensibilities.......


Wilkes-Barre has been looking into Artspace, I believe

[NYRangers 2008]

Originally Posted by CHS89

The way some of them act, there's no class about them at all.

Just because the same six speakers, week after week, disagree with what the Council does, it doesn't mean that the best interest of the city AS A WHOLE is being wholly ignored. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it) many of the council speakers find themselves in the minority. That does not give them the right to turn a government function into a farce to further their own personal agendas and sling unwarranted accusations.

Council meetings are not the only way for citizens to speak out. That misconception is rampant throughout this town. Sure, they show up at 4:00 on Tuesdays so they can be the first one to sign in and speak, but what else do they do? They waste their five minutes to whine and rattle on about their sorry lot in life and how four people are solely responsible for it, but that's it. I really don't see any of them them taking one shred of responsibility for themselves, or demonstrating any initiative to make their community, or themselves, any better.

I hear what you're saying. Complaining week after week is not going to make a difference in the way the city is run. I mean, I personally wouldn't waste my time doing it. But if it gets them through their day to get their anger out every Tuesday night, then so be it. It still is their right.

[CHS89]

Disrupting council meetings with personal attacks, open hostility and contempt, and general ignorance is not a right. The fact that they actually believe that it is underscores their ignorance and takes away from anything productive being accomplished. They're part of the problem and they don't have enough sense to realize it. They offer no realistic solutions for anything; they only show up to further a sense of discontent and misery.

If they want to blow off steam with that kind of unproductive nonsense, they have a place to go to do it, and I'm sure many of them do take advantage of that particular forum. Council chambers, however, should not be viewed as an extension of that place.

[ScranBarre]

I'd have much more respect for people like Les Spindler or Fay Franus if they would NOT use the podium as a venue for launching personal attacks. I mean have you honestly seen some of the tirades Fay Franus has been on in her incessant quest to make Judy cry (which she successfully did in mid-2007?) What does that accomplish for the city? Absolutely nothing. All it does is waste time. I've also noticed that Les Spindler will take long pauses sometimes when he's speaking to smirk with open gaze as if to silently say "A-Ha! Gotcha!" even though he doesn't realize most people who are laughing aren't laughing with him but rather at him.

If these folks would pitch ideas on how to save the city instead of always being nasty towards council members or blaming them for their own personal economic shortcomings in life then perhaps people would give them a bit more credence. Marie Schumacher may be a "Doomer," but I respect her for wisely utilizing her time at the podium, unlike the other Doomers who just spew venom. I could give similar praise to Dan, Ozzie Quinn (when he's not on an anti-city soapbox), Doug Miller, and a few other regulars. The rest of the lot are just morons who think they "look cool" by making fun of others. Are they stuck in high school?

[favre4ever]

Last year the city of charleston brought in more than 2.5 Billion dollars in revenue from tourism ALONE... Chew on that for a little bit. Now it wasnt always that way, barely 20 years ago that number was a paltry sum in the tens of millions. If you truly have as many historic buildings as City-Data says, it is very possible that you could pull in numbers in the tens of millions in the first five years alone. Tourism is an easy alternative, takes little initial investment, and can benefit everyone.
I personally have been reading this thread for one reason, relocation. With the abundance of great weather and historic homes, Chaleston, SC has become impossible to afford for a working-class professional. I am eyeing the next beautiful historic town to be a permanent relocation. Scranton is in my top five, and i plan on visiting the city in the spring. Thanks for this thread, and the tourism idea is a great one, plus it makes money (not from locals) to help revamp an old town.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by favre4ever

Last year the city of charleston brought in more than 2.5 Billion dollars in revenue from tourism ALONE... Chew on that for a little bit. Now it wasnt always that way, barely 20 years ago that number was a paltry sum in the tens of millions. If you truly have as many historic buildings as City-Data says, it is very possible that you could pull in numbers in the tens of millions in the first five years alone. Tourism is an easy alternative, takes little initial investment, and can benefit everyone.
I personally have been reading this thread for one reason, relocation. With the abundance of great weather and historic homes, Chaleston, SC has become impossible to afford for a working-class professional. I am eyeing the next beautiful historic town to be a permanent relocation. Scranton is in my top five, and i plan on visiting the city in the spring. Thanks for this thread, and the tourism idea is a great one, plus it makes money (not from locals) to help revamp an old town.

With all due respect I'm flattered that you've become so enamored with Scranton, but you DO realize that the winter climate here is much harsher than you currently enjoy in Charleston, right? Scranton may be a few degrees warmer, on average, than its outlying rural locations due to the urban greenhouse effect, but it's still an "ice box" as compared to much of the rest of the state (perhaps save for Erie).

I'm only familiar with Charleston from what I've seen of it from "Flip That House" with Trademark Properties, but it looks to be oozing Antebellum history from every pore. Scranton has a lot of beautiful historic neighborhoods like Green Ridge, The Hill, and parts of Hyde Park, and its downtown has a lot of vestiges of the old coal mining days, but going by what I know of Charleston, you'll be disappointed for sure. I champion the city so much with my photo tours because I know folks from NYC/NJ wet their pants to see homes like I show selling for only a fraction of the price of what they'd pay where they currently reside, and I hope that enough of them will move to Lackawanna County to help herald a rebirth. I highly doubt I personally had anything to do with this (save for a family or two), but as soon as I started posting on here Lackawanna County (which is home to Scranton) saw its historic generations-long population decline turn to modest (yet promising) growth.

NBC's "The Office" is set in Scranton, and the city held its first-ever convention for the show last year with Al Roker, much of the show's cast and writers, and others in attendance, along with thousands of tourists. The naysayers in the city shut up for a couple of days to try to sell the city to the tourists, and by and large I only heard POSITIVE reviews from out-of-towners I struck up conversations with while roaming the city. While walking back to our car in the Hill Section I even saw an empty-nester-aged couple wandering around nearby apparently admiring the city's historic architecture in that neighborhood; if the weather during the convention wasn't non-stop downpours amounting to a couple inches of rainfall, then I'm sure more people would have been inclined to explore more of the city on foot.

I highly encourage you to come for a visit for a few days and explore the city on foot as much as possible BEFORE making the decision to move. Be advised that we're still a city in "transition." Yes, crime is very low, but at the same time we've just begun to undergo a revival within the past few years. Charleston has been a rather upper-middle-class tourist haven for a good number of years now, and Scranton might not reach the point of becoming a similar haven for heritage/history tourism for another 10-15 years (assuming fresh political leadership is put in place in 2009). Contrary to what the naysayers say it WILL happen here. Folks in Bethlehem had the same attitudes in the 1990s that folks in Scranton had today, and now in 2008 Bethlehem is an urban oasis in the Lehigh Valley with a lot of heritage tourism fueling its downtown economy. Scranton will be the same way in another decade or so as we become more "discovered." We have Steamtown, the Iron Furnaces, Coal Mine Tour, Houdini Museum, Everhart Museum, and blocks of historic homes. Hell we even have one of the most ornate Radisson Hotels in the Northeast---in a renovated rail station with a beautiful ceiling of stained glass.

I personally believe Scranton has already hit rock bottom and has nowhere to go but up. You'll see that some of the "gripers" have LEGITIMATE claims, but some of them are also unfounded. For example, there are people decrying an urban forestry campaign in a blighted city neighborhood not only because of the exorbitant cost (which I could agree with) but just based upon the principle that these folks can't see any distinction between 1,000 new shade trees in a neighborhood and what will inevitably happen to property values and the overall liveability of that area.

[Welcome]

Scrantonians are Good Time Charlies and Charlenes to the core. They would happily accept anyone of any persuasion who would invest in their beloved town, and party with them.

[Spruce Streeter]

What does Scranton need for a "Renaissance." The answer is nothing. Scranton exists on handouts from the state and federal governments to exist. A mass migration of the working age population from the area is needed. Right now Scranton is still a "19th century city" with "19th century people" living there. The mines are gone, the railroads are gone, Mike Lawler is gone, and hope is gone.

Face reality--Scranton is a ghost town; however, the population has yet to leave. Virginia City, Nevada is a good comparison to Scranton, PA. In the 19th century, Virginia City was a great and growing city. It's wealth was based on the mining of the Comstock Lode and the smelting of its ores. The mine and mill owners became fabulously wealthy and erected great homes, opera houses, commercial blocks, and brought railrods to service the area. However, the mines played out, the smelters shut down, and the railrods left. Eventually, all but a few of Virginia City's population moved on in search of employment in more prosperous areas. Today, the skeleton population that remains ekes out a living catering to tourists that flock there to view the past glories of what was once the richest city between St. Louis and the Pacific.

In Scranton, the hard work of its founders created the great steel works, mining and railroad industries, and a multitude of concerns to service the great idustries and those who labored in them. As in Virginia City, Scranton built cultural sites and basked in the commercial glory of Lackawanna Avenue. Unfortunately, in 1901, the steel works left Scranton and, as years passed, the coal industry foundered, and the great coal carrying railroads ceased operating. Without these industries, employment opportunities became scarce. Scranton's populace became dependent on political jobs, government handouts, and government supported employment, e.g., the U.S. Army Ammunition plant and the Tobyhanna Army Depot. Those who were connected politically prospered. Some who had a trade prospered, but most were reduced to spending their working years laboring in low paying manufacturing jobs which have become fewer and fewer over the years. The better educated and more ambitious portions of the population migrated in search of a better life.

Yet, what of those left behind in Scranton--the elderly and their families who take care of them, and those who are economically shell-shocked or lacking the ambition move. It is time for them all to face the facts. There is no future in the Lackawanna Valley as it stands today. Vibrant down town areas and beautiful parks are a blessing to any community. However, they should be the product of an area's prosperity rather than the creation of tax dollar's collected in the wealthier parts of America.

There can be no "renaissance" in Scranton without one basic need--the ability to create wealth. Today, manufacturing companies are on the wane and the opportunities to lure them into the area with financial incentives are limited. With the exception of natural gas exploration on the periphery of Scanton, there is no wealth to be had from natural resources. Service industries are reluctant to locate here because of heavy tax burdens, a history of labor unrest, and an unhealthy political climate.

There are other drawbacks to a "renaissance" in Scranton. For example, a lack of level terrain on which plants could be constructed, a largely unskilled work force, and a business comunity that is not only lacking in vision but is cowered by the political establishment.

Therefore, without the ability to create wealth, there can be no "renaissance." Urban redevlopment demolished the buildings that gave this city character and produced little in return except to enrich the benefactors of the city's political elite. Where once the streets of Scranton bustled with people both day and night, today there is little in the way of pedestrian activity in the downtown area. Two generations ago, there were great department stores, and small business of all stripes that employed many people. Today, most are gone; repaced by a "mall' of dubious benefit whose longevity is suspect. Moreover, the commercial well being of Scranton is under assault by a university whose agenda does not include the rebirth of prosperity in Scranton.

Wealth can not be created in Scranton because Scranton is paralyzed by municipal debt. Responsibility for this situation rests with two groups--the business community and the people of Scranton. The business community is at fault for failing to stop the politicians as they destroyed the city through the squandering of funds and the imposition of taxes that drove commercial enterprise out of Scranton and into suburban areas. The people of Scranton are at fault for continuing to elect politicians who perpetuate the problems of the city. As long as the population continues to vote along ethnic and party lines and refuses to take any responsibility for the consequences of their vote, then things will remain the same in this city. The chances of either the business community or population changing their character is unlikely.

Therefore, there is but one solution to the problems that bedevil this city. It is time for the working age population of the city to look elsewhere. Sever your roots with this area, leave one family member to care for the aged, and save yourselves and your families by migratingto where their is employment and an opportunity for a successful future. Scranton is a 19th century city whose time is long past.

Ther