What is the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area like?

[go phillies]

Originally Posted by Gerania

Someone on another forum wondered why W-B, the township and the little surrounding one fire truck ville's just didn't combine and make one grand city. I understand their reluctance, but it may happen sooner or later.

It will never happen, since the city has a higher wage tax....W-B Twp. residents pay 1.5% and W-B City residents pay 3.0%....W-B Twp residents and officials would never let it happen....plus, W-B Twp. has the arena, the mall, and all the stores around there...no way they would want to share that tax revenue with all of W-B City.

[blip]

Originally Posted by Gerania

A looong time ago, W-B was larger than Scranton. I remember my parents discussing it. Scranton annexed its townships; Wilkes-Barre didn't.

Curious, you know when they were talking about? The historical population figures on Wikipedia show Scranton as always being considerably bigger as far back as 1860 when they were both quite small (9k and 4k). I don't think these census figures reflect any future annexations (e.g. see NYC and Brooklyn).
Scranton, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm all for one big city in the whole valley, but towns will never agree on taxes and services. Unless other towns are ready to pay anything near Scranton's 3.5% wage tax.

[Jennifer Brock]

Wheelingman:
I was reared in a county north of Scranton but have lived in Lackawanna Co for 17 years.

In general, I think you could probably find whatever you wanted here. I personally wouldn't live in Scranton, but if you like city living, Dunmore is a nice community that runs into Scranton. It's very heavily Italian, which could be good or bad.

If you prefer a very rural place to live, you might choose the Moscow area (North Pocono School District), Scott Township, or Newton Ransom.

If you like an area with small town charm and all of the amenities, you might want to look at the Clarks Summit area. It has one of the better school districts in the area. It's known for being uppity, and it might be; however, you can find nice people there, too.

Along the valley from Carbondale to below Wilkes-Barre are many communities to choose from. They all kind of run together without any space between then. Each has its own character, and many of them were originally the homes of coal-mining families.

The area has a real struggle with a Vibe of Doom owing to its sad history of oppression under coal barons, the passing of the era of coal, decades of political corruption, and, I think, fierce divisions along lines of nationality (Italian, Polish, Irish, etc.). While the heritage of these groups brings an exciting diversity to the area (it's a great place to find authentic Old World food), it also tends to foster a mentality that doesn't always welcome positive change. (And I'm a political and cultural conservative.) The area is also very heavily Roman Catholic.

We've experienced an explosion of commercial development w/in the past decade and have many of the major chain stores and restaurants in our area, including Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Longhorn, Damons, TGIF, Perkins, Friendlys, Waffle House, Applebees, Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden, Ritas, and on and on.

Here are the positives and negatives of our area, as I see them:

Positive
-Beautiful rolling hills
-Four seasons
-Many conveniences fairly close together
-Low crime
-Recreational areas: skiing, kayaking, hunting, hiking
-Over a dozen colleges and universities
-Within hours of Philadelphia, NYC, Finger Lakes Region of NY, Jersey shore, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Gettysburg
-Manageable feeling to the area
-Real ethnic cultures and foods; pizza, Polkas, pierogies, St. Patrick's Day parade, Russian Christmas, The Greek Festival, La Festa Italiana, The Tomato Festival
-The whole "Office" thing
-Some beautiful architecture
-Great shopping districts
-The people here generally have grit and character
-Baseball Stadium; Nay Aug water slides and park; Steamtown National Park and Trolley Museum
-Wonderful summer area
-The tacky Christmas house on Moosic Avenue
-Great talk radio and public radio stations
-Pinball Alley on Rt 81 from Scranton Expwy to Dunmore

Negatives
-Not great schools generally
-Some backwardness
-The Vibe of Doom ("It will never work here.") and kind of an inferiority complex
-Long winters
-Not much to do in the way of museums, attractions, though communities generally have their various celebrations and fairs throughout the year
-If you come into the area from any direction, you realize that the area seems sort of a outpost with real spooky stuff coming up on Rt 81 N from around Minersburg to Hazleton; sort of a Bermuda Triangle of fog and ice and eerie co-gen plants.
-The decrepit condition of the Nay Aug Zoo area
-Ubiquitous teacher's union strikes

That's what I think anyway.

[Jennifer Brock]

Sorry. Pinball Alley should go under negatives.

[ki0eh]

Originally Posted by Jungle George

What's with all the "townships" up there?? We were loading addresses in our GPS, & almost everything had the choice of ______ or ______township!!

Remember the Holy Roman Empire from the history books? Those people moved to PA and re-created it.