Best and Worst Towns in PA (Pittsburgh, Erie: 2010, apartments, loft)

[autumngurl102]

Somebody stated that Downingtown is lowermiddle class but thats not true. The borough may be but the surrounding area is not. It has everything you want. Theres great shopping with the local Exton Mall and Main Street at Exton. Plenty of groccery stores- we have Wegmans (the best place to shop!!) and we are on the amtrack rail so you could take the train in to work. Also King of Prussia is a short 40 minute drive for even better shopping and you don't have the hustle and bustle of living there. We are also about a half hour drive from Wilmington Del. where there is another big mall and lots of outlets- and the best part is no sales tax! It takes about 20 minutes to drive to West Chester from my house on the western edge of Downingtown. Thats a nice area to go for some botique shopping or to stroll around and have dinner.

Somebody mentioned Thorndale but I would steer clear of there. The school district its in is a MESS. It's horrible with lots of corruption and very high taxes. The Downingtown school district is very large so you would have a wide range of areas to live in- Downingtown, Glennmore (more rural), Exton, Chester Springs (higher class) and Lionville are just a few of the towns that are grouped under Downingtown.

[covebound]

Originally Posted by clearwaterlargodude

worst towns pottsville, hazleton, frackville, shamokin that area looks like baghdad or mozul

Just wondering if you were in Bagdad or mozul. I am sure those places were once beautiful before all the turmoil.

[WilkesBarreAdvocate]

Well, I just can't resist commenting on this thread... Either from my own personal experience or from my work experience as a mortgage closer...Here's what I think...

I'll start with my favorites (in no particular order):
Wilkes Barre (You didn't think I'd put anything else first, did you?)
Harveys Lake (Go jet skiing; boating; eat at the Grotto or Jone's Potato Pancakes House!)
Tunkhannock (Fly in to Sky Haven Airport; Golf at Shadowbrook; Take a canoe trip on the Susquehanna or shop the quaint shops on Tioga St.)
Nicholson (Take a trip up Rt. 92 and see the Tunkhannock Viaduct...you can't miss it!)
Wyalusing (Drive up Scenic Rt. 6 and stop at Wyalusing Rocks for a breathtaking view!)
Lewisburg (Love the houses in this college town!)
State College (BIG Penn St. Fan! Go Lions!)
Towanda (Again, great old houses here and some neat shops, too!)
Montrose (Hit the Blueberry Festival in late Summer!)
Jim Thorpe (Great town and Whitewater Rafting here!)
Bloomsburg (A great college town with good food and shopping and "The Bloomsburg Fair!)
Mansfield (A beautiful drive to get here and another small college town)
Hershey (If you like chocolate like I do, just the smell alone will convince you...then take a tour through Hershey's Chocolate World)
Gettysburg (Take a Horseback tour of the battlefield...very moving)
Lancaster & Dutch Country (Great scenery, shopping, and FOOD)

Here are my least favorite (no offense to the residents):
Centralia (Most depressing to drive through there...most houses gone and smoke rising up from the mine fires)
Shenandoah (Too many little houses and really nothing going on)
Shamokin (I don't think the place is that bad; I didn't like driving there on a regular basis)
Pine Grove (Again, didn't like the drive...has potential)
Schuylkill Haven (South of Pottsville...everytime I went, there was a lot of traffic)
Tamaqua (Haven't been there lately, maybe it's more lively by now)

[ScranBarre]

Here are my five favorite communities here in gorgeous Northeastern Pennsylvania:

FAVORITES:
1.) Scranton
I'm a city boy at heart, so the thought of living in a downtown loft apartment and walking to the Scranton Cultural Center to see the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic while sipping hot chocolate from Northern Lights as snowflakes gently fall onto me and my partner is just mesmerizing. I can't wait to open my downtown businesses (Hopefully my own CPA firm, real estate/relocation agency, and jazz cafe), and be able to walk to all of them, only utilizing my Prius on rare occasions. I'm tired of living here in the suburbs and driving everywhere for everything on congested commuter nightmares like "The 3-1-5" for over 300 miles per week; give me some fine urban living anyday where a car would be an option.

2.) Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre is another fine city in our area, but it falls short of Scranton in my opinion because of its shortage of downtown retail options to sustain downtown residents and a much higher crime rate, overall, than its much larger sister city to the north. Granted, the new Diamond City Entertainment District is wonderful, and, as a King's College student, I enjoy walking down there with my friends to see a movie and hang out at Barnes & Noble. I'm also dying to eat at Bart & Urby's sometime (I hope they have good burgers and those fries with the beer-battered coating!) Nevertheless, while I can window-shop at a large variety of stores in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre's downtown retail options are pretty much limited to a Hallmark store, Boscov's, and Barnes & Noble. I realize that the increase in foot traffic associated with the new entertainment district should be spawning new retail stores to catch potential shoppers, but, as of right now, Scranton still has the upper-hand in the category of urban living, in my opinion (I know WBAdvocate will disagree, but I still do like the city).

3.) Kingston
Just opposite the Susquehanna River from Downtown Wilkes-Barre, Kingston may be a suburb, but it's not the cookie-cutter type that I abhor. Kingston has many tree-lined streets, wonderful parks, top-notch municipal services, and relatively-low crime outside of its drug problems. The community is extremely flat, making it easily-navigable on wintry days, and the town is quite walkable---Kingston is home to a variety of service-related businesses such as barber shops, beauty salons, bars, pharmacies, banks, ice cream parlors, fast-food restaurants, etc., which makes leaving the town limits almost unnecessary if you really didn't want to. Unfortunately, the constant fear that the levee may break and destroy the town New Orleans-style keeps this community from snagging a higher spot (Wilkes-Barre is slightly less flood-prone, as the river would have to rise two feet higher on the East Side to top the levee there than on the West Side).

[ScranBarre]

4.) Honesdale
Victorian-era small-town America at its finest! WBAdvocate, I'm assuming this community didn't make your list because you simply haven't yet experienced it! Do yourself a favor---pick up a copy of Happenings Magazine and watch for the next seasonal festival to be held in Downtown Honesdale. If you like Tunkhannock, then you'll love Honesdale. The town is home to historic architecture, minimal sprawl pressures, friendly residents, and funky shops on the main drag, including yoga studios, organic foods stores, coffee shops, gift shops, etc. Honesdale is an oasis of Liberal-thinkers amid Wayne County, which is predominantly Conservative. In general, Honesdale is kind of like a mirror image of Stroudsburg, only with less congestion and less NYC influence (although a good 20% of the vehicles around town during the Harvest Festival hailed from NY/NJ). Honesdale doesn't rank higher for me because it's so isolated in relation to the rest of the region; it's a 35-minute hike up Route 6 from Scranton! (The scenery along the way is breathtaking though).

5.) Clarks Summit
I'm referencing Clarks Summit proper, not the entire chi-chi Abington area that wrongly calls itself that name. While I abhor the Abingtons, in general, for sucking much of the middle-class and elite residents out of the city limits of Scranton into its McMansions and hampering its revitalization efforts, the town of Clarks Summit itself is a place I find to be quite charming with its hilly, tree-lined streets, older homes, very well-educated, quirky population, and funky downtown. My favorite health food store, Everything Natural, is located in Downtown Clarks Summit, as is Taylor Hobby, a store frequented by amateur wine-makers. On the flip side, Clarks Summit is quite possibly even more congested than Scranton, as cars and trucks must actually stop for pedestrians at crosswalks as there's never a long enough break in traffic to safely cross State Street otherwise---Crossing Northern Boulevard is even MORE treacherous! Also on the negative side is that Clarks Summit has the highest cost-of-living, overall, in the entire metro area.

[WilkesBarreAdvocate]

Originally Posted by clearwaterlargodude

u almost made me fall of my chair you have no land or real state value at all there there area is a joke there

I've guessed that you don't care much for Pennsylvania and I'm glad to know that you are a happy resident of Florida. I wish you the best. Don't worry about us here in PA; we'll be ok without you. Enjoy the sunshine!

[turboredcart]

hmmm. the coal crakers sure take a hit.

i wouldnt write off the coal region too fast.

for teh $, teh quality of life you get isnt too bad- bargainwise.

[Jungle George]

Originally Posted by clearwaterlargodude

u almost made me fall of my chair you have no land or real state value at all there there area is a joke there

I am a Florida resident who is looking to eventually move to Wilkes-Barre area. I've been through 3 direct-hit major hurricanes and last August watched a tornado move across 2 streets away.

I love living here, but the thought of the extreme weather (and with global warming possibly more extreme) has me putting out my "feelers" and I find that the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area is very affordable.

Granted, not as much sunshine, bright colors or "laid-back" attitude and much colder, but I'm not getting any younger & don't want to have to worry if I'm gonna have a house standing when I'm 60!!

[turboredcart]

George- basically you got 10 weeks of cold weather in PA. that leaves 42 weeks of decent weather.

ild agree with you on teh hurricanes.

anyhow an early welcome HOME to you! :-)

PS- imo PA is a great place to retire,. only FL has more per capita then PA.

[Jungle George]

Originally Posted by turboredcart

George- basically you got 10 weeks of cold weather in PA. that leaves 42 weeks of decent weather.

ild agree with you on teh hurricanes.

anyhow an early welcome HOME to you! :-)

PS- imo PA is a great place to retire,. only FL has more per capita then PA.

Thanks Turbo!!!! The "cold" I think of as relative though.....here when it goes below 70 I put a coat on!!!
On the other hand, my friends up north are "melting" when you guys get the hot weather and they curse me for not breaking a sweat when it's 96 out!!
Anyways, thanks for the early "welcome" and Happy New Year!!!