Question about PA cities. (Allentown, Erie: school district, live in, nightlife)

[ki0eh]

That's a consequence of PA's long tradition of hyper-localism. As in New England and New Jersey, the basic unit of local government is the town or township, not the county. PA has never had "un-incorporated areas".

Another somewhat hidden circumstance post-war was the choice of the PA state government in 1947 to allow the capability of self-liquidating debt for utility expansion only through the vehicle of the municipal authority rather than the municipality. In other parts of the country, property needed to be annexed to the "city" to receive water and sewer services. Even many decades later when the law changed to allow municipalities directly to incur self-liquidating debt, services consolidation still lacked the driver for municipal annexation seen in other states.

The nature of school districts in PA also incentivizes the "haves" to keep their own vs. sharing with the core city "have-nots." The great 1950's consolidation era missed in many areas an opportunity to soften municipal borders.

The result is Holy Roman Empire-level border silliness and consequent severe diseconomies of scale in municipal services provision. And, of course, those who profit most from the current divisions are those who would be in charge of consolidation.

[g500]

Excellent post. I am unable to give you more reputation Ki0eh. I agree this quandary exists because those in charge will deny consolidation in order to preserve their position of power (fiefdom). The school district also allows for continued separation. In fact, PA really doesn't have a list of largest cities. It is really more a list of largest school districts (since that is how many of our townships are broken down)!! lol When will we enter the 21st century like almost all the other states?

There are cities with much more land that are comparable or even far smaller in real metro/urban terms than many of the PA cities I mentioned in my last post. These cities have unfairly equal or much, much higher city proper populations:

Lincoln, NE (91.5 square miles)
Springfield, IL (59.5 square miles)
Lexington, KY (283.6 square miles)
Fayetteville, NC (145.8 square miles)
Scottsdale, AZ (183.9 square miles)
Boise, ID (79.4 square miles)
Chattanooga, TN (137.2 square miles)
Little Rock, AR (116.2 square miles)
Tulsa, OK (196.8 square miles)
Fresno, CA (113.2 square miles)

I can literally go on and on and just thought of these cities off the top of my head. Not dissing these cities at all. They have a normal land allocation. These cities in real terms are either smallish, OR are on the cusp of being real major cities. I'm not going to differentiate to avoid offending anyone. Some would be comparable to the PA cities I mentioned in my last post, but by city proper seem these ones gigantic (or unfairly equal).

Also keep in mind that this is not an issue of density. It is an issue of raw land area. I've been wanting to compile a list of US cities by urban area and list the city proper population and then look at them by percentage of each other. I bet most PA, CT, NJ, MA cities (with exceptions) lead with the lowest % city population compared to urban area or metro population, and are far, far lower than the national average.

How is such a small land allocation fair to the PA cities (less than 10 square miles)? If our cities had that kind of land area we would be more comparable and much more recognized. If this issue was any more obvious it would be 'the elephant in the room'.

[SteelCityRising]

The duplication of municipal services required to service each little "fiefdom" in this state is mind-boggling and is likely part of the reason why this state's budget is always such a mess. I grew up in the Wyoming Valley. Even if someone living in Forty Fort, for example, didn't want to be merged into Wilkes-Barre due to that city's perceived (or real) societal and socioeconomic ailments, it should still be willing to be consolidated into nearby Kingston, which is a much larger white-collar borough adjacent to it. There are also numerous other nearby lower-crime boroughs---Courtdale, Pringle, Luzerne, Swoyersville---to name a few, that could and should merge into one medium-sized city that would still have less than the square mileage of a typical medium-sized city in another state. You would then have ONE police chief, ONE fire chief, ONE EMS chief, ONE mayor, ONE city council, etc. that would be able to work much more efficiently as one unit.

Here in Western PA I think of communities like Wilkinsburg, which is adjacent to the city limits of Pittsburgh yet has long since surpassed the era in which it could respectably and affordably exist independently of the city. Wilkinsburg SHOULD be annexed by the City of Pittsburgh. The Borough of Mt. Oliver is completely surrounded by the City of Pittsburgh and relies heavily on the city for many services, including public schools. Why has it not been annexed?

I think you'll see much less resistance to change once the elderly "old guard" population in some of these little fiefdoms dies off and are replaced in power and influence by Millennials who'd rather have 12 adjacent boroughs, each at 2.0 square miles in land area, merge into one medium-sized city at 24 square miles to save money.

[speagles84]

Pittsburgh could annex 100 square miles of urban towns and boroughs (keeping it's population density above 5000 ppsm mind you) and it's population would be near 650,000.

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

The duplication of municipal services required to service each little "fiefdom" in this state is mind-boggling and is likely part of the reason why this state's budget is always such a mess. I grew up in the Wyoming Valley. Even if someone living in Forty Fort, for example, didn't want to be merged into Wilkes-Barre due to that city's perceived (or real) societal and socioeconomic ailments, it should still be willing to be consolidated into nearby Kingston, which is a much larger white-collar borough adjacent to it. There are also numerous other nearby lower-crime boroughs---Courtdale, Pringle, Luzerne, Swoyersville---to name a few, that could and should merge into one medium-sized city that would still have less than the square mileage of a typical medium-sized city in another state. You would then have ONE police chief, ONE fire chief, ONE EMS chief, ONE mayor, ONE city council, etc. that would be able to work much more efficiently as one unit.

Here in Western PA I think of communities like Wilkinsburg, which is adjacent to the city limits of Pittsburgh yet has long since surpassed the era in which it could respectably and affordably exist independently of the city. Wilkinsburg SHOULD be annexed by the City of Pittsburgh. The Borough of Mt. Oliver is completely surrounded by the City of Pittsburgh and relies heavily on the city for many services, including public schools. Why has it not been annexed?

I think you'll see much less resistance to change once the elderly "old guard" population in some of these little fiefdoms dies off and are replaced in power and influence by Millennials who'd rather have 12 adjacent boroughs, each at 2.0 square miles in land area, merge into one medium-sized city at 24 square miles to save money.

Along with Wilkinsburg and Mount Oliver:

Bellevue
Avalon
Ben Avon
Emsworth
Reserve Township
Millvale
Etna
Sharpsburg
Aspinwall
Edgewood
Swissvale
Rankin
Braddock
North braddock
East Pittsburgh
Whittaker
Munhall
Homestead
West Homestead
Portions of Baldwin
Brentwood
Baldwin Township
Dormont
Green tree
Carnegie
Crafton
Ingram
McKees Rocks
Stowe Township


All would be Pittsburgh if I could have my own way

[g500]

Exactly. Pittsburgh, Allentown, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Scranton should all be much, much larger cities proper. Again this is not an issue of density. It is an issue of raw land area for the city proper, given the metro's real size.

Considering the national average of city proper population to urban area population, I would propose the following *minimum* populations of PA cities to be fair (i.e. where city proper is at least 30% of its urban area population). Keep in mind these figures could be much higher compared to some states/cities that have almost 50-100% city proper to urban area!

Philadelphia = remain the same. Seems to have received a minimum fair amount of land.
Pittsburgh = 560k, currently 304k
Allentown = 220k, currently 120k
Harrisburg = 160k, currently 49k
Lancaster = 140k, currently 59k
Scranton = 120k, currently 77k

This should really apply to all PA cities too, but I have listed just the largest of the non-Philadelphia areas. These cities also happen to be some of the most 'jipped' cities in PA.

It seems like Philadelphia, Erie, Williamsport, Lebanon, and Altoona cities likely received their rightful minimum land allocation for the city proper.

Speagles, I wonder if your list of townships/boroughs would give Pittsburgh the 256k it needs to be minimally represented.

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by g500

It seems like Philadelphia, Erie, Williamsport, Lebanon, and Altoona cities likely received their rightful minimum land allocation for the city proper.

??? Who determines what is a rightful amount of land for cities? I don't think having large city limits is necessarily positive, and in your examples many of those places are very suburan and sprawly. I think the bigger problem in PA, is the very large amount of tiny municipalities, which create a lot of overhead for services and bureacracies. Some of those tiny ones could be consolidated into midsize cities or townships. But I wouldn't say that having very large city limits in a core is necessarily a good thing at all.

[jtab4994]

Originally Posted by g500

Allentown, Harrisburg, Lancaster, and Scranton should be much larger cities with at least 150k up to 300k in population each. Pittsburgh should be slightly higher too (500k), it too was slightly jipped on its land allocation.

Scranton topped out at 143,000 population in the 1930 census. Families used to be bigger so you had more people per household, which accounts for some of the population difference. But they obviously managed to cram all those people into the city, so it's not strictly a question of area. There are other forces at work.

[g500]

What I meant was that they appear to have the appropriate city proper population for their given real size compared to other cities nationally. I agree there are many small little municipalities that are costly and do not serve much of a purpose. Look these up if you would like in Harrisburg: Paxtang, Penbrook, Steelton, Highspire, Dauphin, Royalton, Wormleysburg, Lemoyne, New Cumberland. These are just a few of the really small ones, not the much larger, adjoining townships. The reason it is so sprawly is because someone, whoever, only gave Harrisburg 8 square miles of land to work with (actually it was originally even less, Harrisburg did annex a few areas in the early 20th century) before Susquehanna Township became a 1st class township and stopped them from doing so. The urban (developed) area is now 260+ square miles, and that does not include Lebanon, Lancaster, or York areas.

"But I wouldn't say that having very large city limits in a core is necessarily a good thing at all."
Every other state does this though. That was the point of my thread. If PA municipalities were able to combine we could realize cost savings through economies of scale. They looked at regional-izing the police force for the Harrisburg area and all options appeared to be savings in the tens of millions.

[g500]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

Scranton topped out at 143,000 population in the 1930 census. Families used to be bigger so you had more people per household, which accounts for some of the population difference. But they obviously managed to cram all those people into the city, so it's not strictly a question of area. There are other forces at work.

I knew someone was going to bring this up. And it is a valid point, but you have to take it into perspective for the time though. Some of the cities on my list did almost did reach their minimum fair population during the period 1930-1950. But see, then the suburbs didn't exist at all, so these cities were (at the time) allocated their fair amount of land. Since that time (fast forward 55-85 years into the future), the suburb areas have bloomed and the city proper has dwindled in response to people's desire to have more space per person, and other social-economic reasons, also aging housing stock and infrastructure not being updated or replaced, thereby making the oldest, urban core one of the cheapest areas to live in many cases.

So, my point is that PA's city limits are antiquated, they may have been appropriate at one time when the city proper was booming, but now, for most, they are just unfair and are holding the city proper back from its real potential. The urban area taken as a whole is still booming, just not as much in the older areas which happen to be the city proper.

Unless, of course we are okay with looking at the city proper as being small and having an understanding that the real city is just now made up mostly of adjoining townships which are made up of suburban sprawl and smaller surrounding towns/cities. That would be okay, except that most of the cities nationally have an unfair advantage with massive land area allocated to their cities (even cities far smaller than ours), making our cities look ridiculously smaller than they really are.