Favorite mid-sized PA city skyline? (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: city hall, hotel, deed)

[Steelers115]

Thats a tough one, i like them all. I dont think York, Altoona, and Erie are that great of skylines..but all the others are very nice.

[danwxman]

Not to be a homer, but Harrisburg is my favorite:


I think one could also say it clearly has the biggest skyline outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

[Ohiogirl81]

I think one could also say it clearly has the biggest skyline outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Yeah. Our tax dollars at work.

[afdude2018]

Harrisburg! Looking at it from across the river is the best view.

[ScranBarre]

Harrisburg has an amazingly impressive skyline for such a diminutive city (much smaller than Scranton). It is probably my favorite followed by a tie between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.

[Marodi]

Originally Posted by go phillies

I agree..the state capitol and the setting on the river make it look pretty good, especially for a city of under 50,000 people. Wilkes-Barre also has a pretty impressive skyline for a city of 40,000 or so. Allentown's is puny considering it has a population of over 100,000.

IDK if you are new to PA or not, but judging cities in PA based on the actual city size is misleading. You need to go by MSA. Mostly due to strict regulation in PA that makes it difficult for cities and towns to expand their borders as opposed to other states.

That puts Harrisburg for example at 600K or so.

[W-B proud]

Originally Posted by Marodi

IDK if you are new to PA or not, but judging cities in PA based on the actual city size is misleading. You need to go by MSA. Mostly due to strict regulation in PA that makes it difficult for cities and towns to expand their borders as opposed to other states.

That puts Harrisburg for example at 600K or so.

Wow! I think that's a little high, even the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area (which is the fourth largest population center in the state behind 1.Philly, 2.Pittsburgh,3. Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton) doesn't have a combined population of 600k. You have to be high balling that figure. I've been through the Harrisburg area many times, and even though it does have a large metro area, there's no way it's 600k! You must be including Reading, Lancaster, Lebanon, Carlisle, York ect. into your figure, but these other cities are vast distances apart, and are hardly one cohesive region, like Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, or Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton.

[bobsmith]

I think Harrisburg is 300k-400k, but that's an estimate off the top of my head. Sc/WB has 500k-600k, and the LV has 700k-1.1M (depending on which borders you use).

[danwxman]

The Harrisburg MSA (metro area) population is 656,781 as of 2007. Source: Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, PA MSA Population and Components of Change

Actually, if you count York (421,049) and Lancaster (498,465) you have a population over 1.5 million, easily making it the third highest concentration of population in PA behind Philly and Pittsburgh. It's not that much of a stretch either, since all three cities are in counties that border each other, have the same television stations and an increasing number of commuters between the two (via Amtrak and York's new express bus service to Harrisburg which has become very popular).

[W-B proud]

Originally Posted by danwxman

The Harrisburg MSA (metro area) population is 656,781 as of 2007. Source: Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, PA MSA Population and Components of Change

Actually, if you count York (421,049) and Lancaster (498,465) you have a population over 1.5 million, easily making it the third highest concentration of population in PA behind Philly and Pittsburgh. It's not that much of a stretch either, since all three cities are in counties that border each other, have the same television stations and an increasing number of commuters between the two (via Amtrak and York's new express bus service to Harrisburg which has become very popular).

In that case W-B/Scr.and Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton are close enough to be considered one region, and that would put us at 2,000,000 plus easily. But that is ludicris and takes up about a fifth of the entire state! Philadelphia can claim it's part of the NYC metro area by the vast size of the metro area you are talking about! Come on! Wilkes-Barre is in eastern pa. That doesn't mean we get to claim the Lehigh Valley and the entire eastern slice of Pa. as our metro area. The same goes for Harrisburg.