Town of Clearfield Pa

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by 15801

Clearfield honestly has almost nothing left and its getting smaller every year and everything is closing slowly.

DuBois or State College are better for what you're looking for.
DuBois has big, but good schools for public schools.. especially for a city..
There are 3 private schools in the DuBois area that i know of..
There are 2 colleges in DuBois that are both growing, especially Penn State DuBois..
There is a decent size mall in DuBois that is changing a lot so who knows what kind of stores they are going to bring in..
There are many plazas, strip malls, and single stores all over the city and there is always something new being built..
There is a movie theatre near the mall that is kept fairly nice and always has i think 5 or 6 movies playing at once..
Traffic is bad like any city.. especially heading towards the mall or Liberty Boulevard/ downtown, and other areas..
DuBois has a skate park right behind a large YMCA in a big park called Memorial Park right outside of downtown, which has all that plus new basketball courts, tennis courts, a football field, 3 or 4 baseball fields, 4 or 5 pavillions, a concert stage, a public swimming pool, and more... and probably more coming seeing how everything there is new.. but it could be in a better location..
It has new commercial developments, many new housing developements, apartments and apartment buildings, and some very nice neighborhoods..
Of course though, it has a lot of crime but mostly in certain areas, just like a major city..
There are 2 major hospitals in DuBois... they're ranked in the top of the country..
Downtown is okay.. part of its kinda run-down but there are some new buildings and many of the old ones are being re-modeled outside.. but its really bad.. more at night than day though.. especially like West Long Ave./ Franklin Street and that area..
uhh.. State College is only about an hour away.. and Pittsburgh is about 2 hours..
but almost everyone that lives in Clearfield, Punxsutawney, Saint Marys, Brockway, Brookville, and all of the towns around DuBois end up coming here to shop, or just to find something to do anyways...
and DuBois is really the only growing area anywhere around
and the DuBois public high school is growing not only with students but the sports are growing and are fun to watch.. Mansell Stadium (behind the middle school, off of Liberty Boulevard) is probably one of the nicest stadiums in the state, and they just added turf to the field and they are adding proffesional NFL/ college scoreboards.. and they are adding another side to the stadium.. its a pretty big stadium already too..
and the highschool is building a new sports complex, turf fields, new tennis courts, an 8-10 lane track, and who knows what else behind the high school

but.. of course it has bad things too.. but overall it's definatley livable (unless you get yourseld tied up in gangs, drugs, etc. haha) and its basically a big city with less people
but.. the DuBois area (DuBois City and Sandy Township) is over 20,000 people.. not including sub-urbs

HA! Suburbs!?

Sandy Twp is the suburbs. Unless you are talking about Reynoldsville (where I happen to be sitting right now sipping on my Vanilla Coke Zero), Sykesville, or Falls Creek as "suburbs". They are no such thing, all of them are just run down former local industry towns that have nothing to offer but bordom and Section 8 Housing.

I came back to this area with the intention of running for office after college and helping to "turn this area around". There is nothing left to turn around. Almost everyone who lived here 10 years ago who had any ambition... or even an orignal thought has left.

DuBois is better than Clearfield only because it is the regional center. If it weren't for that and DRMC Hospital (which owns half the town and is killing the tax base with its tax exempt status) then there wouldn't be anything here at all. There are four kinds of people left in this area: Doctors, Lawyer, Case Workers, and everyone else who, if they have a job at all, do menial labor in the service industry (and by that is I mean working at McDonalds or Wal-Mart). Oh, and there are the "educators" so five groups.

That "new stuff" being built is usually either an addition to the hospital or another chain store... which is not a sign of a healthy economy.

As for your comment about crime in "certain areas" I was unaware that DuBois was even big enough to have "certain areas". It's not like the place has real neighborhoods. I mean yeah, there's Polish Hill and Coke Hill, 4x4 blocks does not a neighborhood make. The "bad areas" are usually just a row or two of rundown houses, and you will run into those in almost any part of town... its not like they are concentrated or anything. And I have never felt unsafe walking around on the mean streets of DuBois. The only place you might not want to walk by is "The Car Wash" (the fact that it is The Car Wash should tell you all you need to know about the town) and that's just because the punk kids there think they're are bad, even though they would last about 4 seconds against a real gang.

The only reason there are "gangs" (excuse me while I laugh) is because the place is so damn dull that there is nothing for kids to do on Friday and Saturday Nights (except go to the watch the DuBois Beavers wreak the Brockway Rovers in highschool football... [sarcasm]wow... my heart-rate is up already[sarcasm]).

And its not only the kids who have a hardtime finding enjoyment... about half the area is on meth, because there is nothing else to do. There is a meth lab explosion about once a month. So, my advice, don't rent unless you wanna get blown up by the guy downstairs.

The only reason people pure in for Punxy, Brookville, Brookway, St. Mary's, etc is because there is even less to do there (oh yes... it is possible, though hard to imagine unless you expirience it).

You comment about bad traffic is laughable. The worst "jam" you are likely to get into will delay you about 10 minutes, if that and the only reason for that is because of poor planning the last time they were building new streets in town, which was about 60 years ago. Also, the swamp that was displaced by the new buildings constricts the layout of the city... and also leads to a really nasty insect problem in the summer, and frequent flooding.

The downtown area is not as empty as it was 10 years ago, but there isn't much going on... a couple of eateries, and some junk shops... that's about it (though they finally chased the Gay Ninja out, which was an improvment... and not because of the "gay" moniker... there were other reasons). The mall is decent sized, but there is nothing in it. There are only about 15 acctual stores and the rest is army recruiting stations, bulk buy stores, Dollar shops, etc. There are other plazas, but Walmart is more-or-less the most popular store.

In short, any attempts to make DuBois look like a paradise compared to Clearfiled ignore the fact that they are both Hell Holes. That's like comparing Bad to Worse.

It's nice that you are trying to be a "Hometowner" but do what's best for everyone and don't try to convince anyone to move here. Get away... far away... NOW!!!