Relocation to central/eastern PA (Pittsburgh, Lancaster: to rent, low crime, hotels)

[pennrelocatio]

Hello,
I'm a bit nervous posting here, but I'm looking for some advice. We are looking for someplace in PA from which it would be easy to commute to both Lewisburg and Philly (or Lewisburg and Pittsburgh). My wife has a job in Lewisburg and I would be travelling to either Philly or Pittsburgh a few times a week. The ideal location seemed to be Harrisburg, with a reasonable drive to Lewisburg and a train commute to Philly.
But, we didn't get a good feeling in Harrisburg (for us). I guess it was more urban than we expected, but too small to have a lot of the amenities of a big city. Also, all the restaurants were so dark-looking.
We liked Lancaster, but it is a bit far from Lewisburgh. We are coming from a large, pretty liberal NE city, but are open to small towns. We would like to rent an apertment, rather than buy. Public transportation is a definite plus. I don't mind a train or bus ride of 3 or maybe even four hours, but an driving commutes should ideally be 2 hours or less.

So we are looking for:
--Any info. on Lancaster: renting and commuting
--Suggestions on other locations nearer to Lewisbrgh
--If you think we haven't given Harrisburg a fair shake, what do you like about it? What should we check out?
--What about State College? How is the commute to Pittsburgh? Lewisbrhgh? What is it like?

Thank you so much for any advice!

[PeeAye Native]

If you can't find something you're comfortable with in Harrisburg, IMO you're not looking in the right spots. It has an urban core downtown with a nightlife/bar/restaurant scene, older sections of the city with older homes (lower prices), newer sections, and suburbs and developments of every kind imaginable. The Harrisburg metro area covers a lot of territory, and covers all kinds of price ranges and demographics. It is Dauphin County east of the river (City of Harrisburg) and parts of Perry, Cumberland and York counties west of the river.

Irregardless, a daily commute from the Harrisburg area to Lewisburg will be above one hour each way, say 1h 15m in round numbers. Primary slowdown would be in the Selinsgrove/Shamokin Dam retail strip corridor on US-11 & 15, which is the only real route choice you'll have. You could shave some time off this if you were north of the city, and if you wanted small town bordering on rural, you could live in the Duncannon or Halifax area.

From State College to Lewisburg, you'd have a similar time to commute, in the one hour and 15 minute range each way. If everything else were equal, the drive from State College would be tougher in winter weather than from Harrisburg. Even with three choices of more or less parallel roads, (PA-45, PA-192, I-80), snow and ice combined with surrounding mountain terrain make for a tough drive in the middle 1/3 of that route (roughly from Woodward to Hartleton on 45). Pleasant and scenic drive in nice weather, though. Plenty of dead spots as far as cell phone coverage goes, not so for the Harrisburg to Lewisburg drive.

One more thing, Lancaster is not what one would consider a liberal area. The city may have some some liberal leanings to it, but it's an island surrounded by what politicians generally consider a solidly reliable conservative area.

Choosing between Harrisburg and State College would be a tough choice for me. Harrisburg can have a distinctly more urban feel if you go to the right places, and State College is, IMO, a progressive, smaller town in the mountains with lots of user friendly community amenities, including good public transportation, even in the surrounding small villages and towns.

I didn't answer all your ?s, but hope this helps.

[Lion11]

Originally Posted by PeeAye Native

Choosing between Harrisburg and State College would be a tough choice for me. Harrisburg can have a distinctly more urban feel if you go to the right places, and State College is, IMO, a progressive, smaller town in the mountains with lots of user friendly community amenities, including good public transportation, even in the surrounding small villages and towns.

Agreed. If Harrisburg is too urban for your taste, State College may be a good option. It is the same distance to Lewiburg as Harrisburg, but Pittsburgh is 2 and a half hours away. Plus, as already said, it could be a rough drive in the winter to Lewisburg from State College. But, if you are looking for a small "city" (pop. a little less than 40,0000) than State College is that. Penn State keeps the area afloat so it has a very low unemployment rate and low crime. Lots of things to do, like concerts, festivals, etc. plus of course sports events (minor league baseball games are a blast in the summer!). The area does have great public transportation that even runs out to the more rural areas. Everything you need is right in town, however a short drive to Altoona will get you to a bigger mall. It's something to think about.

Some good info:
State College, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Downtown State College Pennsylvania
Penn State & State College Hotels, Tours & Visitor Information (check out the photo gallery!)
State College - HappyValley.com - Penn State and Happy Valley are Online at HappyValley.com