Top 10 Most Attractive Walkable Mid-Size Cities

[BRNorth]

Allentown and Lancaster are seriously underrated. I really enjoy Pennsylvania as a state. I have always had my eyes on Pittsburgh or Philadelphia for relocation, but I enjoy what I have seen in person and research in Allentown and Lancaster.

What about York? I have not been there yet.

[spencer114]

I’ve only driven through York twice but my opinion was very favorable. It’s very pretty and insanely well intact. It was also much bigger than I was expecting. I thought it was way nicer and more interesting than Harrisburg (a city which I’ve visited maybe 12 times over the last 15 years).

[macalan]

Originally Posted by Duderino

Well, I can understand how statistics appear hyper-locally, but one thing is for certain: Pennsylvania's overall violent crime rate is middling, at worst (despite having admittedly glaring issues with concentrated violent crime in some of its most challenged inner-city neighborhoods).

I'm not sure what article stated otherwise, but PA is factually nowhere close to having the "highest" rate. According to this ranking of violent crime rates (highest to lowest), Pennsylvania's is 29th (for comparison, MA actually ranks a little ahead of it, at 26th):

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...rate/40968963/

A couple of other points for context:

1. Nearly every city across the US did experience a crime spike following the many tumultuous events of 2020; crime still remains a bit elevated in most places since 2019, but there are solid signs of widespread improvements in recent months.

2. Crime statistics are very easy to over-extrapolate. However, "random" violent crime is very uncommon, even in the most crime-prone cities. Domestic violence, drug trade, "turf" wars, etc. make up the vast, vast majority of instances. That's not to say that crime is not very serious and should always be addressed for justice and the "social order," but the reality is that crime is VERY uneven in who it impacts, especially based on race and income.

Now to follow-up with a positive topic; aside from proximity to big cities and the great core of Lancaster itself, since it seems like it would be of interest to you, a really awesome feature of the broader South-central/Southeastern PA region is it's chock full of "solid" and well-preserved downtowns to explore. It's very reminiscent of New England in that regard.

Here's a sampling of just the immediate Lancaster area:

Lititz
Manheim
Columbia
Ephrata
Mt. Joy
Marietta

Hope that helps!

Thank you! I did come across Lititz in my poking around and it definitely sparked my interest. I love traditional dense, walkable downtowns. I guess that's the New England in me.