What's up in West Park and West Walnut? (Allentown, Bethlehem: neighborhood, live in)

[j_ws]

This is mainly just a post born out of my interest in and admiration for these areas. Does anyone live in either neighborhood that could share more about the day-to-day life there?

I grew up in Bethlehem and, as a result, I had a lot of negative inherent bias in how I perceived Allentown. I think this is an unfortunate quality shared by a lot of native Lehigh Valley residents from suburbs and neighboring cities.

Anyway, since I moved away and became far more versed in urbanism and planning, I've come to recognize just how great and well-preserved Allentown is. The city has great density, a really awesome architectural vernacular, and has thankfully lost very little of the original building stock (I live in Cleveland now and this city has lost a lot of buildings as the population decreased).

I've really come to admire West Park and West Walnut and I'm curious to know what residents think. Do you have active block clubs/neighborhood organizations? Is there a growing or diminishing sense of community? I'm just very curious.