What "third city" in PA has the most potential?

[pman]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

The term "urban area" in census geography uses a very strict definition of the end of an urban area. It completely ignores any municipal or state boundaries. The boundaries are chaotic shapes.

The numbers for "Metropolitan Census Area" and "Combined Census Area" outside of New England respects county lines. Theses populations are easier to estimate, although invariably counties are included that some people find unusual. For instance including Trenton with New York City CMSA instead of Philadelphia.

in this case, allentown to phillipsburg is a contiguous urban area where as lancaster, york, and harrisburg are not.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pman

in this case, allentown to phillipsburg is a contiguous urban area where as lancaster, york, and harrisburg are not.

The Lancaster urbanized area already includes a few parts of York County (such as Wrightsville). It looks as if they're less than a mile from merging, and probably will by 2020 provided the last stretch of undeveloped farm along Lincoln Highway gets developed.

Looking at Harrisburg and York it appears the two already touch somewhere south of York Haven. So presumably their merger will happen even sooner.

Hell, it appears that Reading has almost merged with Lancaster as well. That said, there are examples of adjacent urbanized areas which have not been merged. For example, Pottstown and Trenton are not part of the Philadelphia urbanized area. So it may be some time before they are formally merged.

[JJ Johnson]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Philadephia, for example, while being our own "first city" in PA is still overshadowed quite a bit on the national radar due to its unfortunate close proximity to NYC. On a smaller scale Pittsburgh is pretty much sitting pretty all by itself with nothing "urban" for hours around it, which means it should always be the "second city" in the state but will always be viewed as more of a "sibling" to Philadelphia on the national level when people think of PA. Americans have a pretty limited knowledge of geography. I'd hazard a guess to say many think Philadelphia is the state capital---not Harrisburg. I'd also guess that many Pennsylvanians don't realize Pittsburgh only has just over 300,000 people.

Most Americans don't realize that Pittsburgh is nearly five hours away from Philadelphia. One city may as well be in Indiana and one in New York, for as far apart and as unrelated as they are.

Frankly, I'd be hard pressed to name a single town in the entire state that I see as "booming" in the foreseeable future. Unless you define "booming" as only loosing population and jobs below some annual percentage level.

[mancat100]

Originally Posted by bannedintheusa1

why? I'm guessing there's a reason they are considered separate. I'm not sure that Paco was saying they need to be one but that you need to understand the differences rather than arbitrarily saying things. in other words, perspective. people in Lancaster commute to Harrisburg, they also commute to Philadelphia. I think there should be a reason. the census uses commute patterns afaik. nearly a third of Lancaster's metro jobs are in Lancaster city so in the end it's a tight little cluster. I'd point out that a unified region would actually give you less information. admittedly I'm a little confused as to why philly and Pittsburgh are lower than you usually see them.

Lancaster is usually quoted at over a half million and philly near 6 million (Pittsburgh over 2)
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just as background, I grew up in Lebanon so I'm from that general area. Even back in the 70s and 80s the broadcast media was billed as "South Central PA" or "Susquehanna Valley". So even then there was a recognition of a proto unity of sorts. The countryside of all the cities is (unfortunately) building out towards each other. More and more, it's one region that contains its historical node cities.

[bannedintheusa1]

Originally Posted by JJ Johnson

Most Americans don't realize that Pittsburgh is nearly five hours away from Philadelphia. One city may as well be in Indiana and one in New York, for as far apart and as unrelated as they are.

Frankly, I'd be hard pressed to name a single town in the entire state that I see as "booming" in the foreseeable future. Unless you define "booming" as only loosing population and jobs below some annual percentage level.

how do you explain that the Lehigh valley, sepa, south central pa, and Pittsburgh have all been growing? perhaps not boomtown (though Allentown's numbers are pretty strong) but not "losing below average"

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by JJ Johnson

Most Americans don't realize that Pittsburgh is nearly five hours away from Philadelphia. One city may as well be in Indiana and one in New York, for as far apart and as unrelated as they are.

Frankly, I'd be hard pressed to name a single town in the entire state that I see as "booming" in the foreseeable future. Unless you define "booming" as only loosing population and jobs below some annual percentage level.

Five hours is not far from one end of a state to another, unless you're in Delaware.

[gousa14]

I think Pat Howard made a kind of case back in 2011 in Erie:

Pat Howard: Only changing the rules can save Erie, other Pa. cities Source: GoErie