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I am originally from NY then Joisey, currently packing up my home in Florida and going to be moving the Pike County. Any other NY, NJ folks doing the same?
We are a fun bunch of people. Loud, but very helpful and loving!
To all the local PA folks: Please do not judge us because some people you have met were not to your liking. Everybody is a unique individual. We all have different personalities. Give us a chance!
The problem is not individual NY/NJ people....I'm sure a good number of you are good people. However, the effect of a mass influx from NY/NJ has brought growth that the area cannot sustain. The schools cannot handle the influx, as well as the roads, infrastructure, police departments, etc. The taxes are skyrocketing, and the locals that were here do not want to be forced to drive 3 hours to get to NY to be able to afford to live in their hometown. Ny/Nj people have brought a lot of problems. There are a lot of problems with the youth in the area getting into trouble....gangs, drugs, etc....because most of them are unsupervised a majority of the time while their parents spend all day commuting to their jobs in NY. In a nutshell, the Ny/NJ people have brought big city problems to PA...the same big city problems they are trying to escape. The NY/NJ people may as well stay in NY/NJ and try to fix their own areas, rather than spreading the problems to PA. The crime, congestion, and suburban sprawl (the wilderness is dying by the day because the big city people need to have their big plot of land in the new development with a McMansion on it) are killing NE PA and just turning it into an extension of NY.
You will be able to spot a fellow NYer on New Joisian from a mile away.
yeah, typically, they will be throwing an empty coffee cup out the window of their Lexus SUV while yapping on the cell phone and weaving in an out of traffic cutting people off with no blinker....and then they flip you the bird for daring to blow the horn at them.
I hate to say this, but we native residents of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are just as guilty of destroying our environment as the newcomers from NY/NJ are! For example, have you been to the Abingtons lately? Have you seen how many trees are being plowed down along these narrow country lanes, which once housed equestrians, in order to put up new McMansion housing developments? Then look in the property transfers of the Scranton Times to see that the vast majority of those buying these "show-off" homes in the Abingtons are indeed native local yokels! I don't think I ever came across an area so wasteful and willing to "shun the old" in favor of the "wave of the future!" I personally see nothing wrong with many of Scranton's neighborhoods (Minooka, Green Ridge, Downtown, and the Upper Hill come to mind as being especially attractive). However, many people are leaving these neighborhoods to build these ostentatious homes on our once-forested hillsides. You want to know the true reason behind Scranton's major budget deficit? It's not all a direct result of "Doherty cronyism", as Councilwoman Janet Evans tells her constituency on Channel 61; Take a look around at how many homes in your own neighborhoods are sitting vacant and neglected while the Abingtons is among the fastest-growing areas of the state behind the Poconos and the Philly 'burbs!
Want to see even MORE waste on account of our local idiotic residents? There has been, and continues to be widespread "excitement" and "support" of the new "Shoppes @ Montage" outlet mall coming to Montage Mountain as being an "economic boon to the region." Just out of curiosity, I decided to check out the construction signs on the site near Cinemark to see what types of businesses would soon be opening on the mountain in March. Among them are several businesses who already have locations in the nearby Steamtown Mall downtown---Do you honestly think having two Eddie Bauers in such close proximity is sustainable? Of course not! The downtown locations of all of these businesses will shutter their doors in favor of the new suburban mall, and we'll have a "white elephant" of sorts with the Steamtown Mall sitting at half-vacancy in Center City. This will have a trickle-down effect that will hurt the ENTIRE CITY! Believe it or not, the Steamtown Mall helps to generate many downtown trips to suburbanites (including the Abington snobs) who otherwise would have no reason to patronize the city. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people with mall shopping bags strolling around Center City, dining at nearby restaurants, window-shopping in the new boutiques, etc. Killing the Steamtown Mall is not "economic progress" in my book, and neither is further scalping Montage Mountain into the suburban playground it has now become of shiny glass office buildings, restaurants, and million-dollar villas. By losing all of the trips to Downtown Scranton generated by the Steamtown Mall, you're seriously going to jeopardize the sustainability of the surrounding revitalization efforts. Furthermore, don't any of you NEPA idiots realize that a two-lane road on Montage Mountain is NOT sufficient to handle traffic from concerts at the Toyota Pavillion, Yankees games at the stadium, thousands of white-collar office workers, thousands of diners and Cinemark movie-goers, hundreds of tourists at the visitors' center, and thousands of daily vehicles at the "Shoppes @ Montage" all at the same time! Traffic snarls now are ludicrous without the thousands of additional vehicles this new mall will bring; what does Moosic Borough have planned to help reduce the traffic congestion? Nothing. All these greedy b**tards can see are the $$$ coming at them from all of this new sprawl, totally ignorant of the fact that these sprawl-related issues will soon be hurting many borough residents in both Glenmaura and Belin Village/Spike Island.
Before you go pointing the finger at the NY/NJ folks for their sprawl-crazed lifestyles, you better take a good hard look at our own local yokels, whose shortsightedness in urban planning concerns makes me embarrassed to call them my neighbors! Did you know that whlie Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's metro population shed tens of thousands of people since the 1970s, we increased our overall land usage by 20%?! We increased the "size" of our metro by 1/5 while shedding roughly 15% of our population; how can anyone consider this to NOT be wasteful?
Here's the "well-planned" MESS that's the future of Montage Mountain. My grandmother grew up in Belin Village at the base of the mountain and used to pick berries there as a child. Now, roadkill lines the roadways as the poor creastures have nowhere else to run with the sudden proliferation of multi-million dollar homes and office complexes! There was room for ALL of these residents and businesses on Montage Mountain within the Scranton city limits; the people of the "Glenmaura" neighborhood apparently think that they are too good to live amongst the commoners in Scranton, and the businesses on the mountain care more about tax abatements than contributing to an area's quality-of-life by breathing new life into a struggling downtown environment.
However, the effect of a mass influx from NY/NJ has brought growth that the area cannot sustain. The schools cannot handle the influx, as well as the roads, infrastructure, police departments, etc. The taxes are skyrocketing, and the locals that were here do not want to be forced to drive 3 hours to get to NY to be able to afford to live in their hometown. Ny/Nj people have brought a lot of problems. .
I came from the fastest growing county in NYS, and last I knew ranked the 16th fastest growing county in the US. They have a much larger influx of NYC/NJ people than Pike can ever dream of having. Somehow MOST towns have done great. The crime rate in MOST towns has not skyrocketed. Matter of fact, there is ONE town who has suffered and they were suffering long before the boom happened.
I am about sick and tired of being a scapegoat for the problems in this area. And this comment is dead on:
Quote:
Anyway, I've seen a few people say it already, so I'll confirm. PA people are probably the least friendly I have ever met out of all the states I have been to.
I have lived in 5 states, and this is the LEAST friendly state I have been in, and that is including TX! (And I am a yankee!!) By now I had dozens of friends in the other states, I have not had one single person greet me here, except for some idiot threw a beer bottle at my pickup truck and damaged the rim. Funny that has not happened before in NY. But it happened in PA...must have been my NY plates in a Walmart parking lot 8 miles from the NY border!
Did anyone hear that NYC was voted the MOST POLITE city in the US????? And despite popular belief, it is not even in the top 10 most dangerous cities in NYS?? Stop the stereotypes people it is ignorant and disrespectful.
On the contrary to what others have said. We moved to northeast Pa. 10 years ago and the people in our neighborhood here welcomed us with open arms. I no longer knew the people living on my street in New Jersey when we left but here, where we have far fewer neighbors, we can count on them to help us in any situation and we would do the same for them. We personally would never go back to New Jersey. Our neighbors here are much more down to earth and less interested in "what do you do and what kind of money do you make". That was the mentality we left in our our old neighborhood. There were lots of people but not one wanted to know you there. Just my 2 cents.
Before you go pointing the finger at the NY/NJ folks for their sprawl-crazed lifestyles, you better take a good hard look at our own local yokels, whose shortsightedness in urban planning concerns makes me embarrassed to call them my neighbors! Did you know that whlie Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's metro population shed tens of thousands of people since the 1970s, we increased our overall land usage by 20%?! We increased the "size" of our metro by 1/5 while shedding roughly 15% of our population; how can anyone consider this to NOT be wasteful?
SWB, I agree mostly with what you say. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre is known as one of the worst areas for sprawl in the country, despite Lackawanna and Luzerne counties being two of the fastest shrinking areas in the country. Its all greed. People think they need the big McMansion in Clarks Summit or Dallas or Glenmaura. Personally, I HATE new housing developments. They're too sterile, too "Stepford Wives" for me. I like older neighborhoods with character. Which is why I like living in Scranton (although the taxes and politics suck in Scranton.....but the politics are corrupt all over this area, but thats for a different discussion). It really hit me on Halloween how much I liked living in an "old fashioned" neighborhood, when I was taking my son around to the neighbors trick-or-treating. Cul-de-sac developments just don't have the same character or friendliness.
So, yes, the locals are as guilty as anyone. But the New Yorkers coming to the Poconos really are causing a lot of sprawl in an area that was once wilderness, but is now starting to look like North Jersey. Its too bad the decent New Yorkers are not coming to places like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and building up the tax base and making the towns prosper again, but unfortunately, those people are not moving to PA for urban living....they know they can stay in NY/NJ if they want urban life, without a hideously-long commute. They're coming here because they want the McMansion estate on a big plot of land in the gated subdivision.
On the contrary to what others have said. We moved to northeast Pa. 10 years ago and the people in our neighborhood here welcomed us with open arms. I no longer knew the people living on my street in New Jersey when we left but here, where we have far fewer neighbors, we can count on them to help us in any situation and we would do the same for them. We personally would never go back to New Jersey. Our neighbors here are much more down to earth and less interested in "what do you do and what kind of money do you make". That was the mentality we left in our our old neighborhood. There were lots of people but not one wanted to know you there. Just my 2 cents.
Exactly. Its all what you make of it. If you move to a new area and are nice, polite, and respectful of your neighbors, you will receive the same in return.
I know this doesn't apply to everyone from NY/NJ, but there are SOME who come with an elitist attitude, thinking that they are better, more civilized, more intelligent...and that the locals are just a bunch of uneducated backwoods rednecks. Of course that kind of attitude will get the same in return.
Personally, I wish more of your type would move to Scranton. I wouldn't mind an influx of New Yorkers/New Jerseyites if they're decent people. So far, most of the NY/NJ license plates in the city of Scranton belong to drug dealers (or college students, but they're not really permanent residents).
Here's the "well-planned" MESS that's the future of Montage Mountain. My grandmother grew up in Belin Village at the base of the mountain and used to pick berries there as a child. Now, roadkill lines the roadways as the poor creastures have nowhere else to run with the sudden proliferation of multi-million dollar homes and office complexes! There was room for ALL of these residents and businesses on Montage Mountain within the Scranton city limits; the people of the "Glenmaura" neighborhood apparently think that they are too good to live amongst the commoners in Scranton, and the businesses on the mountain care more about tax abatements than contributing to an area's quality-of-life by breathing new life into a struggling downtown environment.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too close for me. Why would anyone spend so much money for so little land / house is beyond me. On a different note: do I need to send you batteries for you camera?????????? OF/Taylor
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What?
I don't think I ever came across an area so wasteful and willing to "shun the old" in favor of the "wave of the future!" 
I personally see nothing wrong with many of Scranton's neighborhoods (Minooka, Green Ridge, Downtown, and the Upper Hill come to mind as being especially attractive). However, many people are leaving these neighborhoods to build these ostentatious homes on our once-forested hillsides. You want to know the true reason behind Scranton's major budget deficit? It's not all a direct result of "Doherty cronyism", as Councilwoman Janet Evans tells her constituency on Channel 61; Take a look around at how many homes in your own neighborhoods are sitting vacant and neglected while the Abingtons is among the fastest-growing areas of the state behind the Poconos and the Philly 'burbs! 
By losing all of the trips to Downtown Scranton generated by the Steamtown Mall, you're seriously going to jeopardize the sustainability of the surrounding revitalization efforts. Furthermore, don't any of you NEPA idiots realize that a two-lane road on Montage Mountain is NOT sufficient to handle traffic from concerts at the Toyota Pavillion, Yankees games at the stadium, thousands of white-collar office workers, thousands of diners and Cinemark movie-goers, hundreds of tourists at the visitors' center, and thousands of daily vehicles at the "Shoppes @ Montage" all at the same time! 
