The PA Coal Region in great decline any thoughts? (Philadelphia: condo, houses)

[steeps]

Well Eschanton.... I giver you credit for having HOPE for these areas. But no sign of that. Maybe in Philly and Pittsburgh? You have all price ranges of Row Homes. In Central PA they are ALL INFERIOR HOUSING FOR MOSTLY LOWER CLASS residents.
I know Philly has a massive amount of substandard tight Rows. Of course higher end neighborhoods and especially its Center City Colonial Areas.

But with no industry moving in. This is NOT the Pocono's with close proximity to NYC or Philly. Its mountainous and closer to West Virginia mountain towns then not.
Some homes were built by the Coal Companies. Most never had or have Fire-walls between them. Many had open attics in the Rows and some even Basements. Cliff side Rows had 1st floor Kitchen and Basement in back. Closed in stairway to the living room on the Second and bedrooms on the third and Bathroom. In my former hometown and the next. Both had part blocks demolished by fire this past winter. Again no firewalls.

People own cars or lease them MOSTLY more expensive then their homes. You can very quickly re-model a Row. Especially using a professional contractor.... and put more money into it you can EVER sell it for. Nothing I said is stretching or exaggerated.

As the thread says.... Coal Region in Great Decline. I agree.

[Clark Park]

Maybe some day people will rediscover the great beauty of the region and want to live there as we transition to a society where more and more "work" can be done from home and online.

Towns in the Anthracite Region need to reinvent themselves. We have all seen Jim Thorpe do it.

[CHIP72]

Originally Posted by thepatruth

I grew up in the Pennsylvania Coal Region which is considered Northumberland,Carbon And Schuylkill Counties along with the Greater Hazleton/Wilkes Barre area and This place is going downhill fast.

The eastern PA anthracite coal region isn't going down fast; it has been going down my entire lifetime, and I'm 42 years old.

The region started going down before World War II when the anthracite coal industry started going down and really started to fall off in the 1950s.

[Gerania]

Originally Posted by CHIP72

The eastern PA anthracite coal region isn't going down fast; it has been going down my entire lifetime, and I'm 42 years old.

The region started going down before World War II when the anthracite coal industry started going down and really started to fall off in the 1950s.

There was still a fair amount of manufacturing in the area. My sister worked in a shoe factory one summer when she was in high school. My brother work at Owens-Illinois during the summer when he was in college. Those jobs, of course, no longer exist.

[thepatruth]

Coalman I had to laugh at your statistical analysis about crime. It is absolutely laughable. So you only quantify murders as the only crime statistic in a given area.

[odessa3]

Having lived in this area (Wilkes-Barre-Scranton) all my life, I agree that little has changed. Pittston is one town really making a great effort to revitalize, and it shows, with an attractive downtown area. The town where I live has not changed as long as I can remember. The local government has usually consisted of older folks who are content with the way things are, and there is always "no money", so things never change. The "downtown" is decrepit with buildings that should have come down long ago. As mentioned in posts above, the homes, including mine, are small coal company homes with no charm or character, and not much value. As the people who have lived here all their lives pass away, the homes are then sold to landlords who rent to lower income folks. Job opportunities consist mainly of minimum wage warehouse and call center jobs. The school taxes in this county are absurd, and I heard they are going up again. Most people are just getting by, as is the case in many areas of our country. If the $$ isn't there, how can things improve?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Clark Park

Maybe some day people will rediscover the great beauty of the region and want to live there as we transition to a society where more and more "work" can be done from home and online.

Why would you want a view like this out your front window?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by thepatruth

Coalman I had to laugh at your statistical analysis about crime. It is absolutely laughable. So you only quantify murders as the only crime statistic in a given area.

Murder rates are indicative of other crime rates in particular violent crime rates. Can you cite one location in this entire country with a high murder rate that does not have a corresponding high rate of other crime? Of course you can't, guess it's not laughable is it?

The two places I have lived for the last 40 years have a murder rate of 0. Correspondingly other crime rates are almost non existent and would mostly be theft of property outside the home e.g. change in your car, lawn equipment etc. Overall the rate of crime in Luzerne Co. is not that high, in most communities it's going to be around or below the national average. You have isolated pockets in Wilkes Barre and some of the other communities where most of the crime occurs.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

This is certainly an issue but the problem in many of these towns is no one wants those homes. You have a plethora of very small homes that might only be 1000 sq ft. or even less which interesting features like having to walk through one bedroom to get to another. They are crammed up against the neighboring homes, no yard, no where to park etc.

Some of the trendiest and priciest urban neighborhoods (Lawrenceville, Mexican War Streets, South Side Flats in Pittsburgh) have old row houses with no parking (cities have street parking). It hasn't hurt Pittsburgh to have housing meeting that description at all -- in fact, those neighborhoods with this type of housing are the trendiest. Mini historic homes in downtown locations are actually all the rage in areas of the country with sophisticated populations.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

Housing that people nowadays actually want to live in seems in short supply. Old modest row homes with no parking and no transit to get to work and shopping (meaning longer hours not just the senior citizen bus) is a losing proposition.

In Pittsburgh, people love the little row houses without off-street parking, and they go for big bucks in neighborhoods like South Side, Lawrenceville, Deutschtown, War Streets, etc. Perhaps the coal region lacks the sophisticated, educated urban population that Pittsburgh has that appreciates these historic homes, but there is always potential for that in the coal region (I hope).