Question about PA cities.

[jFug]

The city of Erie has a total area of 19.3 sq. miles with a population of 99,452.


If the city annexed nearby Millcreek Twp. (which will most likely never happen, but one can hope), then the area of the city would increase to 52.1 sq. miles and population would increase to ~153,000.

[g500]

If Harrisburg annexed Susquehanna Twp., Swatara Twp., Lower Paxton Twp., Middletown, Steelton, Hummelstown, Highspire, Penbrook, Paxtang, and Royalton, the new "Harrisburg" would jump from 49,000 in 8.1 square miles of land to ~174,000 in 69.3 square miles of land = 2,511 people/square mile. This new Harrisburg wouldn't include any of the Hershey area or any of the west shore (Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg, Carlisle, Enola), both of which are rather developed, but which might not want to be a part of the new city. The city could obviously add more if it wanted to, but this would be a good start. But I doubt if any or all of these municipalities would be willing to go forward with this type of a plan.

On a side note, seems like Allentown, Bethlehem, Whitehall Twp, South Whitehall Twp, Salisbury Twp, Lower Macungie Twp, Upper Macungie Twp,Catasauqua, Emmaus, Fountain Hill, Coplay, Macungie, Alburtis could easily merge together though, which would be ~341,000 in only 134.6 square miles of land (I'm too lazy to look up all the surrounding townships in Northampton County). In fact you could probably piece it together to achieve 400k in less than 200 square miles easily.

[Dequindre]

The small land areas of our cities also makes comparing populations of similar towns in other states difficult. One has to take into consideration the whole "area", which is sometimes ambiguous.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

T There are also numerous other nearby lower-crime boroughs---Courtdale, Pringle, Luzerne, Swoyersville---to name a few, that could and should merge into one medium-sized city that would still have less than the square mileage of a typical medium-sized city in another state. You would then have ONE police chief, ONE fire chief, ONE EMS chief, ONE mayor, ONE city council, etc. that would be able to work much more efficiently as one unit.

I got a chuckle from the Pringle, PA borough website. You should give it a look, the elected official photos all look like mugshots.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

That's a consequence of PA's long tradition of hyper-localism. As in New England and New Jersey, the basic unit of local government is the town or township, not the county. PA has never had "un-incorporated areas".

This was one of those weird things about PA that took some getting used to, especially coming from Georgia where unincorporated land is just a way of life. For example, I'm from Gwinnett County which had a population of about 850K people. I did a quick estimate on how many people live in unincorporated areas and it's a staggering 650K people (my parents included). Only 200K people or so actually live in an incorporated city.

The small city size, however, is pretty similar in PA and GA. The city of Atlanta doesn't even have half a million people while the surrounding metro area has an additional 5 million people. Lancaster only has a little over 50K but feels like a much larger city(the density also helps with that). It's quite a bit different from say, Texas, where cities seemingly constantly annex more land. Houston is huge in area and population with over 2 million people in the "city" but the metro area is maybe half a million larger than Atlanta's.

The school systems in PA are somewhat similar to Texas (and very dissimilar to Georgia). Texas has their Independent School Districts (I.S.D.). It was weird my first time driving through rural Texas and seeing every little small town with their own school district. Georgia only has a few ___ City School districts like Atlanta. Gwinnett has 139 schools (19 regular high schools) and about 178,000 students. Only the city of Buford in Gwinnett has its own district with barely over 2,000 students. Meanwhile I'm still trying to figure out Pennsylvania school systems. Looks like very localized school districts.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

I got a chuckle from the Pringle, PA borough website. You should give it a look, the elected official photos all look like mugshots.

"Visitors are entertained by the view of Wyoming Valley and the surrounding mountains, visible from almost every street in the borough."

^ Who needs nightlife when you can have a view of a dying medium-sized city as your "entertainment"?

[Gerania]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

I got a chuckle from the Pringle, PA borough website. You should give it a look, the elected official photos all look like mugshots.

You're right, they do! That's funny.