Why does Beaver County suck? (Pittsburgh, McKeesport: roughest, unemployment rate, school districts)

[Love2Golf09]

I'm going to be blunt here, so I hope nobody from Beaver or Fayette takes offense to my comments. Now, Fayette County gets a bad rep on this forum for their poverty, crime, and population loss over the last decade, but Beaver County isn't far behind. Fayette lost 12,000 people last decade and Beaver lost around 11,000. Westmoreland, Washington, and Butler were not even close to anything like that. It's pretty clear that in Western PA Fayette and Beaver are struggling compared to other areas. So, what's the deal with Beaver? Fayette is kind of isolated and a longer drive to Pittsburgh, but Beaver County is a short drive to the airport area with a lot of jobs around Robinson. Why are they so poor and ghetto there? Aside from Hopewell, and possibly some smaller areas like Center and Beaver Falls, I really can't think of any decent places there. In fact, their schools might actually be WORSE than Fayette's. What's going on there? Beaver has no excuse for their poor performance.

[Pitt Chick]

I don't think Beaver County sucks at all!
I have a lot of family scattered throughout Beaver County.
Not a one is "poor and ghetto".

[Love2Golf09]

Originally Posted by Pitt Chick

I don't think Beaver County sucks at all!
I have a lot of family scattered throughout Beaver County.
Not a one is "poor and ghetto".

Ok, that's certainly my opinion and is open to debate. But, why do you think so many people left the county in the last decade? Why do you think the unemployment rate and poverty level there is so high? Why do you think the school rankings are low? Of course, I'm comparing Beaver to the other counties in the Pittsburgh area. What do you think is going on there? It certainly isn't as the level of Washington, Butler, or Westmoreland.

[greg42]

They left the county, from what I can tell, because there was even more dependence upon heavy industrial manufacturing jobs than Allegheny County, and there hasn't been anything to replace those. The gas cracker plant will reverse that a little, but that's years away. Most of the modern type less industrial jobs want to be in the city, or in more modern suburbs like Cranberry and Moon/Robinson/etc.

Washington, Butler and Westmoreland were not as dependent upon the industry methinks. I don't know that for 100% certain, but it would be my best guess.

There's quite a mix of locales though. Sure, Aliquippa is a seriously burned out place, the worst, and Ambridge and Beaver Falls aren't looking too hot. But Beaver itself is in good shape with good schools. Some other areas are rural, or have spillover from the airport area (Hopewell) or Cranberry (Economy and New Sewickley, although the latter is still mostly rural and the former is partly rural). The places that didn't have the industry, that are mostly removed from the rivers (Ohio and Beaver), those tend to be the ones that don't look so bad. Which doesn't mean they're doing great. They're just not as bad. Some of them could do better if they weren't saddled with bad school districts (Economy with Ambridge Area schools, for instance).

[Uptown kid]

In Beaver County the only places with saftey issues/areas to avoid are: most of Alliquppia, parts of Beaver Falls & part of Ambridge. Plus New Brighton/Rochester are both a lil gritty...

Alliquppia is by far the roughest place outside of Allegheny County though IMO it's in the same sad category as Homewood/the Hill/Northview Heights-Allegheny Dwellings/the East Hills/Larimer/Beltzhoover/Knoxville or Duquesne/Wilkinsburg/McKeesport/Mt. Oliver Boro
Currently I'd say the bad parts of Beaver Falls are similar to New Kensington/Arnold. While Ambridge's bad part is similar to Donora's but less sketchy/rachety than Monesson's bad part...

[Aqua Teen Carl]

I like Beaver County. It's a mix of rural suburbs right, strip malls, and outdoor activities. Plus there are parts of it that are beautiful.

The downfall is that most of the towns out there are real Rust Belt relics that never recovered from the post industrial collapse. It's not so much that people are leaving Beaver in droves either, but rather the older Beaver County "lifers" are simply dying off and no one is replacing them.

Another thing is that there is quite simply nothing to do out there, but I guess that's to be expected. I don't always find that a negative.

[greg42]

It sucks because I'm here. Anywhere I go, by definition, sucks.

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by Love2Golf09

I'm going to be blunt here, so I hope nobody from Beaver or Fayette takes offense to my comments. Now, Fayette County gets a bad rep on this forum for their poverty, crime, and population loss over the last decade, but Beaver County isn't far behind. Fayette lost 12,000 people last decade and Beaver lost around 11,000. Westmoreland, Washington, and Butler were not even close to anything like that. It's pretty clear that in Western PA Fayette and Beaver are struggling compared to other areas. So, what's the deal with Beaver? Fayette is kind of isolated and a longer drive to Pittsburgh, but Beaver County is a short drive to the airport area with a lot of jobs around Robinson. Why are they so poor and ghetto there? Aside from Hopewell, and possibly some smaller areas like Center and Beaver Falls, I really can't think of any decent places there. In fact, their schools might actually be WORSE than Fayette's. What's going on there? Beaver has no excuse for their poor performance.

Just a few comments on comparing Beaver and Fayette Counties. Fayette County was heavily dependent on the coal and coke industries and never diversified into anything else. Beaver was heavily dependent on steel making. Fayette grew earlier and in 1910 had a larger population than it does now. Its population peak was more rural with small coal patches or company towns scattered all over the county. Fayette's population has actually been declining since 1940 when it hit its peak of 201,000. Beaver County is smaller, and has had a much more urban population that grew up close to the rivers because of the mills. Its population peaked in the 1970 census, which was close to the peak of the steel industry. So Fayette has had a much longer decline and without the proximity of the Pgh International Airport, closeness to Pgh and two interstate highways to slow its decline.

Regarding school districts, there is no comparison between Fayette and Beaver. While Beaver has one of the worst performing school districts in the state with Aliquippa, Fayette has four of its six school districts in the bottom 15% in the state. The mdian ranking for Fayette's school districts is 440, while the median rank of Beaver's SD is 202, which doesn't include Midland. This is based on 497 districts in the state. Fayette does have the mountains and attractions like the Yough, Ohiopyle, Fallingwater, Nemacolin and Seven Springs.

[PeterRabbit]

Some people make great points and don't know what a paragraph is. That discourages reading it.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by greg42

They left the county, from what I can tell, because there was even more dependence upon heavy industrial manufacturing jobs than Allegheny County, and there hasn't been anything to replace those. The gas cracker plant will reverse that a little, but that's years away. Most of the modern type less industrial jobs want to be in the city, or in more modern suburbs like Cranberry and Moon/Robinson/etc.

Washington, Butler and Westmoreland were not as dependent upon the industry methinks. I don't know that for 100% certain, but it would be my best guess.

There's quite a mix of locales though. Sure, Aliquippa is a seriously burned out place, the worst, and Ambridge and Beaver Falls aren't looking too hot. But Beaver itself is in good shape with good schools. Some other areas are rural, or have spillover from the airport area (Hopewell) or Cranberry (Economy and New Sewickley, although the latter is still mostly rural and the former is partly rural). The places that didn't have the industry, that are mostly removed from the rivers (Ohio and Beaver), those tend to be the ones that don't look so bad. Which doesn't mean they're doing great. They're just not as bad. Some of them could do better if they weren't saddled with bad school districts (Economy with Ambridge Area schools, for instance).

I agree with the bold. I was reading a history of Beaver County and came across the fact (I hope it's accurate) that at one time 60+% of workers in Beaver County belonged to the United Steelworkers. That does not include people who worked in the mills but were not a part of the union, such as the engineers, or the people that worked for the railroads and other heavy industry that may have been represented by a different union. Of course, I likely will never be able to find this link again.

The Beaver Falls school district has gotten some ratings that basically mean "better than expected", so perhaps something good is going on there.