Scranton: Not your Grandfather's Blue Collar Town

Townhall.com ^ | July 16, 2012 | Salena Zito

[oncebitten]

Central planning is difficult to get right and usually doesn't work. I think a better model is to think of creating “structure” in the same way that coral reefs will form on purposefully sunken ships. A good example of this is Monterey CA and the “Sardine” district. This was a rundown, derelict, area 30 years ago. If you go today you will find shops and restaurants and rehabbed housing stock. What changed? In my opinion, it was the Monterey Aquarium, which anchored the rebirth.

Another way to achieve this coral reef model is to create an attractive entertainment district, with bars and nightclubs, strip clubs, coffee houses, etc. Think of the Gaslight district in San Diego. But a big caveat to this is the need to both attract and hold young people. Having co-located residential apartments is the key.

[whatexit]

This guy has the numbers on Scranton’s hole.

http://scrantonisbroke.blogspot.com/

[AnnGora]

Is Dwight Shrute still running a B&B on his beet farm?

[StevieB]

30,000 pounds of Bananas...

[imardmd1]

My son's favotite ballsd in the 1970s: "30,000 Pounds of Bananas," for those of you who were not born yet then -- (smile)

Comin' down the hill into Scranton --

The lyrics and the performance by Harry Chapin.

(Don't mention this to Scrantonians -- they got very tired of it many years ago. So did I.) Have fun, younguns!

[Safetgiver]

They, (In Scranton) need to get the numbers of City and County employees on disability retirement under control. They used this ruse for years to keep these a88holes voting for them. There are more retirees on disability than there are retired. I ran the numbers as part of my job, years ago. Police are the worst. Same as Bethlehem, PA.

[Kaslin]

Please address your question to the author

[andy58-in-nh]

Scranton, PA in fact was my grandfather's blue-collar town. He was a salesman for auto parts suppliers there back in the 1920s and 30s.

Towns like Scranton worked because business was encouraged and hard work was rewarded, not because a bunch of smart social planners decided to create a little boutique Potemkin village funded by state taxes and intended to attract liberal elitists with soft hands and softer heads.

[Verginius Rufus]

In 1964 the Republican East Coast establishment made a last-ditch effort to stop Barry Goldwater by getting Bill Scranton, the Governor of Pennsylvania, to run.

I remember a joke that ran in National Review

"What do you think of Scranton?"
"I don't know--I've never been there."

[hedgetrimmer]

The Monterey Bay Aquarium was the worst thing to ever happen to the city of Monterey and to Pacific Grove! They are bankrupting Pacific Grove public services/ police/ fire as they only pay $1 year 'rent' to the city yet still get services subsidized by the wage earning taxpayers in the city.

They have created a cultural genocide in the Portuguese and Italian fishing communities that used to live in Monterey and around the bay.

They have collaborated in the literal theft of state property-- the bay, in giving to the federal government and stealing control from California citizens. Now the army of NOAA bureaucrats heap totalitarian rules on everyone and act as a praetorian guard for Sam Farr and Julie Packard in policing the bay for 'offenders'. The aquarium has a full on communist relationship with the federal government in restricting peoples rights and freedoms once guaranteed by the US Constitution.

The Aquarium is a Marxist-leninist propoganda machine. They have destroyed the local maritime community, and in their most recent coup, the managed to steal the Maritime Museum from the community and have turned it into an anti-human school of brainwashing for children and visitors to the town. Their first exhibit on taking over was to show how horrible humans have 'destroyed' the bay (even though they've been running it for 2 decades), by putting up a display of garbage for all the little kiddies to take in and feel guilty for.

Your first sentence "Central planning is difficult to get right and usually doesn't work" leads to the belief that you think it 'can' work-- which is the same old communist clap trap that had people saying that communism didn't work in Russia, they didn't do it right, but we'll do it right this time'. Well there is no 'right' in communism and Americans must never support the garbage that the Monterey Bay Aquarium heaps on us,leading to the destruction of our Constitutional rights.

Communities EVERYWHERE should avoid your advice like the plague.

[Vendome]

I was thinking of Dwight. LOL

[Vendome]

I go there primarily to see the jellyfish but still think it’s funny they serve in the restaurant.

“Tuna encrusted in sesame seed, rare”.

[COBOL2Java]

Dwight Schrute

[randita]

PA Ping!

If you want on/off the PA Ping List, please freepmail me. Thanks!

[Kaslin]

I guess, by your reply you could see I did know nothing about the show, as I never watched it and it looks like I didn’t miss much

[Vigilanteman]

Scranton is a great setting for the The Office because it is a city so easy to laugh at. If Pennsylvania was a person, Philadelphia would be the anus and Scranton would be the armpit. It is the Democrat haven that produced the scandal where juveniles were being sent to lock up for petty offenses because the judges had friends which owned the lock-up facilities for which they were billing the state in excess of $300 per detainee per day.

They carp about how poor Scranton was cheated by the exit of industry. Allentown, roughly midway between Scranton and Philadelphia, has a similar industrial history, but is one of the best functioning, nicest and most livable towns in the Commonwealth. The key difference is the political leadership which they elect. Allentown is conservative and pro-business. Scranton is liberal and pro-union.

If there are two closer together cities in the United States which serve as poster children for the two distinctly different approaches, I'd be hard put to say what they were. Similar size, similar history, similar demographics. Seriously, the only key difference is their politics and results.

[COBOL2Java]

I guess, by your reply you could see I did know nothing about the show, as I never watched it and it looks like I didn’t miss much

Hey, you can catch it on Netflix instant view! :-)

FWIW, I'm not much of a fan but my daughter is - so I get to see it from time to time - that's how I knew who Dwight was.

[Vigilanteman]

Same as Bethlehem, PA.

Some of us consider Bethlehem, PA as Scranton Jr., as you probably know. Located a mere 10 miles or so from fully functional Allentown.

Not quite as dysfunctional as Scranton only due to its proximity to a highly functional neighbor.

[Kaslin]

Netflix, you got to be kidding. Naw I survive lOL