Altoona PA - America's future

[Must_B_Free]

Like Silicon Valley is the home to the high tech electronics industry, Altoona was once riding high. You can still see the grand Art Deco architecture down town from the early part of the last century, when Altoona was the place for high tech. It turned the raw steel into commerce. It bulit the locomotives that supplied a nation with transit for goods and services. It is the home of one of the largest fabric warehouses in the country.

Altoona has changed. Those industries died or left to find cheaper labour. The blocks and blocks of row homes down town are, to a good extent, empty. A friend of mine bought one while I was in college there. The price? A whopping $2,800. Did he have to renovate it? Nope, it was in move in condition.

Manufacturing has been replaced by two new industries: Hoagie shops and Bars. That's about all there is in Altoona. Every corner has a a bar or a Hoagie shop. Altoona has the highest number of Sheetz's of any town: 29. In other words, it's populus of alcoholics eating finger food.

It kind of reminds you of the former USSR. Well, make way guys because here we come.

[mmm]

1. I left my heart in Altoona

ALtoona is a funny name for a city

[Spoon]

2. I lived there a year or so.

Too young to remember, though.

[JM]

3. Meanwhile...

...Pennsylvania is moving (how quickly I am unsure) to create a continuous 4 lane highway between Altoona and Pittsburgh. Right now the only routes to Pittsburgh are US 22 which is a windy combination of 2, 3 and 4 lane road, or I-99 south to the Turnpike. There is nothing direct eastbound. I-99 does not yet hook into I-80 as I recall, which means the route to Philadelphia, NYC and other points east is down I-99 to the Turnpike.

Hopefully once they get this finished, manufacturing will again return to the Altoona-Johnstown corridor.

JM

[thatgemguy]

4. So many communities

I live in the Ohio River Valley not far from Pittsburgh. Up and down the valley, many communities are suffering in the same way. Steubenville, OH, Wheeling, WV, East Liverpool, OH.

Once proud manufacturing centers full of hard working, proud people, now all but reduced to ghost towns. The entitlement class are about all that is left here. It's sad when you talk to young people and the only opportunity they can see is dealing drugs, or having kids so they can get government support.

Instead of spending money to rebuild an Iraq that we we never should have destroyed in the first place, our government needs to take care of our own, and help to create a real future for our people.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi thatgemguy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: