Somethings just don't come back

[AllentownJake]

I grew up in suburb right outside of Allentown, PA. Once upon a time we were an All-America City. When I was younger, just 25 years ago the city had a thriving downtown and a safe city. 25 years later, after years of bad economic management in the nation as a whole and some poor management by some of the cities mayors, Allentown is a very different city. Billy Joel wrote his song at the start of the decline, not the bottom.

As I walk around the downtown the signs of the old businesses are still there, although the businesses have changed. You can still see their signs. Shoe stores, Appliance Stores, Restaurants that have long since closed. Most of the new businesses, to the space that isn't vacant, don't have the capital to afford a new sign so they generally put a banner up in its place. The businesses are generally dollar stores or run-in 7-11 type grocery stores. We once had a world class department store down town. It was the center of the community. It would have fashion shows, bring in Hollywood's B-list, and flower shows. Everyone in town over 30 has a story about Hess's. The older ones about shopping the younger ones going there as a kid at Christmastime. We replaced it with a Macy's and a Penny's two miles down the road in a mall.

A lot of the row homes, which are architectural works of art are falling a part. A good portion of them are owned by absentee landlords who rent them out and let the citizens fend for themselves. You look at the outside of these homes with their Victorian design and you know that a lot of investment was placed into them originally. If you can take away the 25 years of neglect you really have some awe inspiring neighborhoods.

The old Western Electric (which became AT&T,than Lucent, than Agere, than LSI) plant where my Dad spent 35 years working is vacant now. They built a AAA baseball stadium down the road and use the employee parking lot for parking for the Stadium during the summer. You drive past the old factories, many of which closed before I was ever born. Some of them closed with Bethlehem Steel in the 80s. Broken windows, decaying roofs, eyesores where men once worked.

Allentown hit rock bottom in the early 2000s and the new Mayor has done a great deal of work to bring some of the city back, but the fact is the city is never going to come back to what it was. Older residents think back nostalgically to what the City was. Younger kids dream of leaving.

I know Allentown's story isn't alone or the worse of these type of stories. I scratch my head and wonder why a vibrant community was simply abandoned one day.

So forgive me, when I hear things like jobless recovery and it being just accepted as the way things have to be from the administration. I think about Allentown when I hear those words and I know what the cost of a Jobless recovery will be on my country as a whole..

[Craftsman]

1. You can thank free trade and the free traitors of both parties.

[AllentownJake]

3. You can track the decline of Allentown

to the Free Trade policies from 1980 to 2009. It really is at a point there is nothing more to take out of the city.

[bvar22]

42. Not JUST Free Trade....

....but also the lack of Fair Competition legislation that lets locally owned small businesses compete on a level playing field with Big Box and Factory Farms.

Now, even a healthy "bottom up" stimulus won't work. The money leaves The Community in one quick step if it is spent at WalMart or any other Big Box.

[appal_jack]

73. PLUS the rise of banks over manufacturing

I agree completely bvar and AllentownJake, but having just read Thomas Geoghan's (sp?) article that ran in the April 2009 Harper's over coffee this morning, I also feel it's important to note that 'free' trade (i.e.- trade with a set of rules that favor the rich over workers and the environment) on its own would not have decimated America without the concurrent rise of the hyper-capitalist, derivative-fueled speculative finance as an alternate 'industry' for the US (my words/summary, he is more circumspect). In short, he contends that easy finance and the bets-on-bets that our 'markets' moved toward, yielding a 'return' of 25% per annum or more, drove the decimation of industry here at least as much as NAFTA. There was plenty of money available in the US for investment, but why invest in manufacturing or agriculture at 3% - 7% return when speculation can get you 400% that rate of return? So the money flowed away from factories and towards banks and brokerages.

Geoghan expresses a bit of scorn that the labor movement spent time and energy in the early 90's 'marching against NAFTA,' when they should have rallied against usurious interest rates and hyper-speculation. I think that this point of his is a little weak, and a regrettable form of Monday morning quarterbacking, but the article as a whole was very worthwhile. Would that working people and labor organizations were strong enough to fight and win both battles, the nation would be much better off today. Heck, we'd be better off if our corporate media had even reported upon the existence of these issues. Instead, they ignored it until a few windows in Seattle got broken by some kids, then they demonized the grass-roots movement accordingly.

As it was, we lost (and are losing) against NAFTA and the WTO, AND we lost against the banks (again, we are still losing: witness the ~$23 trillion of bailouts, rescues, newly-printed cash and electronic liquidity injections, etc. all required due to banks' supreme recklessness). And our corporate media still ignores the important stuff.

Gotta keep fighting for what's right though: never give up while we have breath within us.

-app

[BeHereNow]

68. Free Trade was nothing more that a phrase coined...

to make the transfer of wealth possible from the hands of many
to the hands of a few.

Democrats and Republicans have been in on the game for decades.
We have no two party system, just a charade of such to keep the masses
thinking they have a say in matters.

They don't.

BHN

[amborin]

87. Chomsky's been saying this for ages

i do think dems are better on the environment than rethugs, though

[BeHereNow]

67. Amen to that. n/t

bhn

[KG]

96. +infinity

[la_chupa]

2. small town America is a sad tale

My grandparents lived in a small town in Texas. Once upon a time when I was a kid there was a really cool little downtown area with wooden sidewalks and old mission architecture. I distinctly remember a candy shop.

Now it's all boarded up and the people who used to own those shops all work at Wally World for minimum wage.

Who needs authentic western barbecue (beef not pork even though I live in NC now) when you can have McDonald's.

pity really

[BeHereNow]

71. Ah, the loss of the neighborhood penny candy store...

Now those were THE days.
Ever been to the city of West, Texas?

It will make you PINE for the old days.
Some how, they have hung on.
I stumbled upon it by accident a year or so ago.
Can't wait to visit again.

BHN

[eShirl]

4. the song makes me cry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K62DdoFoNeg

[AllentownJake]

6. It's not too popular in the city

It's somewhat accurate, but the people are proud and don't like being portrayed that way.

[eShirl]

12. I can certainly understand that.

For me, the song is a metaphor for the entire country.

[AllentownJake]

13. Which is what it is meant as

But the locals don't like being the metaphor for the decline of the entire country.

[Autonomy]

79. That song is a metaphor

for the entire Baby Boom generation across the country. I for one think it is one of Joel's best songs, maybe THE best.

edit to add: I've lived in Allentown. I've been in far, FAR worse cities. Allentown is a utopia compared to Philadelphia... except that the altitude makes it 5-10 degrees colder in winter. BRRRR.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. One of Billy Joel's best songs

Well we're living here in Allentown

And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line

Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers in the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow

And we're living here in Allentown

But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay
Well we're waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found

For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke
And chromium steel

And we're waiting here in Allentown

But they've taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away
Every child has a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got

But something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our place

Well I'm living here in Allentown

And it's hard to keep a good man down
But I won't be getting very hard to stay
And we're living here in Allentown

[TexasObserver]

5. Unfortunately, every recovery is a jobless recovery until the jobs come back.

But the problem facing Allentown is much more fundamental. US and global business interests allowed globalists to gut American manufacturing, particularly that in the rust belt, including Allentown. In the name of the "free market" - a misnomer if ever there was one - American iron and steel producers were undercut and the results are places like Allentown and other factory towns that produced such goods.

I know the bad job market is terrible for many Americans, and I lament the loss of those jobs, too. My point of disagreement with you is over your sense that a recovery is not happening unless jobs are being created. Yes, it is very unfortunate, but just as a patient improves long before they can get up and around, so is this recovering economy. It's barely out of ICU, and it's still eating Jello.

Recoveries take years, not months.

[AllentownJake]

9. Dude

Get over yourself, this was not meant to be economic analysis it is a personal story of the 30 year decline of my medium size town.

Go sell your nonsense in another thread.

[TexasObserver]

10. Thanks, but I'll provide whatever comments I deem appropriate.

And you can like it or not like it.

The thread is about your topic, and my comments are about your topic.

So, stick to the topic and stop engaging in a personal attack against me simply because I take issue with your chronic "it's not a recovery with no jobs."

[AllentownJake]

11. I swear I have two stalkers on here

One in the morning, one at night.

[TexasObserver]

14. No, you have two posters who don't agree with your POV, and you start a lot of threads.

If you start threads, you cannot expect everyone to agree with every post you make.

You are the person who made an issue of the "jobless recovery" in your OP. Don't mention it if you don't want it talked about.

This is a topic that interests me. It must interest you, because you start several threads a day about it. If it interests you and it interests me, we're going to be talking about it threads.

[AllentownJake]

19. This was a lament about the decline of my hometown

It was a lament that the jobless recovery that is being advertised and spun is going to do this to a lot of other cities in America. It was not a discussion of how you can prevent a jobless recovery, whether a jobless recovery is a recovery, or anything else like that.

You seem to be on a mission to spin this recovery and the administrations actions, that is fine. My position if it is jobless it is worthless because what happened to my city is what is happening to real people. See my quote from FDR. That is what I believe.

Here is another one for you:

"But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." FDR

Maybe we were brought up differently, I believe the economy (since without people there is no such thing as an economy) exist to serve people, not people to serve the economy.

[TexasObserver]

54. It was also an argument by you, which you included, regarding the recovery.

I responded to your last few sentences, and you threw a hissy fit.

[Skittles]

86. stop acting like an ass

[Selatius]

91. You're totally missing the forest for the trees. The vast bulk of his post was about his town.

Not an economic analysis by him. Regardless if he was wrong, the main thrust of his post relates to his boyhood experiences of times gone and never to return. For the record, I do not challenge the defintion of a recovery, but what I do object to is your level of tact you have shown when you made that first post. There is a time for everything. If you wish to correct people's misconceptions on when an economy is in recovery, then I invite you to start your own thread.

Now is a time to let Allentownjake vent or grieve for his community, not a lesson in macroeconomics.

[TexasObserver]

93. In retrospect, you're right. I should have saved it for another thread.

I focused on the end of the OP, and should have simply applauded the intent of the OP to talk about the dying of factory towns and how it has hit those areas.

[Craftsman]

97. From my and many others POV there is no recovery until good jobs come back

[LanternWaste]

51. I don't think that discussing the biology of field mice...

I don't think that discussing the biology of field mice is contextually relevant after the recitation of 'To A Mouse' By Robert Burns' unless of course that recitation takes place in a biology lab.

[sudopod]

17. Your post is made of truth and honesty.

I don't know what that guy's problem is, but thanks for sharing your story.

[AllentownJake]

25. He's not happy

that I'm not buying the company line about the Jobless recovery.

Thank you, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[BeHereNow]

65. Don't take the bait Jake.

Just some friendly advice learned through experience here on DU.
Not to worry.
It don't mean a thing.
BHN

[paulk]

16. I guess how one feels about the idea of

"it's not a recovery with no jobs" depends on whether you have a job or not...

I don't find your cheerleading particularly useful, myself.

[Raineyb]

53. Neither do I. n/t

[TexasObserver]

60. Your conclusions are off base.

It's not cheerleading to discuss the economy without resorting to ignorant rants about nothing.

You and a number of others here want to kill the messenger because you hate hearing the message. The message is that just because you're not happy with the economy doesn't mean it is not in recovery. It means you're ill informed and mad because it's not yet what you want it to be. It's not what I want it to be, either, but I don't have to pretend anything less than my personal wants is a failure.

[paulk]

81. the bottom line is that all perceptions of the economy

are subjective. If you're one of those that still has money in the stock market, IRA, or 401k, and didn't have to pull it all out to, say, make your house payments, I suppose the rise in the markets is a sign of a recovery.

I haven't seen much in the way of "ignorant rants" from either side of this debate - anyone can put together, with graphs, I'm sure, an argument to support either side. My point is that your cheerleading of this recovery is little more than salt in the wound for many of us. Those of us untouched by this "recovery".

Especially in the context of this thread. Sometimes there is comfort in realizing that a whole lot of people are in the same boat as you...


----------------


And to change the subject a bit - I do think that the Obama administration's handling of this economic crisis has been subpar. He has focused on the supply side of things with his stimulus, when what is needed are direct infusions of money - also called "jobs". WPA anyone? I get the feeling that Obama and his advisors are not understanding the true extent of the devastation this "recession" is causing. So, yes, I'm "mad". And being mad doesn't make one automatically ill informed.

[TexasObserver]

82. I agree that the president has not done enough in job creation.

And I agree that the beginning of the recovery is no consolation to those who are unemployed in this downturn.

I give him good marks for what he's done to shore up banking, the stock market and real estate, but he's not addressed unemployment sufficiently.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

83. I'm so sorry somebody found a silver lining on your dark dark cloud.

Clearly somebody's trying to undermine the emo union.

[Romulox]

18. Jesus. Hijack every thread you post in much?

:eyes:

[TexasObserver]

58. Please. Call me "JC" like the apostles do.

My comments are on topic. Yours aren't. As usual, you're busy attacking posters whose comments you don't like.

[Name removed]

98. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TexasObserver]

101. You're just mad because you don't know the law, and I always have to teach you.

I've had to correct you many times, and you carry a grudge about it.

You should go to law school and learn, so you won't be the Orly Taint of DU.

[bvar22]

43. I disagree with your Rosy optimism.

We are watching Capitalism at its finest.
Some businesses will never recover.
They will be eaten by other BIGGER Boxes who may employ some of the victims, but the number of available jobs WILL be LESS, employees will be forced to compete by accepting lower wages and fewer benefits.

Under our current de-regulated, invisible-hand-of-the-market, let the RICH guys WIN) system, the very best "recovery" WILL result in a net LOSS of jobs, lower wages, and fewer benefits for every Working American.

Until we have a Political Party that represents Working Americans instead of BIG Business and Wall Street, this will be the pattern.

And THAT is where we are headed if Nothing Changes.
This IS the established pattern.
This IS how THEY want it.
The BluePrint for a jobless recovery is being followed to the letter.

Obama and The "Centrist" Democratic Party is correct.
The American Worker CAN compete with any 3rd World Country....
if we starve them enough.


Would YOU like some fries with that?

[AllentownJake]

44. This was an intersting article today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6764906&mesg_id=6764906

There is optimism, there is pessimism, and there is the real world. I think the economist in this article captures the real world pretty well.

[TexasObserver]

61. I didn't post anything remotely "rosy" or "optimistic."

So your post is inaccurate from its title line down.

I was the opposite of rosy. I said a recovery takes YEARS, not months, and that we have a long way to go.

But like many others here, you choose to get mad and launch whatever screed is in your head.

I challenge you to find anything in the post to which you responded which can be called "rosy optimism." Here it is, so you don't even have to look it up:

"But the problem facing Allentown is much more fundamental. US and global business interests allowed globalists to gut American manufacturing, particularly that in the rust belt, including Allentown. In the name of the "free market" - a misnomer if ever there was one - American iron and steel producers were undercut and the results are places like Allentown and other factory towns that produced such goods.

I know the bad job market is terrible for many Americans, and I lament the loss of those jobs, too. My point of disagreement with you is over your sense that a recovery is not happening unless jobs are being created. Yes, it is very unfortunate, but just as a patient improves long before they can get up and around, so is this recovering economy. It's barely out of ICU, and it's still eating Jello.

Recoveries take years, not months.
"

[bvar22]

64. Stamping your foot and insisting you are right....

...isn't discussion or rebuttal.

You insist recovery is underway, and everything will be OK if we wait long enough.

I disgree.
Everything will NOT be OK because,
"Under our current de-regulated, invisible-hand-of-the-market, let the RICH guys WIN) system, the very best "recovery" WILL result in a net LOSS of jobs, lower wages, and fewer benefits for every Working American.

Do you agree that under the very best scenario we will have a net loss of jobs, lower wages, and fewer benefits for Working Americans?

That IS what happened last time, and that IS the same path we are on now.

[TexasObserver]

69. I didn't do that, either, but you appear to be doing so.

The job market is terrible and we're in the midst of a recovery. Why can't you accept that those two things are not mutually exclusive? The job market will return very slowly, and no amount of throwing fits on message boards will make it return faster. Attacking those who tell you things you don't want to hear will not make the jobs return faster.

[BeHereNow]

72. Can I have some of what your smoking?

Sincerely,
BHN

[Romulox]

99. Your argument is unproductive, because it is one of CHARACTERIZATION.

You characterize the situation as a "recovery"; others claim it is not. It is a pointless "debate", with no way to develop other than a half-hearted appeal to authority--there are no points of logic involved.

What the OP is saying is that "a jobless recovery is meaningless to me--no recovery at all." Your arguments are not responsive to this in the least--instead, you bray "It's a recovery, you fool--all the experts say so!" This is why your responses to this (and several other) thread(s) are off topic.

Saying that you characterize the current economic malaise as a "recovery" is simply not an answer to any question in controversy. :hi:

[Hannah Bell]

47. "Recoveries take years" - not for the banksters, apparently. only for the peons.

[anonymous171]

66. THANK GOD IT PASSED! nt

[Selatius]

92. +1 nt

[Raineyb]

52. Your premise is rubbish.

The only reason for the use of the term "jobless recovery" was to differentiate it from an actual recovery which would include an uptick in hiring. That you would try to pretend that a jobless recovery is not an aberration or that it's something to be celebrated rather than a reason for concern shows a willingness to go along with an agenda which does not do well by workers who are part of the economy and not merely a cost on a balance sheet.

[TexasObserver]

55. My premise is sound and accurate.

A jobless recovery at this point in the recovery is normal. It won't be normal if it's a jobless recovery by this time next year, however. So, you're a year early with your response to the recovery.

[Raineyb]

56. You are the one who is premature with your declarations of recovery.

The fact that one has to preface the "recovery" with the word jobless shows that the recovery is NOT as it is correctly defined. You say what you want about what state things are in NOW. Your spin does not make your declarations correct or accurate.

[TexasObserver]

57. No, I'm just familiar with the process.

I'm simply talking about what is happening in rational terms. I'm not driven by how I wish things were.

[Raineyb]

62. No. You're talking about how you wish things were.

Generally speaking if one has to put a modifier in front of a word it is a clue that the meaning is being well modified. Jobless recovery is nonsense speak that people engage in to make sure that the plebes don't bother expecting anything.

I hope you're getting paid to shill otherwise you're just another sucker.

[TexasObserver]

63. No, that would be YOU.

I'm a lifelong Democrat and progressive. I'm knowledgeable in economics and finance, and I only wish you were.

[Raineyb]

89. You apparently don't know as much as you seem to think you know if the

concept of modifiers have completely gotten past you.

But go ahead continue to go on with the delusion that only you know what's actually going on while sticking your head in the sand.

[cabluedem]

90. This isnt a normal recovery. The country was stripped bare. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Allentown's story is America's story. I grew up in the post-WWII America.

[rubberducky]

15. I feel the same way about Detroit.

It just breaks my heart to see the once beautiful old buildings and homes, now falling into disrepair from a lack of love. Some have been so wonderfully restored as treasures from a different era of skilled craftsmen with a great deal of pride in thier work. Allentown was probably built in the same era as Detroit, the new buildings with their steel girders and glass just can`t compare to the craftmanship of the once proud older buildings.

[AllentownJake]

20. I saw the Time Magazine photo essay on Detroit

I kept thinking, what a waste. Particularly the one theater in it.

I saw capitalism in our old Civic Theater. A Theater company owns it now and runs showing of independent movies when they aren't producing a play to pay for their Theater productions. The building is awe inspiring but needs some love.

[Romulox]

24. That Time article was so selective as to be a lie...

Fox Theater, Detroit, Michigan (2009)

[AllentownJake]

27. Breathtaking

Absolutely awe inspiring. You can't let a Treasure like that go.

[rubberducky]

31. It is very sad. When I would walk in downtown Detroit during the holidays

it was just pure magic. Kudos to the Theater company in Allentown. It does take a lot of love to restore the grand and gracious old buildings of a bygone era.

[Romulox]

21. I don't support a country that could let this happen to my home...

Fight and die for this country? So that the shipping lanes can be kept open to ship more jobs out? :rofl:

"Sacrifice for my fellow American"? So that they can afford a Hyundai? :puke:

"Trust the government"? The same government that sent most of the Cash for Clunkers money to Honda and Toyota? :eyes:

[AllentownJake]

23. Japan and Korea

are extremely protective of their automotive industries (well all of their industries). For some reason, we are not. Japan and Korea will come out of this recession stronger, we will come out weaker.

The only good news I can think of is, we are running out of money to be the World's policemen. Empires collapse and our's is at the edge of the cliff looking down at the abyss.

[Romulox]

26. The Japanese and Koreans are encouraged to be socially cooperative.

They are protective of one another, full stop; we are encouraged to rip out each other's throats ("compete"!)

[AllentownJake]

30. Yes

and they don't seem to buy into the get rich quick shit Americans believe in.

[Hannah Bell]

48. what supported that was high employment. that ethos is disappearing with the increase

in unemployment & 'casual' labor. something like 1/3 of workers in japan these days = casual/not full-time/no benefits/laid off at will.

[Romulox]

59. Perhaps that's why our President was so anxious to bail out Korea, Japan...

Being a "free trader" doesn't seem to keep our President and his economic team from having a few favorites, it seems.

[seabeckind]

22. Thanks Jake

Said it exactly the way I've seen it. Pretty dam sad.

[TwilightGardener]

28. Sadly, things can't stay the same forever.

I am from PA, and I will not go back there to live, although I do miss it at times. People have been leaving the Rust Belt in droves for decades, and it's not just jobs and economics--it's the weakening of family ties that used to bind people to where their parents and grandparents chose to live. And it's climate, and recreational opportunities. Although I have family still in PA, most of the younger generations of my husband's family have abandoned the state for warmer sunbelt and coastal areas. You get tired of lake-effect snow and endless gray skies after a while. People just don't feel bound to stay where they were raised out of a sense of familial duty, anymore--so it's not just an economic issue, it's a sociological one, and that's harder to fix. And when the younger generations leave, that's it. It's over. So unless it becomes trendy for twenty and thirty-somethings with children to move back to the Industrial Northeast and Great Lakes regions, you will see a continued graying of the population and a continued contraction of neighborhoods and towns.

[AllentownJake]

29. Land becomes cheap

Industries move back in, people move back. There is still infrastructure, like any other boom/bust you eventually hit a bust. The sunbelt will have a boom for a while, but the influx of people will bring them the same challenges Arizona, Nevada, and California are facing right now.

I'm 60 miles from NY and 60 miles from Philadelphia. They are working on a plan for a train that connects the two cities through the area and once that happens we will have our own little boom again of commuters.

We had a boom of distribution centers in the areas outside the city (since we are connected by interstate to NY, Philly, and Northern New Jersey). It is going a little bust right now as people are consuming less.

It's a cycle.

[Bigmack]

34. Damn... I'm even more doom-and gloom....

than you are.

The commuters? They have to have jobs to commute to. The distribution centers? They have to have stuff to distribute.

I believe it's an up/down cycle, too. I just believe the whole cycle is moving down the scale.

I believe the manufacturing jobs - and the real pay that went with them - were the cornerstone of a successful consumer economy.

I think we're going to come out of this recession, but we'll be a shadow of our former selves.

[AllentownJake]

35. I'm hopeful long term

We are going to reach a point when we can no longer pay for the Military Industrial Complex. When that happens, I think a lot of the globalization nonsense they have been spewing of the past 30 years will start to evaporate.

[bvar22]

50. I agree, but unfortunately,...

...the MIC will be the last thing to go.
The narrowing Ownership Class will be preserved at all cost while the Peasant Class is allowed to starve. You can see this happening now.

This is probably inevitable...the destiny of all empires so far.
I still cling to some "hope" of political reform where the Working Class gains some representation in our government, but those hopes grow thinner each passing day.

My wife and I have adopted a new strategy:
Live Well on Less.

[dugaresa]

32. PA is no wasteland. It is a gorgeous state and is actually

a leading agricultural state.

Yes we lost heavy industry in areas like Pittsburgh and Allentown etc. However some places have made comebacks and it is a very nice place to live.

Pittsburgh has many of the amenities that larger cities do and it is far more affordable.

A this time of year, it is downright gorgeous to live here with the beautiful fall color. The brisk air and even the overcast days are pleasant.

Perhaps it is not a coastal area but I enjoy the white water and trekking on bike trails and walking trails.

Many of my friends that relocated to warmer climes complain incessantly to me about the high cost of living. One such couple moved to Nevada and while they enjoyed the sun, they are now upside down on a mortgage that they bought when the economy was booming in Las Vegas. This weekend I found out from her that people are really struggling there and she wishes she could get back to PA if not for her mortgage issue.

[TwilightGardener]

36. No, I understand that it's not a wasteland, I didn't intend to portray it as such.

I am from Pgh, in fact, and I'm not knocking it--it has a lot of things going for it. It's still a vital and important city and has held its own over the decades, certainly better than other places. But I do think that much of the state has suffered not just from industrial collapse but from a more mobile society, weaker family ties. If you are young and ambitious and can choose to live anywhere in the country, would you deliberately choose...Erie, PA? Johnstown? Maybe, but most likely not--unless being close to your family and your old high school buds (the ones who stayed) means a lot to you. Now, PA is still one of the most populous states, so I don't think it will ever empty out THAT much overall, but there are pockets that have really gone into decline, and that's sad, but to be expected.

[Romulox]

33. You're several news cycles behind. The new trend is that Las Vegas, Los Angeles are in the dumps...

I'd rather live in Michigan than Los Angeles or Las Vegas any day of the week, month, or year, for example.

[TwilightGardener]

37. Yes, I'd rather live in MI or PA than in those places, myself.

I've lived around the country, and I prefer the Plains and the West--mostly for the wide-open rural spaces, low traffic, low cost of living, scenery, climate (it's a little drier out here, though effing COLD), and sunshine. But moving to a big sunbelt city surrounded by endless 'burbs, traffic, people, high cost of living and smog...no thanks. No amount of heat and sun can make up for that misery.

[raccoon]

40. " And it's climate, and recreational opportunities..." and air conditioning.

If there were no AC the Southern states would never have grown as much as they have in the last few decades.

[TwilightGardener]

41. Yes--and piped-in long-distance water in the Southwest.

[Hannah Bell]

49. it's economic. if there were lots of good jobs, people would stay.

lack of income dissolves families; family ties become a burden when most members have no resources. if you can't provide or need help you feel shame & anger. if you have resources while most around you don't you feel over-burdened, resentful.

[CrispyQ]

38. I'm reminded of that bumper sticker:

Where are we going & why am I in this handbasket?

[AllentownJake]

39. That's how it feels these days

They are only doing to us what they did to the rest of the world over the past 60 years. Most of us sat around unaware of what was going on in Argentina a few years ago. The parasite moves from country to country devouring all it can and leaving a wasteland in its wake for someone else to clean up.

[BOG PERSON]

45. Eh, nevermind

Off-topic

[AllentownJake]

46. No

Not too big on the local music scene.

[RagAss]

70. "This is the dead land. This is cactus land." - T.S. Eliot

[MadMaddie]

74. I bet that there are a lot of "Pay check loan" places there too!

They are destroying families and they are everywhere.

[blues90]

75. That's true , many things I knew are now gone forever .

When I first began a full time job in the mid 60's in and around Chicago there were areas that were packed with factories , surrounding this were car dealerships and stores and places to eat.

There was even ON THE JOB TRAINING . There was never an issue getting a job even one that was not quite what you wanted yet you were able to blend in and work 5 day 40 hour weeks and survive and got insurance paid for.

For me looking back now this is surreal world , even though I know how we got here it seemed to happen very fast.

I worked all these years to find there is no place for me any longer and even though I do not live there anymore I see the same thing you describe here.
What the hell happened to all the talk about wallstreet to be focused on mainstreet , that's what we heard during that insane 2 year long campaign. I guess that was washed away in the flood or left sitting on a now discarded campaign sign that has become someones home.

[Stinky The Clown]

76. If I could rec this a thousand times, I would

I grew up in another Allentown in another state. But your story is so clearly one of many. Our country is dying and the mother fucking vultures are picking its bones - aided and abetted by pragmatists who go back a few decades and continue to hold sway today, just with new management on the front line.

It is very dispiriting, this sham we live in.

[nadinbrzezinski]

77. We are at the point of realizing just how guttted the country has been

the policy to deindustrialize the country truly went full steam ahead with Reagan...

Now truth be told, ALL nations evolve and change, but this has been a change that should not be welcomed and I hope the working class, mostly whites, who voted for this will buy a clue on the way out.

And good luck in getting the rust belt in general and Allentown in particular to fully recover from this willful destruction.

As to the jobless recovery, the fact that some of the folks in the administration (Summers) said that higher unemployment is the new situation normal should worry people, though it is not surprising. If the rest of the plan, to make our conditions of employment similar to that of many other places in the world, well that has to happen. That way desperate people will take shitty jobs.

And since people only think anymore of the ME and not the WE... well... I no longer have any hope that the people in this country will EVER actually get off the couch and do something about it.

[OnionPatch]

78. I left my hometown because the same thing happened there.

It was a steel town and thousands of us lost our jobs in the early 80s. I left in 1986 when I witnessed 40 people lined up for a single opening at the local McDonald's. I think today the town is about half the size it used to be. For years, decades now, I've been hoping the area would improve and I could go back home, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm not very optimistic. :(

[Orwellian_Ghost]

80. K&R

There is such a thing as too late.

[MadHound]

84. It's not just the cities, it's the rural landscape too.

I think that rural America got hit first and hit harder by this than anyplace else.

As I travel throughout the state I witness a weird phenomenon. I'll be cruising some backwoods blue highway, coming around a bend or over a hill and come across some empty deserted farming town. The name announcing this town may or may not still be hanging from the sign post, and at best there might be two or three houses occupied, usually by die hard old timers who are dead set against moving and their retirement provides them with enough income to hang on.

These are the towns that Big Ag killed, starting thirty years ago. The eighties was truly brutal on farming communities as more land was bought for factory farms on the cheap as commodity prices drove small farmers right through that wall. All the small town businesses that depended on farming were killed, and people moved away in droves, headed for the big city where the jobs were.

Sure, some of these towns have survived as bedroom communities to large cities, a few others successfully remade themselves, but just a few. I was born in a small German farming town, a very unique place where everybody spoke both German and English, or some combination thereof. We were a self sufficient little farming town, with stores and businesses that hummed right along. During the eighties the farms were devastated by the economy and the town started to die. The locals decided to trade on their unique German heritage, the old architecture and such, turning the town into a tourist trap. It worked, but still it was a sad thing to watch my home town turn into a caricature of itself. The old businesses that made the town self sufficient are gone, replaced by flea markets and tourist crap. A whole new set of people moved in, looking to make the quick buck. German is hardly heard on the streets anymore. The soul has been sucked out of the place

But they were lucky, much luckier than a lot a places I've gone through. Ghost towns, dried up and blown away, leaving a few square miles of rotting buildings as a testament to their former existence. Yes, it's a crying shame what happened in the larger cities, but rural America died long before the urban areas did, people simply didn't either notice or care. Perhaps if they had paid attention to the canary in the coal mine. . .

[defendandprotect]

85. We got used to being GOP's "third world America" . . . !!!

[Romulox]

100. Bill Clinton (and now Barack Obama) is as much to blame as anyone. nt

[defendandprotect]

102. If you mean trade agreements, I agree -- should be overturned . . .

but we're certainly not in the streets demanding that -- !!!

[saracat]

88. K+R Jake! The jobless recovery scares the heck out of me.

[HughBeaumont]

94. You could pretty much replace the goings on in these two videos . . .

. . . with any dying rust-belt city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysmLA5TqbIY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM&feature=related

(both featured in Capitalism: a Love Story, BTW . . .)

The entire Northeast Ohio area has met the same fate over the last 30 years. Once gainfully employable factories are now weeded and closed. Small businesses, which depended on dollars from the workers these factories employed, boarded up in droves. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/88">Retraining isn't going to save us either, because it requires you to almost be a fortune teller, not to mention have stacks of money all ready to go (the libertarians kind of missed the fact that education, like our health care, isn't subsidized). Oh, and for it to work, there sort of needs to be a job market that isn't suffering 20 straight months of job losses when you get finished.

I once wrote how America has no future in a set up like this and needs to almost completely re-invent corporate and industrial America if it wants to have one. Because for the average Joe and Jane, this hasn't worked in years.

[eridani]

95. Sounds just like every town of that size in central Illinois except Springfield and Champaign

If you have the state government or a big university, you stay alive. Manufacturing? You go belly up.