(Cross-posted from Keystone Politics)
Good news for the state economy in my view, as well as progressive politics. A few points:
It’s especially awesome to see Philadelphia’s growth outpacing the suburban Southeastern counties. We really don’t want to see SEPA run out of land like New Jersey.
Keep your eye on Lehigh County (Allentown and parts of Bethlehem), which was the fastest growing county in the state between 2010 and 2012. A lot of that growth is happening in Allentown, but also, dishearteningly, in exurban townships like Lower Macungie. Excessive political fragmentation is holding this region back from sharing the fruits of this growth in a broad-based way. Luckily smart growthers have been building political strength in Lehigh, and my man Ron Beitler is about to push a tradable development rights bank for land preservation when he gets elected to the Lower Mac board this fall. Stay tuned.
Out in Pittsburgh, what I’ve learned from reading the Chris Briem blog is that there are a lot of old people, and the churn of people, er, cycling out of the population tends to obscure what’s happening with migration and the growth rate. I’ll update this if Chris posts on the Census numbers later.
NY ran out of land? So what’re those hundreds of thousand of acres that you pass between the 78/287 interchange and the PA line supposed to be?
Jersey was smart, they didn’t want the crap flowing out of NYC and North Jersey to stay, so it all ended up here instead.
We got outsmarted.
They’re not out of land yet, but it’s happening quickly. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/realestate/06density.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1363367406-dY5a/DHVpNhV8EO4nfBs/Q
Then build up – but the point is we should do everything possible to keep NYer and NJers from continuing to ruin PA.
This is why we disagree on so much. The LV should be trying to import as many highly educated cosmopolitan folks as possible. Your nightmare, I realize, but that’s the labor force you need for economic growth these days
Sorry – NJ ran out of land?