Pennsyltucky? (Erie, Scranton, Johnstown: residential, office, population)

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

the Lackawanna used the hard, nearly soot-free anthracite coal that was mined in the region around its home base.

I'm aware of the "Phoebe Snow" marketing. My understanding is soft coal is much more applicable to using in a train. Anthracite and Appalachian bituminous have around the same BTU content so there is no advantage there, a lot of people are under the impressions anthracite has higher BTU content.

Anthracite is difficult to get burning but once you do the analogy is it's a freight train and takes a long time to slow down. The bit coal is more easily fired or slowed. The other giant issue the supply of it, you can get soft locally across a better part of the nation. Only local source for anthracite is NEPA. I would imagine there was also design considerations for the anthracite fired trains.

What makes anthracite desirable is no soot and no clinkers so it's primary use is heating and small boiler applications. It's more expensive to mine so production dropped off a cliff when heating with oil became popular starting in the 20's compared to soft coal production in other parts of PA.

I'm sure you know the 1970s pop singer whose one big hit was "Poetry Man." She adopted the Lackawanna's iconic character's name for her stage name.

Before my time, I would have only been a kid.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

No, it doesn't exist. The entire state is liberal. Pennsyltucky is a political term from the early 90s associated with James Carville.

Lol I wish.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by speagles84

Not even close. PA is pretty conservative. Without Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, it would be a red state. Scranton and Erie aren't big enough liberal areas to counteract the rest of the state.

Actually TBH, without Philly alone it would probably be a pretty red state on par with Arizona or Kentucky. The conservatives in PA are just a bit more liberal than down south but not by much.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

I think it's actually quite an enlightened lifestyle. Much greener than simply relying on factory farms for food. And wiser than that certain type of city folk who think food comes from "the supermarket".

One of the reasons the Game Commission was formed in the late 1800's is because the deer population along with other wild life was being decimated. Same thing with the fish, I've seen pictures of stringers of Muskies and I'd be happy to catch one in my life of the sizes they had let alone 20 of them in one day.



You can certainly supplement food with hunting and fishing but seasons and limits on what you take are based on the population of the specicies. With the deer and hunting in decline they will have to increase them. There is few natural predators so the population would go unchecked without hunting and that's not a good thing for people or the deer population.



On the other hand if you had scenario where this virus got out of control and everyone took up hunting and fishing it would be very short time before there would be nothing to hunt and fish.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by zitsky

I agree. Not sure where anyone gets the idea that PA is liberal. I'm from Johnstown. There are a lot of socially conservative liberals there who probably vote Republican these days.

And I've heard Pennsyltucky used for anything outside Pittsburgh and Philly.

"socially conservative liberals" lol

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by KoNgFooCj

"socially conservative liberals" lol

I don't think liberal is the correct term but "socially conservative Democrat" would be apt title for many Democrats in NEPA as would "socially liberal Republican". These would be relative to the party and effectively be the same views. Democrat or Republican many in this area would not support the hard lines of either the Christian right or the hard left.

[Gerania]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

I can check a few off, I'll tell you one of my better "Redneck" stories. My friends and I used to do some long canoe trips on the river. This was just three dayer, just three of us and we were near Towanda. We had stopped for the night and were sitting near the river with small fire, the cooler and fishing. My buddy catches a smallmouth and just happens to have everything he needed to cook the fish. None of us even stood up. Filleted right there, wrapped in tin foil and butter with seasoning, cooked it and ate it. How is that for fresh fish?

I've done that while illegally camping along the Nescopeck Creek with my boyfriend in the late 1970s. We woke up on the third morning with no food. Three fish provided us with enough calories to pack and leave. We did stand up, but we were still young and learning. I don't remember what kind or fish they were, but we ate them and they were tasty.

Redneck is being dressed up and on your way to a 'fancy' restaurant and pulling over to cast a few times at a roadside lake because it's just the right time of day and they might be biting.

I can check a few boxes, too.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

No, it doesn't exist. The entire state is liberal. Pennsyltucky is a political term from the early 90s associated with James Carville.

Missed this.

No, the term has nothing to do with Carville; it exists independently of him.

But he was mining the same vein when he said this phrase, the last three words of which refer to the same geographic and cultural phenomena:

"From Paoli to Penn Hills it's all Alabama in between."

This quote is often rendered as "Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in between."

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

I don't think liberal is the correct term but "socially conservative Democrat" would be apt title for many Democrats in NEPA as would "socially liberal Republican". These would be relative to the party and effectively be the same views. Democrat or Republican many in this area would not support the hard lines of either the Christian right or the hard left.

That's generally been my understanding of Pennsylvania's political dynamics ever since I moved to the state 37 years ago.

One of the things I think bears this out is the state's history of electing governors since the state constitution was amended in 1968 to allow sitting governors to succeed themselves

Milton Shapp (D), elected in 1970, was the first governor to whom this provision applied. He won re-election to a second term. He was succeeded by Republican Dick Thornburgh, who also served two terms and was followed by Democrat Bob Casey (the Elder).

And up until Republican Tom Corbett lost his re-election bid in 2014, this pattern — eight years in office followed by the governorship switching parties — held.

And every one of those governors, Republican and Democrat alike, were considered centrists within their respective parties, including the one Philadelphian to hold the office in this period (and the first to do so since 1911), Ed Rendell.

Up until Corbett — who lost his re-election bid.

I suspect the state actually remains centrist politically, but the parties have shifted to leave less maneuvering room for centrists. But this should make the going easier for Scranton native Joe Biden in this year's presidential contests.

[KoNgFooCj]

Why does it seem like (and I've even seen people saying this), that PA needs a moderate democrat to go blue again, or that only a moderate democrat can win PA? Was every single Democrat President going back to the 80's really that moderate? Because PA has had no problem voting Democrats into the oval office in the past. What has changed so much in the past decade, and is PA really becoming a red state??