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Dear God you people like to exaggerate. Is it like a side-profession or something? You should try out for the Exaggeration Olympics sometime.
Quote:
Originally Posted by track2514
So an NHL team in London or Hamilton will revive the Erie economy and bring people back to the area? This is silly and sport teams have very little impact on a local economy and even less impact on a a neighboring cities economy.
Also, you keep talking about landlocked cities and how they are built up, did you ever think that Lake Erie might get in the way of some of this construction? Erie county is by far the largest county in PA in terms of area, but most of it is water and can't be built on or developed. Additionally, building on a bluff or shoreline is possible, but you have to contend with erosion and with how flat Erie is if there were skyscrapers all over the place on the lakeshore it would take away from the view. I recently moved to the area and I was amazed at how much better the area looks since they tore down the GAF factory and that was not even very tall. The key to developing a Great Lakes city like Erie is strategically placing the taller buildings and considering the lake view from various positions within the city. Since they have already built a rather tall Sheraton on the water, I would love to see some taller buildings around Dobbins Landing, but I still think there is a limit to the height they should be built because it is nice to see the Bay and Presque Isle Park from various spots in the city.
Oh and to your last point about age, what does age of a city have to do with the skyline? Pittsburgh has an amazing skyline, but according to your logic because it was incorporated before New York, Boston, etc. so we should automatically declare that Pittsburgh has a better skyline. The age of a city can influence the skyline, but there are some rather "new" cities in the U.S. with amazing skylines, i.e. Seattle, Miami, etc.
Are you for real right now? Very little impact? Sorry but you clearly don't know a damn thing about the economics of sports if you think that. Sports have turned nowhere, unknown cities like Denver, Phoenix, Sacramento, Portland, and even Seattle into household names. They create more for an economy, directly and indirectly, than probably any other aspect of a city or metro.
Actually, the person I was responding to was talking about landlocked cities and incorrectly claiming that being bunched together simply made those cities seem bigger and more built up than they really are.
I never said to build on the lakeshore. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm talking about the downtown.
It wasn't my point. I was refuting somebody trying to talk like Erie was older than the more built up PA cities. Huh? New York and Boston are both MUCH older than Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh wasn't even a part of the US until the late 18th Century.
I never said anything even remotely in that vein.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
Well, perhaps we can all learn to swim the 27 miles back and forth to Canada to attend these games in London, which UDResident seems to think is the Promised Land and the Answer to All Our Prayers.
London and Hamilton are nice cities, but good grief ...
Yeah... because I said that. Damn you people are sensitive.
The point is that Erie is in the middle of nowhere and the biggest cities it is near are all in Canada. Its best chance to become a major PA city (and a major Great Lakes city like its peers) is for those Canadian cities nearest it to continue to grow and to eventually attract an NHL team.... (many people think Hamilton will, by the way, though Markham has seemed to become the new front-runner in Ontario)....., which will raise the profile of that city even more and thus make it a major Canadian city. The NHL in Canada is like the NFL here. Erie being near a major city will make it much less in the middle of nowhere, and thus it will get more visitors, and more people interested in living there. Erie has jobs, right? And universities? It's got shopping, tourism, etc, correct? You think that wouldn't attract people from nearby Canadian cities even moreso than it does now? Maybe Hamilton makes Erie its AHL affiliate if they get an NHL team. You think people from Canada won't go to games in Erie to see how their team's prospects are doing? The good thing about the NHL too is that the other big cities nearest these potential Canadian NHL cities (Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, etc) already have NHL teams, and you know a Canadian NHL team also isn't going to put its AHL affiliate into a rival Canadian city given how much those Canadian fanbases all hate each other. It makes perfect business sense to put the AHL affiliate in Erie, which would then give Erie two teams in the highest-level developmental leagues (the NBDL and AHL). That would put it on par with a select number of cities, such as Springfield, MA and Portland, ME. If they can get their baseball team elevated to AAA level, they would be the only city with the three highest developmental leagues in pro sports. This puts Erie above cities like Hartford, Allentown, and all of its other peers. The NHL is also the only league that really has room to grow and expand.
I don't think you understand just how big these Canadian cities are or how fast they're growing. Maybe this table will give you an idea. Another great way to see how fast they're growing is to look at the number of skyscraper projects either currently being built in these cities or in the stages of it.
Erie more importantly is the "biggest" city in its immediate area, despite being within relatively close proximity to those quickly-ascending Canadian cities I previously mentioned. I'm not saying that it will be immediate or even the most important factor in the city's revival at first but given the way sports franchises only took 30-40 years to turn cities like Denver, Seattle, Phoenix, and other cities into major cities (and thus boosted the entire metro and surrounding area), I'd say that within the same amount of time the NHL could easily do the same for these Canadian cities and thus boost the only sizable US city that isn't currently a major US city or a major market, which is of course Erie.
That is how Erie's skyline could become an actual skyline with actual skyscrapers.
Location: The Flagship City and Vacation in the Paris of Appalachia
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UDResident
I don't appreciate your condescending tone, especially because I know a significant amount about the economics of sport and you are dead wrong. This is a subject I have become increasingly interested in after reading "Field of Schemes" and "Death to the BCS." Sports teams and their associated facilities are profitable for their owners and leagues, but in terms of bringing new revenue to the area they are not a good investment. For instance, a city builds a sports arena for a private team using taxpayer dollars and also pays to maintain the facility and gives the team tax breaks for them to stay in the area. Said team plays in the facility 10 years and all of the sudden they want a new stadium and are threatening to leave. Professional sports have an economic impact on an area, but it is usually highly subsidized by taxpayers and costs more than it generates. Look to the Olympic Games as another example, hosting this professional sports event has cost the host cities more than it has returned several times in recent years. You need to read up on this subject and several studies exist that demonstrate the relatively small contribution of sports teams and facilities to local economies. Here is a good start for you: Field of Schemes | sports stadium news and analysis
Next, Pittsburgh was incorporated before New York or Boston so try researching before you speak about a subject.
Next, high taxes on clothing and general merchandise and Presque Isle drive more tourists to Erie than a neighboring NHL team. Even if Erie were to get an NHL team, which I highly doubt, Presque Isle and lower taxes would still bring more Canadians to the area. My wife and I spoke to a Canadian couple while out to eat recently, they said that because the corporations are taxed at a higher rate and the sales tax is higher it is worth it to make the drive and shop in Erie. The companies pass the higher tax rate on to the consumers with higher prices and the sales tax is higher than any U.S. state.
As a final thought, you are not very informed and I am not sure you even know what you are posting. Cleveland does not have an NHL team, Detroit has one of the most successful NHL teams of all time in terms of revenue and wins. How is this helping Detroit's economy? Please for everyone's sake read up on the subjects you are posting about and I don't care if you disagree with me, just back up your opinion with fact. The best thing about being uninformed is that you can get informed and hopefully you will look into the sports economics and urban planning research before commenting further.
Location: The Flagship City and Vacation in the Paris of Appalachia
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Here is an example of an NHL team that literally cost a U.S. city millions of dollars every year:
"Overall, Glendale is not only on the hook for $15 million per year over two decades to a potential Coyotes owner, but also a $12 million annual debt payment for construction of its arena. In return, according to the Republic, the city receives a measly "$2.2 million in annual rent payments, ticket surcharges, sales taxes and other fees." Even if the Coyotes were to dominate the league like no other in recent memory and return to the Stanley Cup Finals year after year, the city would still lose $9 million annually."
This thread hasn't been updated for a while, but i feel as with Allentown's new NIZ program, the city's skyline will topple the competitions. For example the outside of the Hockey arena and 2 City center are complete, a new waterfront and several mid sized office buildings are planned as well.
Also, a 33 story skyscraper has been approved by the city and is currently gonna break ground in October.
The most accurate measure for urban area population aren't the MSA or CSA values, it is the urbanized area population value. The urbanized area population actually determines which counties are in an MSA because if a city's urbanized area goes into another county, then that entire county becomes part of the MSA, even if the urbanized area within a county is very small. (The exception to this is if that nearby county has its own urbanized area that has a population of 50,000 people or greater.) A good example of a county being included with a city's urbanized area even though most of the county is not urbanized is Perry County; Marysville is part of Harrisburg's urbanized area, but the rest of the county is not. Nonetheless, all of Perry County is included in the Harrisburg MSA.
Here's a link to tables showing all the urbanized areas in the United States. The same link also includes links to tables showing the populations of all urbanized clusters within the U.S. (sometimes also called micropolitan areas; these are built-up locations that have populations between 2,500 and 50,000). Based on these tables, here are the 2000 U.S. Census populations for all the urbanized areas (above 50,000 people) that are primarily located in Pennsylvania:
In the case of Uniontown, it only qualifies because its urbanized area touches Connellsville's urbanized area, which pushes the combined area population over 50,000. In the case of Monessen, it is separate from Pittsburgh because it does not touch Pittsburgh's urbanized area. There are also a number of decent-sized towns near Monessen that push the combined urban area population over 50,000; Monessen is the largest of these towns (actually boroughs and/or cities).
Besides the above cities, other cities that have a portion of urbanized area within Pennsylvania include Youngstown, OH (i.e. the Sharon/Farrell area), Binghamton, NY, Hagerstown, MD, Weirton, WV/Steubenville, OH, and Cumberland, MD.
A few places in Pennsylvania didn't meet the 50,000 population threshold but came close, most notably Hanover (48,696), Bloomsburg/Berwick/Danville (48,245), New Castle (43,222), Pottsville (43,033), Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg (40,664), Butler (40,622), Chambersburg (37,872), and Carlisle (37,695). Hanover will definitely become an official urbanized area in the 2010 Census, and both the Bloomsburg/Berwick area and the Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg area both have good chances of also becoming official urbanized areas. If these things happen, Adams County (which borders Hanover and contains part of Hanover's urbanized population) will likely join the York County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Columbia and Montour Counties (Bloomsburg/Berwick/Danville) will need to form a new MPO, and Monroe County (Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg) will also need to form a new MPO, though either of the latter locations could join a larger MPO if their urbanized area population spills into a county that already has an MPO (as is the case with the Berwick area and Luzerne County, which contains Wilkes-Barre and has an MPO covering Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties).
Needless to say, the urbanized area populations also allow more accurate comparisons in terms of population for places across the U.S. because they adjust for annexation regulations between states while excluding portions of counties that aren't urbanized or part of the primary city's urbanized area.
Very good point. UA is the true definition of a city, IMO, and not MSA or CSA. Also worth noting, Monesseon is connected to Pittsburgh, no matter what the census says. The Mon Valley is essentially built up all the way from Brownsville to the point.
One last point, where is Greensburg on your list? I don't believe its part of the Pittsburgh UA, even though its very close, and I would think its UA would be much larger than Uniontown or even New Castle.
Conshohocken is building a nice little skyline as well. It also has taller buildings than Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, York, Lancaster, Altoona, Johnstown and Erie.
Three more highrises will be starting construction in Conshy this year.
Also, the City Avenue skyline nestled between Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd is set to grow.
Lastly, I would also like to nominate State College:
Last edited by RightonWalnut; 04-28-2014 at 10:50 PM..
^ I'm really hopeful that the developer can secure the necessary state-backed financing ("CRIS?") that was being discussed in the interview to make this project as grandiose as envisioned. We love Erie, but we definitely feel as if the immediate Downtown/Bayfront area sorely needs an economic shot in the arm. Erie Insurance and Gannon University both seem to be great corporate citizens, and I'm sure Hamot Hospital will be willing to be incorporated into this new project as well since UPMC, which is committed to urban revitalization, is now their parent company.
Erie's Downtown, to us, feels depressing in most areas. It has a lot of very wide streets that are conducive to speeding more than to fostering a safe environment for pedestrians and cyclists, there are way too many surface parking lots, and there are numerous abandoned structures. At the same time we noticed there weren't a whole lot of newer housing options available Downtown, and this would be a great time for Erie to ride the wave of a renewed interest in urban living that has been sweeping the entire country over the past decade or so. Bringing several hundred new people Downtown would bolster the bottom lines of existing businesses and would help to encourage new business development, too.
You can call me a dreamer, but in the long-term I'd LOVE for the tip of the Presque Isle State Park Peninsula to be connected to Erie's Bayfront via a pedestrian-/cyclist-only drawbridge that would span between Lampe Campground and somewhere near the U.S. Coast Guard's property. Right now if you're staying at a hotel in Downtown Erie you have to travel to the state park via car whereas you'd be able to just walk to enjoy the park's beauty via this footbridge, which would be high enough so sailboats, kayaks, etc. could pass beneath but could be raised for the rare times larger ships would need access. What do you think, Trackstar? Big pipe dream?
I'm grabbin the camera today, gonna try to get some better pics of Allentown. The city proper of Allentown is also quite small, the downtown area is really only about 20 blocks from beginning to end. (The entire city comprises about 80 blocks!) You could walk across the whole of the Allentown city proper..and I mean regular stroll, not speed walking, in less than a half hour. (The area with all the "big" buildings is about 10 blocks...and not square blocks....at most.) Since most of Allentown's population lives in or extremely near the downtown, this means Allentown's population density is very high for such a tiny city. It averages over 6000 people per square mile. This is despite Allentown's extremely weird, fluctuating borders...the only 2 roads in the entire city, that actually stay within city limits for more than a mile or so...are Tilghman Street, and Hamilton Blvd. (which actually is SR 222) All the others wind in and out of Allentown almost constantly, or they simply end, or even more commonly, they change names. (I'm FROM here and can't tell you all the places where a road will go in and out of city limits...lol) It's almost like Allentown's borders were drawn by a drunk William Allen wielding an etch a sketch.(if they had existed in 1762..lol. ) Interestingly, Allentown's average pop. density is over twice that of San Diego's, which has a population of 1.2 million. (if you wanna talk puny skyline for the population, especially when you consider that the MSA for San Diego is well over 3 million, look no further....I lived there for 5 years when I was in the Navy, and honestly, the San Diego skyline...which doubled in size over the 5 years I was there...is still barely more impressive than Harrisburg's....lol)
Allentown is over 18sq. miles. Quite large for a PA city. Harrisburg, Reading and Lancaster are all under 10sq miles.
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