I’m not surprised we’ve lost so many jobs, considering what an awful place Pennsylvania is to do business. We have among the highest corporate tax rates in the country, and our government is increasingly looking for ways to make it even worse. If I were going to start a business, I’d go to an up and coming market. This area has been my home all my life, but it has no future as long as the people keep sending politicians to Harrisburg that make anti-business policy choices, and vote for bloated an expensive government. And this is just the ‘burbs I’m talking about. The City of Philadelphia is a basket case in its own right, and beginning to rival such stellar cities as Detroit and Baltimore in sheer craptitude.
The only thing we have going for us is housing prices haven’t taken as bad a beating as other markets, because we never bubbled very much since even in good times no one wants to live here.
I think one of the problems with cities like the ones you mention (and I’d include, say, Danville and quite a few other third-tier southern cities that have never recovered from the textile bust) is that a lot of the residents for whatever reason don’t accept the passing of the old days, and the need to take a can-do attitude and adjust to the new reality. They sit around collecting welfare and waiting for Godot to bring the factories back, and if enough people are acting that way then it becomes very hard for the rest to build a future.