Nov 27, 2013

Allentown's Grim Future

By the time you hear of a stock, the anticipation of that business's success has already been built into the value. Although the arena won't open for another year, that event will be anti-climatic. The election results said that Allentonians don't think that Pawlowski can walk on water. An underfunded opponent, campaigning for only eight weeks, took 40% of the votes. The Morning Call, favorable to the Arena Project, cannot help but report the violence in center city. Suburbanites, many of whom haven't been downtown in decades, will only come reluctantly, if at all, and then leave very quickly. Those expecting a recipe for pumpkin pie are at the wrong blog.

5 comments:

  1. Mike,

    One thing is certain, entertaining happy talk and engaging in wishful thinking won't in itself effect positive change in the city. Yet this is the plan of improvement too many indulge.
    To solve any problem one first needs to recognize what it is exactly. Allentown had allowed its neighborhoods to become blighted and crime ridden. Building new buildings will no nothing to address these conditions. Sadly Rental Inspections and solid honest city leadership would have.

    Happy Thanksgiving

    Scott Armstrong

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  2. I think the downtown area will be 100% safe when the offices start getting occupied and the arena opens. The police presence will be overwhelming.

    You live at 5th and Liberty? Your safety is going to be sacrificed as most police units will be downtown.

    My fears greatly outweigh my hopes.

    The Banker

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  3. I have been working between Allentown, PA and Reading, PA for the past month or so and I must say the similarities are astounding. Apathetic residents, an empty downtown after dusk, and leadership that doesn't seem to "get it". The only difference is that Reading is starting to wake up and realize that they have to get the community involved in order to get the city up and running again. Because you see, they have an arena with a world championship winning hockey team, and the downtown is still as desolate as Allentown's after 6pm Mon - Sun. (and their downtown is actually bigger and more spacious)

    Reading, PA, in my opinion, is getting back into the up swing of things after finally seeing brand new buildings/structures don't improve the quality of life in a city.

    Reading, PA is like Allentown, PA in the future. We fight the trend daily in my office because we know there is a great possibility that all the changes people said would occur never were going to happen and no one realized it until it was too late.

    We are definitely trying to prevent this,

    Alfonso Todd
    www.imarajtv.com

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  4. "(Reading) have an arena with a world championships winning hockey team ..."

    Part of the big problem I see everywhere I go in America, Comrade Molovinsky, is that people, no matter how well their intentions, just can't seem to ever tell the truth about ANY situation any more --- ever.

    The Reading Royals play in the East Coast Hockey League, which is one level below the American Hockey League (the circuit the Lehigh Valley Phantoms will compete in) and two levels below the vaunted National Hockey League, which IS considered to be the most elite league on the planet.

    Reading does NOT have an arena with a "world championship winning hockey team" --- and NEVER will, either.

    To be "Positive" only for the sake of being "positive" is just plain silly and, oftentimes, a little bit insulting to people's intelligence --- let THIS serve as Example A.

    Happy Thanksgiving,

    COL. VIKTOR TIKHONOV
    Soviet Red Army (ret)

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  5. rolf, apparently they're the champion in the three team atlantic division, and if you go to their website they refer to a championship banner. alfonso's point was that new buildings and teams do not make a successful town in themselves, without the citizens being involved.

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