State College and whats wrong with it.
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1/30/2009
First off, state college is a hick town in the middle of hick nowhere that is trying very, VERY hard to convince people otherwise. I was raised in State College and always liked it...then I grew up.
Hope you dont want a decent job. There are over 40,000 students who will work for minimum wage if you dont want to. The professional jobs and other employment opportunities that require more than two brain cells to rub together are RARE to nonexistant. If you can get on at the university, you may have a shot. ALL of the factory jobs are gone..they've closed or moved on...Corning went to china...there is no manufacturing here anymore...and those places were the only hope for non-college educated individuals(you know...90% of the population) to make decent money (corning had good starting jobs in the $10-$15 an hour range in 1987!)
Then there's the culture...or lack of it. Museums?...Live Theatre?...naah. Drunken, halfwit, this-close-to-inbred college children vomiting in public and causing riots?...PLENTY!!! The property taxes are insane, the housing costs are just as bad ($1200 a month for an apartment bigger than a cubicle and not crawling with drunken losers)...and I mean more than a pathetic 900 square feet.
There are no really GREAT restaurants...the Victorian manor is ok if not over-rated...and good luck parking...The tavern is ok...but the rest is all geared for the under 23 crowd. And, sadly...the first thing welcoming you to the fair city as you approach from the east is a glaring huge orange HOOTERS restaurant. I mean can you scream "CLASS" and quieter? (Dont get me wrong...I love the place...I'm just saying.)
The shopping is pretty decent if you dont expect any upscale establishments. State College is a great town to SPEND money in. The school system here is the only one for a 50 mile radius that is worth a flip...and even thats a stretch.
The town has tried to protect itself from the influx of minority criminals by jacking up the prices on everything and driving out all the lower income based stores. (remember GEE BEE'S..excuse me...Value City? Kicked out because they were "bringing down the clientel"...yes, its true.
All the great stores that carried decent merchandise that people could afford are gone (anyone remember Hills and David Weis?...better than our plethera of frickin WAL-MARTS any day!)
The town has also made it impossible to be a low income person too. Which is pretty much how they want it. And while that is good for property values and crime rates it is terrible for middle class families that love the area, are from here, and whose familys have been here since the beginning of the grange fair, but now can't seem to figure how to pay for a $300,000 house with $4000 a year in property taxes while killing themselves at a 19K job.(and that represents the higher $9.00 and hour side of things)...and if that blessing of a job has benefits...well, you better get to church and start thanking the almighty.
The city I knew and loved is gone. It always has been a college town with college ideals and thats fine. But now thats all it is. And it strives to be nothing else. The message State College is trying to make is abundantly clear: If you have LOTS of money, come on in. If you dont get out. (OK, spend what you have and then get out)...and if the 3rd world, crime adled, slum that is WILLIAMSPORT is any indication as to what can happen to a decent community when the trash takes over, then its no surprise that State College is trying to become more than the sum of it's parts.
We may be PENN STATE but we're also fed up. I have a degree (from PSU for that matter) and I cant find a job in my field anywhere near state college...or Altoona...or ...sheesh do I even have to say Bellefonte?...in another 20 years this place will be nothing but a retirement community with a college in the middle of it...and once good'ol saint JOE passes on (sadly within the next 10 to 15 at BEST Im guessing)...PENN STATE will probably suffer its greatest decline ever...maybe even return to what it was 50 years ago...virtually onheard of...the story of what once was and the stardard of what not to do. Then that "must have a net-worth of at elast $1,000,000 or you cant live here" retirement home they built a few years ago might have to lower that to ...what? a couple bucks?
To summerize...Nice town but growing nowhere, dont come if you dont have money (dont even try to stay here at any hotel at a time when the university is doing...anything. The town has a wonderful little program where, for example, the $50 motel 6 on north atherton is at least $150 a night or higher if Penn State has a home game...'cause, you know, if you're trying to stay here, you must be going to game....and that goes for all the hotels. Somehow this is legal...Industry:Gone...Skilled Trades Jobs: gone....Culture: can not having one actually be one in a twisted sort of way?
Do youselves a favor...go out and earn a real living somewhere else...build up a couple ROTHS or other 401's...do the stock and shuffle thing, and bankroll a couple mil and then come here and live like the royalty you think you are. Then realize its 20 below with the windchill in January get fed up and move to the outter banks...you have to have a decent income here too but at least you have something to do without tripping over empty beer cans and grease coated pizza boxes.
Bp | State College, PA