Part 2: Life In Erie, Pennsylvania
The Economy: Struggling Population, Thriving Tourism Business
Tourist Trap
Erie is a tourist trap. It claims to provide national class accommodations along with enough attractions for the whole family. But at what cost? This city is a remnant of an older time in this country. It is in the center of a triangle in Northwest Pennsylvania nestled right at the edge of Lake Erie.
Strategically Located
It is within 2 hours of three major, more successful cities in Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. It’s pretty hilarious to even have the words “more successful” and those three cities in the same sentence for any city but that’s exactly the perfect way to describe this Rust Belt city.
Household Income and Declining Population
According to the US Census Bureau, the average median income for a family in Erie, PA is $37,894 a year compared to the national average of $63,688 a year for the same period from 2019. Another fact to correlate how bad the economy is in this city is to compare the population statistics from 2010 to 2020. In 2010, the city of Erie had a population of 101,786. As of April 1, 2020, the population was calculated at 95,508.
This shows that the population decreased by over 6 percent in 10 years. 26.2% of Erie residents live under the poverty line. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate is 7.4% as of July 2021. This rate is much higher because many of the residents in this city don’t even apply for unemployment or just give up altogether on working at all.
The Blight of the East Side
Another sign of Erie’s dying economy is the blight that is many of the neighborhoods on the east side of town. The city as a whole has a large immigrant and minority population.
These two things cannot be ignored as a correlation. The city has largely ignored the entire east side of the city. There are very few shops and only a Walmart Supercenter that is derogatorily called by residents as “Ghettomart”.
Food Desert
All of the affordable options for food and groceries are outside of this area to the west or entirely out of the city altogether and are in other parts of Erie County. The phenomenon known as the “food desert” is very much applicable to the East Side of Erie.
Great Potential
The problem I have most with Erie’s dying economy and the blight that many neighborhoods face is that this city has so much potential. With an ideal location on one of the five Great Lakes and within 2 hours of three major cities, this city should strive to be so much more. The money this city makes from its tourism industry seems to do nothing to enrich the city as a whole.
Tourism Boom
Annually, the city makes over $1 billion a year in tourism. This money could go to solve a lot of the city’s issues but seems to go only to a few of the people who control the tourism industry in Erie and these people aren’t exactly known for being good to their employees.
The Greedier Get Richer or Greedier or Whatever the Saying Is…
One big example of one of these major employers is a developer and real estate magnate, Nick Scott, and his family. They own more than half of the hospitality and entertainment venues in the county and the city.
There is currently a public-private partnership called the Erie Downtown Development that is centered around making the city center and the lakefront a more desirable place to visit although it just seems to enrich these big pockets even more by delivering insane tax breaks for these people to continue building and developing the bayfront as they see fit.
Just last year, for example, Nick Scott’s company built a Hampton Inn and Suites on the Bayfront during the pandemic with the help of the city and its tax breaks. If that family even gave the city even a little bit more money to address the poverty issues plaguing it, then this city could be the vibrant center that it should be.
Slow to Change and Adapt to a Modern Economy
The other issue I see that this city makes as a huge mistake is that they have been slow to adapt to change. This is a Rust Belt city and for a long time now, they have continued to hold on to the remaining industry that survived instead of adapting to a national economy that has largely moved away from the dirty industry of the past.
Pittsburgh, for example, has shifted to a more tech-based economy and this is a city known for its steel. Companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have offices there.
Is Erie More Fulfilled?
The only recent development that Erie has seen is that Amazon opened a fulfillment center on the neighboring township of Millcreek in July 2021. This is a step in the right direction but is only one step in moving the city away from heavy industrial jobs and menial tourism and entertainment-based jobs.
Failing City
Until this city starts to meaningfully invest in its future, it’s doomed to become a failed city. The combination of low-paying jobs, high poverty and unemployment, and indifference to the blight of an entire side of the city is set to be the doom of the city’s existence.
I see this as a byproduct of the greed of the biggest pockets in this city as a whole. While so few have so much, the majority of the people in this town who continue to help this city run are left with so little.
