Here are a few questions: I would appreciate an answer if possible.

Will the Allentown area become a major metro area (over 1 million people) soon?

Will this metro become part of the NYC CSA, Philly CSA or remain its own metro area?

How connected is the Allentown/Lehigh Valley to Philly and NYC?

Are there a lot of New York City sports fans in the area? Obviously there are a lot of Philly fans.

Do you guys in the Allentown/Lehigh Valley get New York City television stations?

Recent Pennsylvania census studies show it to be the fastest growing region of the state, due mostly to its growing popularity as a bedroom community for the highly-populated neighboring regions of Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City.

The current population of the metro area is now 790,535 as of 2005. It is also growing pretty rapidly. That is an increase of 50,140 from the year 2000. The city of Allentown also gained a little population as well and is expected to grow slightly over the next decade. One reason this area is growing so fast is obviously it's location, but also because the low cost of living compared to New Jersey and NYC. It is a very affordable location with easy access to a variety of cities since many major highways go through the area.

There are also a lot of attractions in the Lehigh Valley. Shopping and restaurants are abundant. There is an international airport, a AAA baseball team is locating in Allentown, there is an indoor football team, several museums, and Lehigh University. Also, outdoor activities are popular with parks, ski resorts and the rolling hills of the area. The Pocono Mountains are only 20-30 minutes away.

Here are driving times from Allentown to many major cities:

Philadelphia: 1hr.
NYC: 1 hr 30 minutes
Baltimore: 2 hrs 40 min
Washington D.C. 3 hrs 10 minutes
Harrisburg, PA 1hr 20 minutes
Reading, PA 45 minutes
Lancaster, PA 1hr 30 minutes
York, PA 1hr 45 minutes
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, PA 1hr 15 minutes
Trenton, NJ 1hr 15 minutes
Providence, RI 4 hrs 30 minutes
Boston 5 hrs 30 minutes
Pittsburgh 4hr 40 minutes

Honestly, I think that it will become the opposite...a suburb metro...

hmmm. well. as i am the only frequent poster here who resides in the valley; i suppose i will have to answer these questions

Here are a few questions: I would appreciate an answer if possible.

Will the Allentown area become a major metro area (over 1 million people) soon?

soon? one million? not too soon.

Will this metro become part of the NYC CSA, Philly CSA or remain its own metro area?

as it grows larger, i think we are becoming more independant from the other metros actually. anything that you could ever want in NYC or Philly; you can basiccly find in the valley.

How connected is the Allentown/Lehigh Valley to Philly and NYC?

other then getting lots of philly news stations which no one watches; not too much to either city; but it is fffaaabulooouse living so close to both metro areas...lots of people take day trips to New York much more than to philly i have noticed


Are there a lot of New York City sports fans in the area? Obviously there are a lot of Philly fans.

nooooo.


Do you guys in the Allentown/Lehigh Valley get New York City television stations?

yes, a couple. mostly philly though. we have one news station for ourselves which we share with the reading area.

((((Recent Pennsylvania census studies show it to be the fastest growing region of the state, due mostly to its growing popularity as a bedroom community for the highly-populated neighboring regions of Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City.

yes, the area is growing and developing like a bitch. you should come see all the dumb houses.

(((((The current population of the metro area is now 790,535 as of 2005. It is also growing pretty rapidly. That is an increase of 50,140 from the year 2000. The city of Allentown also gained a little population as well and is expected to grow slightly over the next decade. One reason this area is growing so fast is obviously it's location, but also because the low cost of living compared to New Jersey and NYC. It is a very affordable location with easy access to a variety of cities since many major highways go through the area.))))


yes yes; it certainly is...regardless of weather allentown has gained population, you must keep in mind that the city of allentown has very limited growth space. The flat Surburban townsips (Whitehall township, south whitehall township, bethlehem township, palmer township, forks township etc.) are the places gaining the most population.


((((There are also a lot of attractions in the Lehigh Valley. Shopping and restaurants are abundant. There is an international airport, a AAA baseball team is locating in Allentown, there is an indoor football team, several museums, and Lehigh University. Also, outdoor activities are popular with parks, ski resorts and the rolling hills of the area. The Pocono Mountains are only 20-30 minutes away.))))

yes, and we actually have aaaallloooot of colleges for being a smaller metro: lehigh university, lafayette college, Moravian College, Muhlenberg, cedar crest, NCC, De Sales University, Lehigh Valley Collage, and LCC

u forgot to mention there are also many community theatres all throghout the area which are quite proffesional.

the closeness to the poconos is nice, but for some reason everyone in the valley is to laazy to drive up there and experiance some nature. a bad thing about the area is that its kind of flat-ish if you do not live in one of the 3 cities that hug the southern moutian, its kinda like...bland for pennsylvania.

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^ I appreciate the info MuddyZehbra32.:)

I am glad you think the Allentown/Lehigh Valley area is becoming more independent as it becomes larger. The area is impressive and has a lot to offer. Most people don't realize how large this area is and that it is the 3rd largest metro area in PA. This area seems to be totally overshadowed by Philly, NYC and other surrounding cities. Des Moines, Iowa is very well known and is considered a big city because it is the hub of Iowa, but the Lehigh Valley is much larger and doesn't get half the attention. For it to get more attention it will need to continue to become more independent and establish itself as a separate entity.

The Lehigh Valley doesn't have many more NYC fans than any other area. Philly teams clearly are above and beyond any other fan base.

Getting Philly and/or New York stations is a confusing issue. Everything is so close that cities can get other cities' stations. At one time, you could get sports stations from 4 cities in Wilmington: New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. All of these cities are close by so it wasn't too much of a stretch to offer the stations in Delaware. I would think that stations might have done this in Allentown.

I dunno...Rochester sprawls pretty far south...better watch it. :|

Allentown should establish itself and define itself as its own city without letting Philly or NYC take stakes in its ground.

TV, Radio and Newspaper can help this...also adding jobs (good jobs) in the valley would help keep the people there without such hefty commutes...in time I'm sure this will happen because PA is cheaper than NY and Philly must cost more than Allentown.

Oh, and regarding the 1 TV station, channel 69. I don't know why they show it in Wilmington at all, but they do. I do have to say I dig their local newscast in Spanish.

Allentown's diverse economy produced everything from parlor furniture to beer and cigars. Since World War II, and particularly since the 1960s, Allentown has undergone yet another transition. The city has gone from a primarily manufacturing base to a community with a diverse economy and service industries.

The city has embarked on a downtown revitalization project which includes a new attraction, Lehigh Landing. The city has developed plans for a multi-purpose complex on former industrial property along the Lehigh River. Several turn-of-the-century industrial facilities will be renovated for the complex, and a combination of public and private funds will be used, a great deal of which has already been received or designated. The anchor for this project will be the America On Wheels Museum, to be located in a former Lehigh Valley Transit Company building. Over-the-road transportation exhibits have already been promised by the Smithsonian Institution, as well as from Mack Trucks, whose headquarters are in Allentown. The Lehigh Landing project will also include a river walk, a tie-in to the Delaware and Lehigh Canal and boating activities along the river.

Oh, and regarding the 1 TV station, channel 69. I don't know why they show it in Wilmington at all, but they do. I do have to say I dig their local newscast in Spanish.

you get it in delaware? thats kind of odd.

Yes, its pretty nifty how after every newscast follows with a spanish one. i think they just do it for the berks county edition though, not for the lehigh valley edition. i the spanish berks adition on occasions. its fun.

I dunno...Rochester sprawls pretty far south...better watch it. :|

Allentown should establish itself and define itself as its own city without letting Philly or NYC take stakes in its ground.

TV, Radio and Newspaper can help this...also adding jobs (good jobs) in the valley would help keep the people there without such hefty commutes...in time I'm sure this will happen because PA is cheaper than NY and Philly must cost more than Allentown.

for some reason, people don't seem to care about the hour long commutes here. they flood in by the dozens from jersey anyway. Jobs have been slowly following the people, i know a couple huge companies are moving to the area soon.

Allentown & the Leigh Valley are becoming Pennsylvania's closest equivilent of a boomtown metro. Even more than Albany & the Capital District in upstate NY, it's catching the population & economic flow from the NY metro area. Yes, the Latino population around Allentown is really booming. Quite a welcome change from a couple of decades back when the region was suffering. Within a few decades if not sooner the Leigh Valley will top a million population. Following the example of Trenton, it could get consolidated within the NYC metro region.

All of the sprawl that area is getting is crazy disgusting. Pretty soon every inch of that beautiful farmland is going to be filled up with cheap plastic housing going for more than what it's really worth.:ohno:

mhm ^, the the only thing they build here are these duisgusting developments where the hosues look exactly the same and the yards are jsut full of grass, grass and more grass. its so eww.

a very large concentration of them looks like these; in forks township, (north of Easton.)

http://i13.tinypic.com/2ef851c.jpg

^ Sorry to hear that.

I never equated Allentown as being part of NYC. I can see geographically that there can be a connection there, but it is still much closer to Philly. Now as you get further up into the Lehigh Valley, then it becomes more of a neutral area, I've always thought. And still a remote area, from the vantage point of travelling the NE extension of the PA Turnpike, there's still LOTS of undeveloped territory.

People say that Allentown/Bethlehem should stake its own claim against NYC/Philadelphia.

This is a really poor understanding of the area.

When you live around either NYC or Phila, you have to understand that any metro in the area is immediately attributed to either of the two because the massiveness and the far-reaching suburbs of both.

Metros which would stick out like a sore thumb in any other area of the country (Allentown, Wilmington, Trenton,) in this area are often not much more than a counterpart to either NYC or Philadelphia, which is, in part, a shame in itself.

Not that it is a shame to be attributed to either of these metros, but being in the immediate areas of either of these areas dillutes the importance of the local metro, and blends it into whichever metro happens to be closer.

When's the last time you heard about Trenton due to it being in the NYC metro these days? 1985?

that'strue however, the lehigh valley metro is different from wilmington and trenton and other smaller cities, because of that fact that although there is a close proximity to philly and NYC, there are not sprawlingsuburbs that go from here to those cities. There is a whole lot of rural land that lies in between both cities. The people that live here simply do not (and never have) associated themselves with the the philadelphia area at all...and certaintly not with the NYC metro. It has always been very important for the three cities of the valley to come together as one metro, that it simply does not seem like a part of philadelphia whatso-ever. its a different situation from other metro areas.

Hi Lehigh Valley forumers,
The Lehigh Valley has too much of a one-of-a-kind personality, so Pennsylvania, so un-Philadelphia and certainly un-New York City. Not anti, just un-. Actually growing up in far-north NJ Z95 was one of the stations we could get, and sometimes WMUH came through. Not bad for 440 watts of transmission!
Please help me out with something that I heard some 20 years ago. It was around the time when I-78 was being extended, and rumors floated that Donald Trump had his eyes on the Valley, which could have meant some downtown development (the high rise kind) in Allentown. Can anybody recall this?
AND, what is the state of affairs in CC Allentown these days? Are there any more plans than what is listed at Emporis?

Thanks.

The Facades of CC Allentown buildings nearest to the PPL building have been going through a face-lift for the past 4 years. Bethlehem and Easton have set these changes a decade or so ago after the decline of Bethlehem Steel. Allentown is now just catching up with the other two smaller cities of the Valley.
One things is becoming very clear. We need better Highway systems here!! Every year the Highways become more congiested at peek and off peek hours of travel. The posted speed limit is 55, but the traffic flow sometimes during rush hour can reach either -25mph to 75+mph. I can imagine what traffic will be like during and after the construction of the Bethworks Sands Casino on the site of the Old Bethlehem Steel Plant. 22 and 378 interchange, 5 miles of backed up traffic. 25-40 min Bumper to Bumper traffic 2-7 miles out nearing each city. Things are easing a bit with 33 as a major connecting route from the I-80 Poconos, through 22 interchange, and then merging with 78 E and W.
This Years Musikfest will probably cause more people to car pool instead of driving in alone. LANTA metro still isnt has reliable as driving. But I think Buses in the LV may be a good alternative in the coming years as the valley expands with the housing and commerical markets.

I think both the Philly and New York teams get equal support, when I was at the Walmart in Whitehall a month ago, you had a hubby/wife, hubby had a Giants Jersey on, wife had an Eagles jersey on.

I live in Springfield Township, Bucks County, it gets a Coopersburg mailing address, and my road alone had transplant New Yorkers up the wazoo.

Also Olympus Camera moved their Corporate Headquarters to Center Valley, PA this past summer, and the majority of their employee's from Long Island, NY moved to the Leihigh Valley.

Sorry, it's been a long time to thank you for an update. Glad to hear that something is happening for the good of Center City.
Traffic always seemed to be a problem on the 22.
Hope there will be more development - and general interest in the older parts of the city. With a growing population in the metro area, it would seem logical that the city should receive a share of the goods.

Here are a few questions: I would appreciate an answer if possible.

Will the Allentown area become a major metro area (over 1 million people) soon?



No.

It will never be more than a place where people who are priced out of Jersey, Philly or NY go.

Here are a few questions: I would appreciate an answer if possible.

Will the Allentown area become a major metro area (over 1 million people) soon?




It’s unlikely that Allenton-Bethlehem & the Leigh Valley will reach major “metro status” in terms of passing the million mark milestone within near future. Yet its growth has been very impressive & seems like to continue. Not only has the Leigh Valley been outpacing western PA but also Philly when it comes to growth rates.

Quite a remarkable turnaround considering that just a few decades, the Leigh Valley was considered depressed!

Wondering where have all the Lehigh Valley forumers gone? Is there a better palce to glean information than this? Or is there nothing of note going on?

Lehigh Valley transplant here, I used to live in Hartford CT, but I recently relocated to Bethlehem PA. Let me tell you, for a city about half the size of Hartford, the downtown area is a TON more vibrant, and there is always something going on! Bethlehem is a cool town. As far as development however, there doesn't seem to be much going on- cept it seems a new restaurant is opening up each month here in b-town!