Why They're Coming Here

Reposted From June 21, 2010

..wouldn't you?

For years I like many other question why so many new arrivals to our Lehigh Valley.

The negative nannies lay blame at the foot of easy welfare, cheap rentals along with questionable landlords, drug sales, etc. Still for others they wag their fingers blaming our local governmental leaders decisions.

Whenever I'm perplexed by deductive reasoning's that seem to fail, I fall back on a far simpler point of reference. Follow The Money Trail.

What follows I think explains the growth phenomena we are experiencing throughout the Lehigh Valley. It comes to one simple thing.. "economics".

Please bear with me as lay a few facts out along with some comments that tend to deviate a bit from the subject at hand. I will pull this all together at the bottom of this post.
---

(1) CIGARETTES & LIQUOR: New York Post (June 19, 2010): ALBANY -- Gov. Paterson said he would force lawmakers to approve a $1.60-a-pack tax hike on cigarettes. That's on top of the $1.50 city tax and the $1.01 federal tax already on each pack of cigarettes. It would hike the state's total tax on smokes to $4.35. 2000 $5
2002 $7.50
2008 $8.50
2009 $10
2010 $11.60COMMENTARY: I can think of no finer way to create organized crime. Why peddle illegal drugs? Those kind of crimes can get you lots of jail time or shot by rival gangs.

How does this involve Allentown ? Think about this. In Allentown (as well as other towns in Pa.), our less then stellar citizens can buy cartons of cigarettes for about $25 here in town. They then can commute back up to NYC where legitimate retailers charge $116 a carton. These "commuters" then can pawn them for about $75. Thusly making about $50 a carton and saving an average New Yorker about $35.60 a carton.

Same goes for liquor in NYC. $1.00 per gallon is the city of NY tax. Then there's the state taxses of $2.54 + $6.44 excise tax + 7% sales tax per gallon.

So even if "commuters" weren't dealing in this black market (Cigs & Liquor), the costs to consume them here is Allentown is far less expensive.


(2) RENT
In March the average rent for a 1 Bedroom New York apartment cost $3,176. A 3 bedroom is $7,750.

Average rent in Allentown? Let's take on of your above average complexes, say Trexler Park Apartments for example. A one bedroom costs $1,1,90 a month. A three bedroom $1,405. Just makes sense that if I as a New Yorker found out I could pay from 18% to 38% of what I'm now paying in NYC for rent, I'd sure as hell would run (not walk) too!

NYC Rental - Greenwich Village - Studio $1900

(3) SCHOOLS Arts- New York City (April 8, 2008)
* 32 percent of parents surveyed by the NYC DOE indicate that their children receive zero arts education. Only 29 percent of all middle school students are provided with the minimum state requirements.

* Only 4% of all elementary schools surveyed are even in a position to provide the minimum state requirement by offering all four art forms in each grade. 20% of the nearly 1,500 elementary schools have no arts specialists whatsoever.

* The ratio of arts teachers to students, which gives us a blunt gauge of access, contains statistics such as one theater teacher in the system for every 13,000 students. And each theater teacher on average has to work with a school population of 929 students.
Safety & Academics: "In New York State, schools are designated Persistently Dangerous if they have two successive years of serious incidents that meet or exceed criteria established by the State Education Department. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), all students enrolled at schools designated persistently dangerous have the opportunity to request a transfer to a school that is NOT persistently dangerous."


The Office of Student Enrollment implements three transfer programs, available to eligible parents who wish to transfer their child through the Public School Choice program.Here's a no brainer.. Would you rather have your kids going to New York's public schools or one of Lehigh Valley's?


(4) Arrivals From New Jersey:If You Tax Them They Will Leave (April 26, 2010):
* New Jersey residents are the most over-taxed in the country. We have one of the highest top marginal in-come tax rates, the second highest sales tax rate, the sixth highest corporate tax rate, and the highest property taxes in the nation. Add it all up, and the sad fact is that we are number one with more state and local taxes taken as a percentage of income than any other state in America.

* Unemployment is the highest (9.8 percent) in the region, having doubled since 2007. The state lost 121,000 private sector jobs last year while local governments added 11,300 new employees. There are “two classes of citizens in New Jersey,” Christie said, “those who enjoy rich public benefits and those who pay for them.”
SUMMARIZING-

I could cite additional reasons why the Lehigh Valley is experiencing overwhelming overgrowth, much too fast. But you get the idea.

As James Carville once said, "It's the economy stupid!"

Now we can go on for days, weeks and months faulting landlords, politicians, developers, even each another for all the problems resulting from too rapid an overgrowth. May I suggest instead that we stop the blame game and turn the rhetoric down a notch?

Just as sure as a moth is driven to a flame, people will continue to pour into the valley seeking a higher standard of life with a whole lot less in expenses.

Question is how do get a handle on this? How can we slow it down so we can reasonably manage and be able to afford the required schools, highways, zoning etc,?

I'm not sure you can. I suppose like water, the flow will only stop when it cost no less to live here then Jersey or New York. Yeah I know, that sucks. Let's only hope our town fares better then the old gold rush towns of yesteryear.

Right now it is very lucrative to commute back and forth to work in the big city where pays are triple of here. It's almost like gaming the system, isn't it? Work there.. live here.

How about a graduated municipality income tax scheme? Let's say for over a certain income that goes well beyond the median wages of the average worker within the Lehigh Valley.





Ah.. I'm feeling the love already :-)

Nov. 2009

Where do you think some of these will end up when they are forced out of NYC?