It's Time To Support Allentown, Before It's Too Late

I live in Salisbury Township, but I have an Allentown address. My phone exchange tells callers I live in Allentown. Though my home is in Lehigh County, for most official research reasons I live in the “Allentown Metropolitan Statistical Area.” Sometimes it seems that the only thing that really tells me I don’t live in the city is my property tax bill.

In short, to the world at large, I live in Allentown. And so do you if you live in Salisbury, South Whitehall and even as far out of town as parts of Upper and Lower Macungie townships.

For the better part of 20 years I have listened as people across the Lehigh Valley complained about the decline and deterioration of that once-proud city and expressed frustration that nothing ever seems to be done about it. Since the disappearance of Allentown’s downtown shopping district, a number of half-hearted plans have been produced to improve the city and its commercial core, but most have fallen flat because of either a lack of funds, lack of interest or opposition from both city residents and others across the region.

Now Allentown has a real chance to regain its position as the Queen City of the Lehigh Valley. The proposed arena project can make it a destination again and the commercial and office projects that at least one private developer is banking on could bring hundreds of new workers into the downtown. If that happens, there is a more than good chance that the residential neighborhoods around Center City will improve as better stores, restaurants and shops open up to support this new market, and some of these employees are even likely to look for homes in the area.

This is not a new phenomenon. It happened in Times Square, once written off as a playground for hookers and drug dealers. It happened in the Manyunk section of Philadelphia, where new opportunities lured a younger and more upscale buying base into a dying blue collar neighborhood. It’s happened on the South Side of Bethlehem, where an infusion of new development and public involvement has turned what could have been the nation's biggest Superfund site and a declining blue-collar neighborhood into a unique destination full of restaurants, music, retail and, yes, a casino. But it worked.

And it didn’t come without a price. Millions of tax dollars have already been invested in Allentown’s sister-city to build or rebuild the roads, sidewalks and other infrastructure needed to make it all happen. The only real difference is the money didn’t come “right off the top,” as has been proposed in Allentown. It’s still tax money, regardless of which pocket it came from.

If Allentown can latch on to that trend, then the new businesses and residents would improve the city’s tax base and it can use that money to attack the crime, grit and other negatives that have created such a poor perception of the city over the past two decades or so.

However, it will need some suburban support to make that happen. The legislation that will help Allentown and investors pay for the projects relies in part on the Earned Income Taxes and sales tax collected in the new Neighborhood Improvement Zone. Several neighboring communities are suing the state over the loss of that EIT money – understandable to a degree in today’s tight economy and declining state and federal support.

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski has offered a compromise to these communities that would resolve most of their fears, and I hope they accept. See, the thing is, to use an old cliché, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Yes, it might cost our communities and school districts some earned income tax money for a few years, but the simple fact is it will cost all of us a hell of a lot more if Allentown fails.

Salisbury and it’s neighbors should be Allentown’s strongest allies in its fight to revitalize, and the temporary inconvenience of forgoing an undertermined amount of future EIT revenue for a few years is a small price to pay for the long-term insurance that the urban woes that afflict so many of our nation’s cities will not continue to creep out and further afflict the ring communities that will be the first to feel the detrimental effects of an urban collapse.

Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, as the three urban centers of the Lehigh Valley, all enjoy unique opportunities to prosper and, most important, complement each other and the outlying communities as they do it so that everyone gains and no one really loses.

The small-minded attitudes that are threatening the city’s first chance in almost 20 years for significant revitalization must be tempered with farseeing leaders who recognize that the health and vitality of one community has an immediate and direct impact on all of its neighbors.