Comments on "A City Transformed", Part two

In "A City Transformed, Redevelopment, Race, and Suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1940-1980", author David Schuyler states as part of the Introduction: "As a result of failure of commercial renewal, Lancaster has not experienced the prosperity that major downtowns have enjoyed in recent years – the gleaming sky scrapers, hotels, festivals, market places, gentrified neighborhoods, and other monuments of the construction boon of the 1980s and 1990s , which attract tourists and generate much needed tax revenues that sustain the municipal government."

We only take issue with the word "failure" because it suggests that a different outcome was possible.

In fact, Lancaster has long been handicapped by its location between Philadelphia, decades ago the third largest city in the country, and Harrisburg, the state capital. (York suffered similarly from being between Baltimore and Harrisburg.) Businesses seeking regional headquarters passed over Lancaster which meant downtown attracted mainly law firms and then local banks.

The strengths of Lancaster's economy were three fold: Agriculture, tourism and industry… all three of which were situated in suburbia and exurbia. Furthermore, there was no expressway linking downtown with the Interstate Highway System.

Park City was built in the 1970s. What instantly became the new 'downtown' was made possible inadvertently by a well meaning, hitherto collusion among the establishment to prevent the development of shopping centers in suburbia in order to protect downtown retail business. Had smaller suburban centers been permitted at the time, the market for the collosal Park City would not have existed.

Lancaster Square was born out of misbegotten desperation to ward off the flight from downtown. Its co-anchor Hess was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as the first downtown department store to open in the country in 20 years. It was short lived and eventually converted to light industrial use.

The other co- anchor, the opulent Hilton Hotel (now the Brunswick) suffered from the paucity of downtown business and thus declined under subsequent names and franchises.

(Without City guarantees and State subsidies, the Marriott would not be under construction because it faces the same shallow market and must compete, at least for the time being, with the Brunswick.)

The best thing that downtown Lancaster had going for it until recently was its quaintness and the Central Market, neither in themselves sufficient to draw much tourist trade. However, due to the far sightedness and devotion to classical music of Mike and Fran Veri Jamanis and public spirited citizens (some of whom have foolishly supported the Convention Center Project), the Pennsylvania Music Academy (PAM) was created and is now housed in a signature, world class building.

With PAM, there is the opportunity to create a high school equal to Juliard in Manhattan and Curtis in Philadelphia and a campus that would include the Brunswick building and generate activity and business. PAM’s programs would also be a major tourism attraction.

In business, it is essential to recognize what is working and also note what doesn’t work. Then do more of the former and avoid the latter. This is a lesson lost on the current benighted and often predatory community leadership.

To have created Lancaster Square in the 1970s was misguided but understandable. To mortgage the county’s and especially the city’s future in order to bring about the Convention Center Project with the hindsight of Lancaster Square is unforgivable.

As is magnified on the national scene, the War On Drugs and the war in Iraq for instances, we Americans don’t learn much from the debacles of the past.