John Cognetti ~ written for In this Corner
The year 2010 looked a long way off in 1968, I was 18 and a freshman at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., having left safe, secure, clean, friendly Scranton for a city that had just come through a riot with blocks of charred buildings. The closest thing I ever came to a riot was when Scranton Prep played St. Rose in Carbondale.
One day I wandered up to the Graduate Department of Urban Planning. On a wall stretching over 20 feet was a map titled “BoWash.” I soon discovered it wasn’t a country I missed in history class; it referred to Boston and Washington corridor projecting growth from 1960 to 2010. This was the future in front of a freshman from Scranton.
Then I noticed the rings, each representing 10-year increments. The ring for 1970 was somewhere in New Jersey. I noticed the Delaware River, the Poconos and towns I knew. Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Honesdale were all touched by the ring dated 2010. What did this mean?
Twenty·five years later it means the tide crossed the Delaware permanently about 15 years ago. The
frontline runs from Honesdale south through North Pocono to Thornhurst. In the last few years, we have seen a steady stream of people relocating to the Scranton area permanently.
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
The completion of Interstates 80 and 380 opened the trail with high-speed access from the center of “Bowash” to Scranton. Since its completion, 1·80 has been widened in New Jersey to accommodate the tremendous growth westward. Buses run daily with
commuters from various points already enveloped by the tide. Land value and housing costs go hand in hand and those prices
have skyrocketed in New Jersey. New Jersey has attempted to control urban sprawl and has tried to keep the state from being completely paved over.
Pennsylvania, on the other hand, had a tremendous inventory of available housing in the Poconos as a result of the early 1990s Pocono real estate bust. People leapfrogged over New Jersey from Long Island to the Poconos because of the availability of incredibly affordable (foreclosed) housing. That housing has been absorbed and now the Poconos are beginning to look like
New Jersey.
Try driving on Route 209 on a weekend. The next frontier of reasonable housing costs is the Great Valley. From Carbondale to
Hazleton, you can still buy a house for $50,000. Add to this established neighborhoods and towns with roads, public sewers
and water, built-out school districts, established cultural, health care, religious and educational institutions, a sense of community.
recreational activities and comparatively low real estate taxes, why wouldn’t someone see value in living in the Great Valley compared to urban sprawl?
ALL ABOARD
The addition of direct train service to Hoboken from Scranton in 2006 would dramatically increase real estate values. Think
Connecticut in the 1950s and 1960s when Ricky and Lucy moved there, eastern Long Island or the Hudson counties of New
York. The commute time will be similar. With luxury apartments in downtown Scranton, and a large housing stock, we have all kinds of housing options.
Those who do not relocate here permanently will have this opportunity. After the train stops in Scranton on a Friday night, people
from New York will get into their SUVs at the future Internodal Transportation Center on Lackawanna A venue and drive
less than an hour west into the countryside to their weekend retreats.
That happened in rail-served counties of Putnam and Duchess in New York, escalating real estate values over the last 15 years.
This is already beginning to happen here.
Consider what’s happening with lakefront and farm property values now. They are becoming scarce and prices are rising. The
buyers are from out of town.
The tide is reaching the edge of the circle on the map on the wall seen long ago. Train service to Scranton will cause the tide to
crest in 2006 so that by 2010 we will officially be a part of “BoWash.”
— John T. Cognetti
