A real fixer-upper
by Jon Worley

I live in York City, which is the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania. It takes about 55 minutes to drive from my second- and third-floor apartment to downtown Baltimore. The population of the city proper is only about 40,000, but the county has more than 360,000 residents, and the total population of the Nielsen Designated Market Area of Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York is 1, 182, 108, just behind Oklahoma City and just ahead of Providence. So you should have a good understanding of the area.

Every year, Money magazine rates some 300 metropolitan areas in order of desirability. When I was in college at the University of Missouri, Columbia (where MU is located) rated #2 one year. On the other hand, York is consistently below #280, once as low as #298. The response of the locals is as constant as the rain: "At least we're ahead of Harrisburg." That's true. A small consolation, if you ask me.

About a year ago, before my wife Barbara and I moved to York, a group of folks decided something needed to happen. This group of folks included executives of local companies (the best-known being Pfaltzgraff, the china and stoneware company), school districts, newspapers (York is still a two-newspaper town, even if there is a JOA) and more. They collectively call themselves Better York Inc.

Better York Inc. hired David Rusk to come to the area and share his thoughts. Rusk has written the books Cities Without Suburbs and Baltimore Unbound. He's a former mayor of the Big Q (known formally as Albuquerque) and also a former state legislator in New Mexico. He's got lots more fine credentials and lots of ideas on how to save cities. Like me, he's a guy who genuinely likes living in cities.

Rusk came to York County, and he found a morass of government. Some of you might recall my comments on buying liquor in the state of Pennsylvania. If you want to get something done with local governments, your problems increase exponentially. There are 72 individual townships and 16 school districts in the county. A person who might say he or she lives in York (the city is very small, but the surrounding urban area takes up more than half of county's population) could live in one of 12 townships, or the city itself. There are some 10 school districts which cover at least part of the greater York City area.

And that's just the beginning of the problem. Most high school graduates in the county do not further their education. They get jobs at Harley-Davidson, Pfaltzgraff or Caterpillar (though that plant is closing soon). Teenage pregnancy is at epidemic proportions, and incomes are generally lower than the national average, particularly in the city proper.

There is a foundation to build on, though. Most of the housing in the city itself consists of row houses, which in spots like Baltimore, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. are considered desirable. Here, the buildings are often derelict but still structurally sound. People in town seem to have a sense of history (York was the first capital of the U.S., and the Articles of Confederation were signed here in 1777), but that is also a problem, as the proponents of Rusk's report have discovered.

Since its publication last November, this report has earned nothing but scorn and derision from government and citizens alike. He did suggest a few unpopular notions, like having York City annex much of the urban area that surrounds it in order to increase its tax base. He advocated an active citizenry, whereby folks might actually petition their government for redress. He suggested that all of the school districts be combined into one, thus providing an equal education for all the children of the county.

All of this did not sit well with the highly conservative residents of the county. These folks live by the motto "If we change, we die." If something hasn't been in existence for at least 200 years, then it is an "experiment". There's a reason the water here isn't fluoridated. All of Rusk's ideas (and obviously, he went into much more detail than I described) are good ones. He simply didn't realize that the main problem with York County lies not in governmental structure or urban entropy, but with the people themselves.

Last week, the members of Better York Inc. had a public meeting. A few members of local governments showed up, including the mayor of the city and county commissioners. The businessmen, who had spent a good amount of cash and time on this endeavor, were universally appalled by the dismissal of the Rusk report by the higher-ups and citizens alike. In their line of work, they're used to demanding action and getting it. That hasn't happened in the nine months since this report came out, and it's pretty apparent very few, if any, of the reforms mentioned will even get considered by those in a position to do something. The main reason: The people don't want to change.

A nice symbol of York City is Codorus Creek, which bisects the county and the city itself. This creek is contaminated by a pulp mill in Spring Grove, fertilizer run-off from various farms and golf courses and lots of illegal dumping. The color of the water is a murky brown, and it doesn't smell very good. The York Daily Record recently ran a story on the subject, with a picture showing the output pipe from the pulp mill spewing gunk into the creek. Most of the letters to the editor chided the paper for getting on the case of "one of our vital employers".

I've been reading a book on the fall of the Soviet Union, and for all of the rabid anti "commonism" fervor that still persists in this area, York reminds me more and more of the industrial cities in Russia that sprung up around some "vital" need. Black soot? Wear a sock over your mouth. Bad smell? Don't worry, in a couple days you won't be able to smell anything. Your dad died of cancer when you were 34? Well, at least he lived that long.

David Rusk expected people in York to be outraged by his findings. They were outraged, but not by what he found. They were angry that he had the nerve to say anything at all. And I have no idea how to fix that problem.

It had been 10 years since a man whistled at Jon Worley due to his long hair. He got that treatment his second day in York, and it happens almost every time he ventures out in public. Make your own conclusion.

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