Any time I'm out on a story with media members from other cities, I can't help but wonder "What do they think of us?"
Yesterday's story was the preliminary hearing in Pottsville for three young men who allegedly killed an illegal alien. The beating took place last month in Shenandoah.
To people who live and work elsewhere, there is no Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, and Pottsville. It's all one. Northeastern Pennsylvania. Schuylkill County doesn't have a racism issue. Northeastern Pennsylvania does. We see the borders between communities. Others don't.
A magazine recently ranked the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton area as one of the fastest dying in the nation. That might have been a bit harsh, but you have to admit, there are problems. Our government system is archaic and overstaffed. We can be rather parochial and territorial. We're losing good jobs and replacing them with warehouses and distribution centers. There are restaurants and bars all over the place, but we can't make enough money for a night on the town. Our roads and bridges are a mess. The problems are not isolated to just Scranton, or just Wilkes-Barre, or just Hazleton, or just Pottsville.
There are a lot of good things, no-- make that great things, about living here, but we might learn something if we take a good, hard look at how others see us.
