Many, many years ago now — more than half my life ago, in fact — I was fresh out of college and presented with an opportunity to write my first weekly newspaper column.
Today, I’m here to offer an addendum to pretty much everything I wrote on those pages.
Before I get to that, some background on that column for those who don’t remember it, the assumption being that pretty much everyone falls in that category: It ran each Saturday in our Cornerstone section, a very well-intended venture of our publishers and editors to push for a more regionalized approached to doing business and living in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre as a region, not two separate cities separated by lines on a map or residents’ historic perceptions.
I wrote about ways the two cities could share costs, improve efficiency, better infrastructure by working together. I offered transportation improvements and environmental issues. I pitched togetherness as a better path forward. I still consider it an important, long-overdue conversation starter.
For years, I wondered how I landed that role so early in my journalism career. There have been few 23-year-olds in the profession’s history with the requisite combination of sage wisdom and institutional knowledge to pull off a weekly column; I was under no delusion that I was somehow one of them. However, I did possess the one background trait that qualified me to take on that task.
I lived just about my entire life to that point about smack dab in the middle of both cities.
From my childhood home in Avoca, in the shadow of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Luzerne County but just a short walk to the Lackawanna County line, I could be standing on Courthouse Square in Scranton after about a 15-minute car ride. It would take only three or four minutes longer to get to Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square, just a few miles farther to the south.
Anything I could ever do with convenience and effectiveness in Scranton, I could also do with equal convenience and effectiveness in Wilkes-Barre. On paper, that put me in a position to best know the strengths and weaknesses of both.
The column itself lasted about a year, before I transferred departments and spent the next quarter century covering Triple-A baseball and Penn State football. It promoted change in our region, but I don’t know that it effected any. In fact, that’s the way most people I used as sources on these issues seemed to think it would go.
Flash forward 26 years, and despite that, we can accept as fact that our region is in a better place now because Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are better off than they were back then.
It is obvious that both cities, especially their downtowns, are trending in the right direction and showing great potential to grow further. It is the benefit of years of planning and investment into sound strategy into city centers and surrounding areas. A handful of aggressive, innovative developers have set sights on revitalizing both downtowns, understanding they’d become likely destinations for tourists who come to the area for events at places like the Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Twp. or PNC Field just outside Scranton in Moosic.
The renovation of once run-down buildings and the influx of business that has arrived there have made both downtowns a more attractive destination for renters. Continuing to make both cities a more robust and convenient hub for downtown living seems like the next logical step to pursue in efforts to ensure future growth here.
One thing that needs to be remembered as the region moves forward, though, is something I wish I knew when I was writing that column in 2000.
Most people who will make the difference in turning those downtowns into destinations aren’t the people who will want to live there. They are the people who were somewhat like me. Area natives who live outside one city or the other and will need reasons to visit both.
If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have focused on promoting similarities. Northeast Pennsylvania has been made better not because Scranton and Wilkes-Barre embraced obvious similarities, but because they put their differences on display. The focus should not have been on two cities as an extension of one another, but as a complement to each other.
It seems to be now.
The particulars can be debated. But for those around the area looking for a more citylike feel, with more diverse business options and more top-scale restaurant choices, Scranton has a reputation for improving in all of those areas. Meanwhile, Wilkes-Barre caters as much to those looking for a relaxed, college-town-like vibe, with more lower-key, fun establishments.
And it’s difficult to argue. For someone outside both areas, the choice on where to go to do business often depends on mood, and what kind of experience you’re looking for on any given day. The businesses and amenities get people to places like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, but it is the atmosphere that keeps them coming back.
The best part about living in Northeast Pennsylvania now, and what makes its potential for a bright future so high, is that it is now a sprawling area that offers a pretty well-rounded living experience. Different kinds of shopping centers in both cities. Business hubs popping up. Professional baseball in Scranton. Professional hockey in Wilkes-Barre. Access to Broadway-like experiences at the Scranton Cultural Center. Top-notch concerts at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre.
Those experiences, and many others like them, shouldn’t be viewed as exclusive to those who live nearest them. As a community, we need to continue to grasp that both downtowns have so much for all of us to enjoy. When something good happens to one city, it really happens to both.
And right now, there’s a lot of good happening all around us.