Dear Alphabuck,
I don't want to open a new can of worms here but the Little Lehigh has been going downhill as a river for decades.
Bottom line is that the area is simply too built up and too poorly planned for anything otherwise to happen. I'm not trying to be dismal, but I lament the changes that have taken place for changes sake.
I think in rather idealistic terms but I like to attempt to draw parallels between the Lehigh Valley and State College. Chalk it up to waiting 100 years to develop, but State College has done a much better job in focusing the building and all it entails into a region where it does the least damage.
That ain't the case in the Lehigh Valley. They will build anything anywhere as long as they think they will make money at it. For the most part they can, for the area attracts people that are fleeing the high costs of homes and land in the NJ/NY metro area.
But still, I see they approved a development by Jaindl in Lower Macungie that would have been a quarry otherwise. Once the houses and stores and shops have been built a quarry will look pretty damn good in retrospect.
As I sit in my house with a Harrisburg mailing address that sits on the edge of 11,000 acres of State Gamelands the cynical reader might think I am just talking to hear myself think, but I'm not.
We have to stop developing every square inch of land that is available, especially when all that development comes with costs and liablilties that never get considered until it is too late.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
SORRY FOR DERAILING THE THREAD!