Meadville Officials Overconfident in City's Potential

The word "tribune" refers to one who defends the rights of others. There is, of course, irony in Crawford's largest city having a paper called the Meadville Tribune. People have exercised their right to leave that town for years and have faced no oppression preventing such a decision whatsoever.

We're not quite sure who the Meadville Tribune thinks they're speaking up for. Perhaps the denial of their city officials, who are trying to sell confidence that their town has the potential to draw people back based on the houses that have been left by the homeowners who used to occupy them.

No joke. The Meadville Tribune came out with an article where city officials tried to argue that the affordable living resulting from people not wanting to be there could be an attractive way to draw people back to their community.

To put into perspective the rationale being used to justify this circular reasoning, imagine if your wife was such an awful cook that people suddenly gave up on her. They become so tired of faking their appreciation that your wife has to ask you, "Why won't anyone try my cooking at the potluck anymore?" Now you are forced to come up with some lame excuse. Your excuses are so bad, you tell her, "The fact that they don't want it means that they'll probably come back to it soon." There's your logic, Meadville.

In a story covered by the Meadville Tribune, officials suggested that there is a high demand to move to Meadville due to the lower cost of living. To which we say, the low cost of living is only appealing to those who can't afford nicer homes anywhere else. Even the officials seem to understand this, since they're cited as stating that there is a shortage of high-quality homes in the region.

Every western Pennsylvania declining town uses the "small town" charm argument...

Yes. But for every decrease in high-quality homes, there is an increase in low-quality homes. You need to look at the positive side of things, people....

We're a little confused as to how Meadville is missing what led to the rise in low-quality homes. Do they not see that it's based on the fact that people are not finding enough opportunity to justify being there? It's a very simple principle. Less higher-class jobs means less money to keep houses looking higher class.

The officials have numbers, by the way. They state that based on their data, roughly 75 percent of workers in the city live outside the town. That, of course, doesn't give much information. If only 4 people worked in town, that statistic would suggest only one person lives there, meaning that the city is struggling to draw three people.... We might be fudging the numbers slightly....

The article suggests 1,400 commuters making 40 thousand yearly..... For a city that consisted of almost 14 thousand residents in the early 2000s, it says a lot when you are desperate to draw one tenth of that back a quarter century later.

Are we talking butter churn? I knew you were poor. I didn't know your town was converting back to colonialism.