[PRCo] offtopic: red arrow

Tue May 3 11:48:36 EDT 2016

I should act surprised Brashear?

Those flicks were taken right after the war.   The city population officially peaked in the 1950 census but it probably really reached its high point about 1947 when the kids were home from the military, were marrying an having kids of their own and before the suburbs began to swell.   

The the 1950 census showed Philadelphia in 1950 had 2.07 million people and the four surrounding counties had 1.07 million.   Sixty-six percent of the Pennsylvania portion of the metro area was inside Philadelphia city.   There were still farms all the way from Newtown Square out to West Chester when the car line was torn up in 1954.   

Today?   The city has about 1.56 million people and those same surrounding counties are home to 2.53 million blokes.   The suburbs are now home to 62% of the Pennsylvania portion.   The city lost about half a million people but the suburbs gained almost one and a half million people.

Put that suburban gain into a context that yins can appreciate … the gain in Philly's Pennsylvania suburbs since 1950 is 19% higher than the entire population of Allegheny County today!!!!!

But D. P. B. … that uses the old definition of the MSA.   It has also been expanded to include half of the state of Delaware and Cecil County Maryland and all of Southern New Jersey.

All that B. S. aside, there was suburban growth before the war just like there was in Pittsburgh but it really mushroomed after the war.   Before the war it was largely near public transit and close in to the city line.   You will notice that I added a name … Rich Allman.   Dr. Allman's father supported his family by building those suburban homes and he may have been doing it before the war.   Rich is two years younger than I am … he would have been hatched about 1942 and I remember the stories about his dad building houses in the Westgate Hills area.   

Like so many of our metropolitan areas today, it's a humongous suburb looking for an anchor.    Perhaps a decade ago … maybe more … one of the guys at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum said to me, "Oh you come from that Amish farm country."   I shot back, "Yup, where the commuter trains leave for Philadelphia every 30 minutes in the morning rush hour."   The person admitted he had no clue that it had changed.   My wife will not get in her car and go out after 2:00 (14 hours) because of our traffic.

On May 3, 2016, at 12:11 AM, Daria Phoebe Brashear wrote:

> 
> 
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> My god … must be 4 mm instead of fuzzy 8 mm home movies.    Either that or I'm used to those new hi-def digital.
> 
> Does bring back memories of when the West Chester Pike was a relatively empty two lane country highway instead of today's four lane parking lot through the suburbs.   Back then you could drive for miles without seeing a traffic light.
> 
> how about the piece of construction equipment rolling by on the route 202 bypass overpass which was not yet finished?
> 
> i hadn't considered how busy route 202 was until i saw, when trying to find traffic counts for business 22/pa 48 that us202/us1 is the 2nd busiest in the state. i bicycled up 48, across business 22, and under the parkway a few days ago en route to an inbound afternoon Holiday Park bus, so it was on my mind
> 
> On May 2, 2016, at 12:33 AM, Daria Phoebe Brashear via Pittsburgh-railways wrote:
> 
> > found while poking about: the last days of West Chester Red Arrow service:
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmBOGgHIbZg
> >
> >
> -- 
> Daria Phoebe Brashear
> AuriStor, Inc
> dariaphoebe.com
> 

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