Outside Erie

Erie will never be New York or Boston.
Because of its size, it shouldn’t try to aspire to be Cleveland or Pittsburgh, either.
But because of its size, history, and demographics, it has some truly marketable advantages.
Yesterday, I pointed to PolicyLink’s new report on smaller, industrial cities and promised to dig deeper into the report to explore […]

I’m reading a new report this week from the group PolicyLink, which takes a look at how smaller industrial cities such as Erie can restore their economic power.
The report argues that these smaller cities — many of them in the Northeast and Midwest — have been squeezed out of the national consciousness and have been […]

Jim Martin at the Erie Times-News has an interesting story this morning about Becca Martin’s decision to leave her economic development job in Michigan and return to Erie.
Becca Martin, you might remember, left her job at the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership last summer to take a position as the head of the chamber […]

Ian Enterline’s post on The People Demand It! about the vacant retail buildings along West 12th Street by the Peninsula, near West 38th and Liberty streets, and on East 38th Street and Pine Avenue raises some interesting questions.
It also introduces a topic we haven’t talked much about in this venue — namely the hollowing out […]

John Horan at the Erie Housing Authority has been kind enough to provide us with a link to Erie Renewable Energy’s application with the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Here’s the report.
You can read it for yourself and make your own determination on what it means.
I’m not an expert on these issues, so I’m hoping […]

The Erie Housing Authority played host to a news conference today to call attention to its opposition to the proposed tires-to-energy plant.
You can read the organization’s press release for yourselves, but I’ll pull out two quotes from Erie Housing Authority Executive Director John Horan to give a sense of how strongly the organization opposes the […]

Thanks to Julio Reyes for pointing out the Erie Times-News story on the departure of Monica Brower.
Brower, as many of you might know, has been working for the Economic Development Corp. of Erie County for the past 10 years — most recently as its chief executive officer. She is leaving the organization to take a […]

You can find lists of the boards of directors of most of Erie’s authorities, trade groups, and nonprofit organizations online.
VisitErie, however, doesn’t list its board online.
Chris Pennsy, who oversees communications for the tourism agency, said that will change soon.
But, in the meantime, here’s a list of who is on board.
Chairwoman — Char Mashyna (Arts Council […]

We had a lot of great discussions this week, which made it difficult to pick a single top comment.
But I ended up choosing the following item from GlobalErie reader Jim, who raised some questions about plans to improve Tullio Arena. Those plans haven’t gotten much attention in this forum, but I’m hoping Jim will be […]

One of Erie’s biggest problems is sprawl.
It seems difficult to imagine that a community of Erie’s size would be characterized by suburban sprawl, but when you think about it, there are few parts of the Erie area that are pedestrian friendly.
I used to drive everywhere when I lived there. Here in the D.C. area, things […]