Outside Erie

When we left Erie last fall to move down here to the Washington, DC, area, we decided to rent.
We had owned a nice home in Erie, but I thought it would be smart to rent a house for a year or two down here so we could find out what part of the area we […]

Where I live near Washington, DC, public transportation is huge.
Many people — even those who can afford not to — take the bus, or a commuter train, or a subway to and from work. Many people have ditched their cars altogether.
In Erie, however, public transportation has a stigma — a point that was hammered home […]

What should be the next step for improving Erie’s downtown?
The Erie Times-News this morning talks about that issue in the context of the Downtown Improvement District — the organization that collects assessments on downtown businesses and uses that money to plan events and take care of maintenance.
The Downtown Improvement District has done some good work […]

It’s been a week of interesting debates about community colleges, taxes, and outsourcing.
But one of the most interesting GlobalErie debates has focused on the call in some quarters of the community to get nonprofits to make payments to government in lieu of taxes.
Joel Natalie, the author of of the Erie blog Radio Free JoJo has […]

I spoke with John Kanzius earlier today and he confirmed that research at MD Anderson Cancer Center that centers on his radio-frequency treatment for cancer is about to be published in a major medical journal.
In fact, he confirmed that it will be published in the December edition of Cancer.
The publication of this manuscript could turn […]

Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University, recently offered this interesting look at the gradual decline of Buffalo, N.Y.’s, economy in the New York Sun.
The parallels between the Buffalo Glaeser describes in his essay and the Erie we all know and love are easy to draw.
Erie, after all, has followed a similar […]

It’s nice to see some real discussion about creating a viable community college in the Erie area.
Erie, as we’ve said before, has a high concentration of students who leave the area to attend 4-year colleges and never return.
It also has a glut of skilled jobs that require specialized training — the kind of training that […]

Why has Erie been losing businesses and jobs while the rest of the nation has been growing?
Take a look at this essay today in The American Spectator by Robert Morris University economics professor Ralph R. Reiland for one theory.
Reiland uses Pittsburgh as his case study, but he might as well substitute Erie into the piece, […]

GlobalErie blogger Ashley Weber last week introduced readers to a tradition that some of her friends from Erie started several years ago.
On Green Apple, Weber describes a tradition called “Beard Season” — an annual ritual in which this group of guys agree to grow out their beards from Oct. 1 through Thanksgiving. The night before […]

Erie has flirted with trying to require wealthier nonprofits to make payments in lieu of taxes to local government municipalities.
A much more substantial effort is also underway in Pittsburgh.
But lest you think this issue is confined to western Pennsylvania, check out this report that shows that several communities in the greater Boston area are also […]