Lancaster City Bucks National Trend

In a story that appeared in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era today, the Lancaster City Council Finance Committee touted the city’s recent positive trends in real estate activity and growth:

Despite a significant decline in the real estate market nationally, the city saw only a 0.5 percent drop in real estate transfer taxes last year.  That shows a strong interest in living in the city.

And, the transfer tax decrease comes from comparing 2008 to the previous three-year average.  Those three comparison years, 2005-2007, happened to be the city’s best three years ever.

And the city experienced a 10-year high in the number of building permits issued, with $115 million in new construction activity in 2008.  That level of investment is the third highest in city history, behind only 2006 and 2007.

New businesses are opening downtown, redevelopment is continuing in the northwestern quadrant of the city and the new Lancaster County Convention Center and Marriott Lancaster at Penn Square Hotel recently opened. ¹

This is great news and should be shared with all Lancastrians - – - so why did it appear on page B4 buried at the bottom of the page?  The front page of the newspaper ran the following four stories:

1. Jurors Hear 911 Call – Story about a local murder trial (negative slant).
2. Good Man Who Got Greedy is Jailed – Story about a banker who swindled friends and customers (negative slant).
3. Fumo Gets 55 Months in Prison – Story about sentencing of Pennsylvania lawmaker for corruption (negative slant).
4. Welcome Back , Potter – Frivolous piece about the latest installment of J.K. Rowlings’s newest movie (fluffy slant).

Surely the powers that control which stories that are run on page one of the Intell/NE  could have found a small corner of the front page to trumpet the accomplishments of its own city?  I guess that’s the reason why I’m not working at LNP as a newspaper editor.

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¹ Harris, Bernard. “City Audit Shows Positives and Negatives.” Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era [Lancaster, PA] 15 July 2009, Metro Edition, Local Section : B4.