Scranton

Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming Valley, and the ScrantonWilkes-BarreHazleton Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 562,037 as of 2020. The city was incorporated on February 14, 1856, as a borough in Luzerne County and as a city on April 23, 1866. It became a major industrial city and a center of mining and railroads; it attracted thousands of new immigrants. The Knox Mine disaster of 1959 essentially ended coal mining in the region. It is home to a federal court building for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The area was long inhabited by the native Lenape tribe, from whose language "Lackackawanna" (or lac-a-wa-na, meaning stream that forks) is derived. In 1778, Isaac Tripp, the area's first known settler, built his home here; it still stands in his honor. More settlers from Connecticut came to the area in the late 18th and early 19th centuries after the American Revolutionary War. Some settlers participated in what was known as the Pennamite Wars, where settlers competed for control of the territory, which had been included in royal grants to both New England and Pennsylvania. In 1878, the city was designated as the county seat when Lackawanna County was established in 1878. It now has large health care, academic, and manufacturing sectors.

History

Scranton is the primary city name, but also Dunmore are acceptable city names or spellings. The official name is City of Scranton. Scranton and its surrounding area had been long inhabited by the native Lenape tribe, from whose language "Lackawanna" (or lac-a-wa-na, meaning "stream that forks") is derived. In 1778, Isaac Tripp, the area's first known white settler, built his home here; it still stands in North Scranton, formerly a separate town known as Providence. More settlers from Connecticut came to the area in the late 18th and early 19th centuries after the American Revolutionary War, as their state claimed this area as part of their colonial charter. In the 1840s, brothers Selden T. and George W. Scrant on, who had worked at Oxford Furnace in Oxford, New Jersey, founded what became Lackawanna Iron & Coal, later developing as the Lackawannas Steel Company. In 1851, the Scrantons built the Lackwanna and Western Railroad (L&W) northward, with recent Irish immigrants supplying most of the labor, to meet the Erie Railroad in Great Bend, Pennsylvania. They also invested in coal mining operations in the city to fuel their steel operations, and to market it to businesses. From 1860 to 1900, the city's population increased more than tenfold. It was incorporated as a city of 35,000 in 1866 in Luzerne County, when the surrounding boroughs of Hyde Park (now part of the West Side's West Side) and Providence were merged. Twelve years later in 1878, the state passed a law enabling creation of counties where a county's population surpassed 150,000.

Geography

Scranton has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), with four distinct seasons. Summers have occasional heat waves bringing temperatures well above 90 °F (32 °C), while winters can have cold snaps bringing temperatures below 0 °C. On average, each month sees 10 to 13 days of precipitation, and the mean annual total is 38.72 inches (983 mm) Snowfall is variable, with some winters bringing light snow and others bringing numerous snowstorms. For the 1991-2020 period, snowfall has averaged 45.1 inches (115 cm) per year, with January accounting for the most of the seasonal total. Scranton is drained by the Lackawanna River.Center City is about 750 feet (229 m) above sea level, although the hilly city's inhabited portions range about from 650 to 1,400 feet (200 to 430 m) The city is flanked by mountains to the east and west whose elevations range from 1,900 to 2,100 feet (580 to 640 m). Scrantan has a total area of 25.4 square miles (66 km²), including 25.2 square miles of land and 0.2 sq miles (0.52 km²) of water, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city has a population of 1.2 million (1.3 million people) and is located in the northeastern part of the Pennsylvania Bootheel, which is the largest bootheel in the United States.

Demographics

As of the 2010 census, there were 76,089 people, 30,069 households, and 18,124 families residing in the city. The city had 36.7% of its households with single occupancy and 18.1% whose individuals was aged at least 65. As of the 2006 American Community Survey, the average family size is 2.95. Of the population that's 25 years old and over, 83.3% have graduated from high school. In labor force (population 16 years and over), 57.6% of them work. The per capita income (in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars) is $17,187. Found below the poverty line are 15.0% of the population, 18.9% of those under age 18 and 12.0 per cent of those at least age 65. The largest ancestry of the city is Irish, making up 26.5 per cent. The median income for a household was $28,805, and the median income. for a family was $41,642. The average household size was 2.29 and the average. family size was 3.01. The population density was 3,006/mi2 (1,161/km²). There were 33,853 housing units at an average density of 1,342/ mi2 (518/ km²). The racial makeup of theCity was 84.11% White, 5.45% African American, 0.23% Native American, 2.98% Asian,0.04% Pacific Islander, 4.69% from other races, and 2.49% from two or more races.

Arts and culture

Scranton is home to the Scranton Times Tower, a lattice radio tower on the Times building, which is illuminated during Christmas season. The city is the home to numerous artistic organizations, including the Scanton Fringe Festival and La Festa Italiana. Montage Mountain Ski Resort, known as Sno Mountain for a short period, rivals the numerous resorts of the Poconos in popularity and offers a relatively comprehensive range of difficulty levels. The 26.2-mile (42.2 km) Steamtown Marathon has been held each October since 1996 and finishes in downtown Scrant on the Lackawanna Station Hotel. The tallest building in Scrantan is the Scrantson Times tower, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also laid out Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. As of 2008, the city's libraries serve more than 96,000 people and have a circulation of over 547,000, with the largest library system in the U.S. being the Nancy Kay Holmes Library, which serves more than 547, 000 people. The largest public park in the city is Nay Aug Park, designed by Olmstead and named for the park's first owner, William Nay Aug, a 19th-century local resident. Scranten's primary concert venue is the Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountains, a partially covered amphitheater that seats 17,500 people. Its summer concerts have included James Taylor, Dave Matthews Band and many other musical acts.

Sports

Scranton's professional sports date to 1887, when the minor-league Scranton Indians became the city's first professional baseball team. The city played host to professional ice hockey in 1999. The Electric City Shock SC semi-professional soccer team was founded in 2013 as part of the National Premier Soccer League. The Skyliners Drum and Bugle Corps is a professional marching drum corps in the Drum Corps Associates circuit. The NEPA Shock are a Semi-Pro/Minor League team that currently operate out of the Dickson City borough. In 2012, the city playedhost to the ScrantON/Wilkes-Barre Steamers of the Premier Basketball League. In 2018, the Scrantson Shamrocks joined the American Basketball Association (2000present), once again bringing professional basketball to the region. Watres Armory hosted a World Heavyweight Championship fight between titlist Larry Holmes and challenger Lucien Rodrigues of France on March 27, 1983. The team won the title via a unanimous 12-round decision without losing a single round in any official scorecard. The Scrantons are a member of the Pennsylvania State League, Eastern League, Atlantic League, New York State League and the New YorkPennsylvania League. They have won numerous awards for their performances, including national and world open titles. They compete with other corps throughout the nation, as well as play multiple community parades, events and performances. They play at the University of Scranten's Fitzpatrick Field.

Education

The city's public schools are operated by the Scranton School District (SSD), which serves almost 10,000 students. The city has two public high schools for grades 912 and three public middle schools. The Pennsylvania Department of Education provides oversight for the Scanton School for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children. Scrant on Prep and Yeshiva Bais Moshe are two private high schools. Penn Foster High School, a distance education high school, is headquartered in the city. The University of ScrantON, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Johnson College, Lackawanna College, Marywood University, and two technical schools, Fortis Institute and The Career Technology Center of Lackawana County are based in the area. The Lackawannan League is a part of District 2 of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. LCCC, a community college operating out of Nanticoke in Luzerne County, operates a satellite campus at The Marketplace at Steamtown. The Penn State University operates a Commonwealth Campus, Penn State Scrantan, north of the city, in the borough of Dunmore. The Pennsylvania State School for the Deaf, a state-run school, was replaced by the Scranton School for Deaf and Hard-of Hearing Children in 2009. The school is a private Catholic high school operated by the Diocese of Scanton.

Infrastructure

The main highways that serve Scranton are Interstate 81, Interstate 84, Interstate 380, Interstate 476/Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension, and U.S. Route 11. The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport is located in nearby Avoca. The city was a hub, serving the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Delaware and Hudson Railway, the Erie Railroad, and the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad (LWV), with routes radiating in all directions, to New York State's Southern Tier, to several points in Pennsylvania, and to parts in northern New Jersey. Regular passenger train service is slated to be restored under a plan to extend NJ Transit service from Hoboken via the Lackwanna Cut-Off in New Jersey as a new station is being built at a new Lackawannas Avenue station. Scrantan's fire department has nine fire engines, two rescue trucks, one rescue, and an assistant chief's vehicle's headquarters is located on North Washington Avenue. It is a full-time service consisting of about 139 firefighters, including five rescue vehicles. The police department was incorporated in 1901 and has a headquarters on Mulberry Street in Central City. It has seven operating fire stations and has seven firefighting vehicles, including seven fire engines and two fire trucks. It also has a police special forces unit, which is based in the city's Central City area. The fire department's headquarters are located on Washington Avenue in Central city.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania = 38. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 75. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 10. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Scranton = 3.6 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 76,328 individuals with a median age of 39.3 age the population dropped by -4.97% in Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 3,015.96 residents per square mile of area (1,164.49/km²). There are average 2.21 people per household in the 30,372 households with an average household income of $34,261 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 9.70% of the available work force and has dropped -4.78% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 20.74%. The number of physicians in Scranton per 100,000 population = 244.2.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Scranton = 36 inches and the annual snowfall = 30.4 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 129. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 174. 84 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 19.8 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 51, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania which are owned by the occupant = 48.37%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 41.1 years with median home cost = $105,730 and home appreciation of 0.16%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $15.00 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $6,585 per student. There are 15.2 students for each teacher in the school, 763 students for each Librarian and 496 students for each Counselor. 5.47% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 9.69% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 5.91% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).