Journeying Geographer: Day 31: The Rust Belt: Reading, Pennsylvania

I’m staying a couple of nights with some friends of my family, and it was nice last night to be in a home instead of a hotel for the first time in a month! Bill is a retired high school biology teacher (as is my dad, which is how they met – they were in graduate school together for a couple of summers in Montana when I was but a wee lad). He and his wife Joan have lived in the same house since 1960, which is located less than a block from the high school where he taught for 35 years. He grew up in the area, so I had a good guide, as well as a much-needed break from driving.

Bill and I headed out this morning to explore the local landscape. Being a biologist, he first took me to Blue Marsh Lake, a popular area for wildlife enthusiasts and boaters (which was fine with me, since biology is a very important subfield of geography!). The lake is actually a reservoir created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1974 when they built an earth fill dam for flood control, water supply, and recreation. Located on Tulpehocken Creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill River, the water level was down somewhat due to the recent dry conditions here. We visited four areas: a boat ramp and viewpoint, the stilling basin just below the dam, a visitor center at an overlook near the dam, and a park and picnic grounds. Being a Wednesday in October, each area was nearly deserted, but Bill assured me that on summer weekends there are throngs of people.

We then drove past fields of corn, soybeans, and hay and ventured to the city of Reading. The city population is only about 90,000, but with its many suburbs, the metropolitan area is about 415,000, which is slightly larger than Salem’s metro area (about 395,000). It is typical of one of the older industrial cities in America's former manufacturing core in the Northeast. Now the region is often referred to as the “Rustbelt,” so-called because the once robust iron and steel and other heavy manufacturing industries collapsed decades ago (mostly by the 1980s). Many old industrial buildings are vacant or have been repurposed. For example, a former textile mill in the area is now an outlet shopping center. Streets are lined with row houses and old brick homes and buildings. According to the 2010 U.S. census, Reading has the highest percentage of its people living in poverty in the country. It is probably best known as being one of the four railroad properties in the Monopoly board game. The Reading Railroad, which no longer operates, was named after the city. It transported anthracite coal from the nearby coal mining region to iron and steel mills.

Still, the area is situated in a scenic area of the Appalachians with low mountains, long ridges, and hardwood forests. The Pagoda on Mt. Penn overlooks the city, and is lit red at night with lights. The peeling bark of the sycamore trees and the stately homes in some of the nicer residential areas made our drive outside the city center quite enjoyable.