Photo: Crossing a bridge to another state means lower prices.Right now I am somewhat depressed. And I can't help but wonder if where I live has something to do with it. I reside in a small town, Port Jervis, NY, where people lived in a recession well before housing prices crashed and they are now in a depression.
For example, the other day, the remains of what was once a thriving strip mall featuring a K-Mart decades ago was taken over by the bank. We lost a Rite Aid – the town’s only chain drug store – plus a dollar store, pizza place, and nail salon. We don’t have a McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, or much else. There are plenty of banks near the post office; and there is a Save-A-Lot food store. There is one gas station (where there used to be a half dozen) but it survives mainly through repairs and as an Avis car rental operation.
Much of the problem is an accident of geography. Some is a matter of politics. But both lead to poverty.
Port Jervis was once a thriving town. It is the end of the railroad line into New York, and its riverfront along the Delaware River was once a booming port, as barges floated agricultural goods downriver to Philadelphia. After the Second World War, the area attracted tourists with its beautiful scenery and location close to the Catskill and Pocono Mountains. Yet it continues to have an ever-increasing number of empty stores while the stores in the neighboring towns thrive.
But those neighboring towns are in other states. Port Jervis is where the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all meet. The other states offer far less taxes. As soon as you cross the line into New Jersey, there are four gas stations offering prices up to 60 cents per gallon less. No rational person gets their gas in town. In that area is also a small shopping center – about the size of the one that closed down the other day – and it thrives with a ShopRite supermarket, TJ Maxx clothing store, GNC, furniture store, a dollar store and pizza place.
Go across the bridge into Pennsylvania and you’ll find the K-Mart that left town, a Home Depot and Lowes, Staples, a movie complex, and further down is a Wal-Mart. Restaurants abound. Why did the K-Mart end up there? New York has a sales tax on clothes. Pennsylvania does not. You can’t compete with Wal-Mart if your clothes are nine percent higher.
Even the small things are an issue. You have to make an effort to find a carton of Coke or Pepsi. There are no deposits in our neighboring states.
A part of the downtown area has tried to revive itself with about a half dozen antique shops. But go about 6 miles to Milford, PA and you will find a much more attractive area. You don’t have to deal with limited parking and the general gloom of closed stores.
Without retail revenue, the town is just about broke. There is a cosmetics factory, the towns largest employer, that was planning to leave town and the town and county worked out a deal to keep the factory here with tax incentives. The town’s largest ratable is paying practically nothing in order to save the jobs. Speaking of jobs, the local newspaper reports today that a nearby state prison is going to close, losing more than 300 jobs for the area. How can a state known for its overcrowded and violent prisons, shut one down?
And as stores close, homes are abandoned. This summer, you could purchase at least a couple of dozen houses between $30 and $50 thousand. And yes, you would pay more in taxes than your mortgage. In New York, Port Jervis is surrounded by a town called Deerpark (one word). A rural area, Deerpark’s taxes are much lower as town fathers don’t provide things like city water and sewers. School taxes are much more economical as there is a larger population. Port Jervis has a K-12 district but the tax base is much smaller, thus more dollars per taxpayer.
So what am I getting to here? I haven’t a clue. If the Republicans get what they want, senior citizens, who constitute a significant part of the town’s population with more than 200 apartments in two complexes, will lose both income and Medicare benefits. And the hospital that serves the area could shut down as well since Medicare and Medicaid cuts seem to be an issue. And the Democrats stance is to spend our way out of it.
My thoughts about the whole thing are simple: get the hell out of Afghanistan. Today. We got bin Laden. Who gives a rat’s ass about an incredibly corrupt government?
But then, no one listens to me anyway.
