Lonzie Cox – 3/14/06

This page was last updated on March 19, 2006.

A disastrous trend for city; Lonzie Cox; Beaver County Times; March 14, 2006. I am not related to Mr. Cox.

Given Mr. Cox’s obsession with race displayed in most of his letters, I’m surprised he didn’t allege racial discrimination of some kind. You see, blacks make up about 18% of Beaver Falls’ population but only about 1% of Chippewa’s population.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“This year’s Progress edition was very interesting. In the section titled ‘Room to Grow,’ The Times reported that places like Chippewa Township have grown while surrounding towns like Beaver Falls have declined. The transportation system was cited as a major factor, as were schools.”

[RWC] I didn’t read the articles referenced by Mr. Cox, so I don’t know what he means by transportation system. If this is about mass transit, let’s go back in time a bit.

When I was a kid, a variety of private railroad and bus companies met Beaver County mass transit needs. After World War II, as more and more people bought cars, bus and train ridership gradually dropped. Local train service was the first to die due to a lack of customers. Eventually, in the early 1970s I believe, the last of the local bus companies died off due to a lack of riders.

Today’s mass transit systems are run by quasi-governmental agencies, like the Beaver County Transit Authority (BCTA). All of these transit authorities require subsidization by non-riders because riders refuse to pay the full cost of their transportation. Needless to say, I oppose mass transit systems that don’t pay for themselves via fares.

“OK, but what about the businesses that have moved from Beaver Falls to Chippewa in recent years? It would be interesting to know since suburban growth is often directly proportional to the shrinkage of the downtown economies. It’s like an economic form of dog eat dog.”

[RWC] Where has Mr. Cox been for the last 50 years? Further, what Mr. Cox describes has been going on since the beginning of time. Over time, municipalities grow and shrink for any number of reasons. For example, consider the western towns that grew up around a mine of some kind that are now ghost towns. In this area, the towns grew primarily because of coal, steel, and related businesses (barge, zinc, steel production equipment, et cetera) and river access. Those businesses are gone for the most part, river access is not quite as important anymore, and our business environment has not encouraged replacement businesses.

The idea that areas within the U.S. compete with each other for population and business is a lesson liberals like Mr. Cox never seem to grasp. If they did, why would they constantly push for more local and state taxes, business- and worker-hostile state labor laws, unnecessary state business regulation, et cetera?

“The most recent catastrophe in this context was the sudden announcement, around the Christmas season, that Citizens Bank will close its downtown Beaver Falls branch office and merge it into the Chippewa branch. The Beaver Falls office would close on March 31.

“That has been a disastrous trend for the citizens of Beaver Falls in the recent past. One business after another has left our downtown to add to the ‘progress’ of Chippewa Township - Snodgrass Accounting, Eat ‘N Park Restaurant, Comcast Cable, etc.”

[RWC] Business is leaving – and has been leaving for decades – because people are leaving. I don’t have the exact figure for the high point of Beaver Falls’ population, but it’s my recollection it peaked at something like 25,000 in the early to mid-1970s. As of 2004, the estimate was about 9,500. When you lose over 60% of your population, you should expect to lose the businesses as well. After all, businesses need a critical mass of customers to survive. Aliquippa has the same problem, only worse.

To put the dismal growth – shrinkage actually – of this area into context, consider the following. While Beaver County’s population (2004) dropped 14% since 1970 and continues to fall, PA’s population increased 5.2% and the U.S. population increased 44.4%.

“In the case of Citizens Bank, it seems reasonable that it could leave our ATM in place for at least a set amount of time to spare its customers the drive to Rochester or Chippewa. I have contacted state Rep. Mike Veon and state Sen. Gerald LaValle in this matter, and both have promised to help if they can.”

[RWC] Unless Citizens wants to do charity work, it’ll keep an ATM in place only if the business it generates at least pays the cost of maintaining the ATM.