A Tale of Two Eries

I was driving across West 12th Street on Easter with my father-in-law who lives out of town. As we entered the West Erie Plaza area he mentioned, "Boy, there are alot of closed up buildings here." As I looked around at the old BP, Shebang, Eckards, and countless other properies complete with "For Lease/Sale" signs, it occured to me that when it comes to retail and economic activity, there are two Eries.
The one we hear and brag about is the Erie of upper Peach Street. The Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy retail district, plus all of the Scott Enterprises hotels, restaurants and Splash Lagoon. It's the Erie that people from outside Erie County know...those people with excess discretionary income. Thank God they come here!
Then there's the other Erie, the funky, boarded up, broke Erie. West Erie Plaza, Liberty Plaza, even parts of the Millcreek Mall (what happened to SteinMart, the Regal cinemas, Ames, Blair outlet). This is the Erie of the dollar store and Value City. It's a real, troubling picture of our true economic condition, and it should concern everyone regionally.
Notice that most of the boarded up places I mentioned are in what's supposed to be coveted Millcreek. I think the township has definately peaked, and is being passed by in favor of Summit for commercial development, and Fairview and Edinboro for residential. I've been saying for 10 years now that with the money available from the federal and state governments, the urban core will experience renewal, but the immediate suburbs will suffer, creating a donut effect of vital core, surrounded by trouble, then wealth in the sprawling distant townships.
It's lousy planning, of course, but no one seems to have a will to really get tough with a comprehensive county-wide growth, or maybe it should be called a counter-stagnation plan.
What my father-in-law saw is the true indicator of the really poor condition of our regional economy, and the need of a regional approach to development, tax policy, and getting our economy moving.