This video is an outline of what can be done to change empty parking lots to viable living and commercial space:
The Atlanta Georgia metropolitan area is a transportation, water quality/water availability and quality of life nightmare. The recent disaster caused by 2.6 inches of snow in Georgia is just one example.
The retrofits such as suburban malls and shopping centers to residential/commercial "downtowns" are much easier to do in the Delaware Valley. We have clean water and already in place rail transportation. We only need to beef up rail transportation, link public transit to the rails, retrofit empty shopping centers and connect the dots.
I think people in Coatesville need to get over living and working in the same place. That worked OK when Lukens Steel had company built housing and steelworkers walked to work in the late 19th Century and early to mid 20th Century. Employment is global now. Get over it.
What we need in Coatesville and all of Western Chester County is effective public transit.
Did you ever ride the painted over school bus that is the bus link from Coatesville to West Chester?
Did you ever ride a bus from Coatesville to the Thorndale SEPTA Train Station to find that you missed the train by 5 minutes and the next one is in 55 minutes?
Linking buses to train schedules is not rocket science. But it doesn't happen in Western Chester County.
Why does it take decades to get SEPTA service to Coatesville, Parkesburg and Atglen. The tracks and signaling are ready.
The SEPTA rail cars are being built in Canada. U.S. train cars aren't being built, thank your congressman and the Bushes.
The only real roadblock to effective public transit in Western Chester County is politics.
Just a side note:
A few years ago my wife and I lived in the Mt. Airy Philadelphia neighborhood. The entire Delaware Valley was socked in by a massive snowstorm. But the SEPTA Chestnut Hill Train lines were running. A restaurant in Chestnut Hill was debating whether to bother opening. They did open and had a historic turnout of customers.
And back then PECO maintained the power lines and cutting trees near power lines not EXELON.
There are plenty of major cities that don't shut down for something as mundane as snow. They are covered in snow for most of the winter. All of those cities have public transit and effective electric power.
