Pennsylvania Downtown Center (PDC) is honored to recognize the 28 Pennsylvania downtowns earning national Accreditation status, the top tier of recognition by Main Street America™. This exclusive designation signifies a demonstrated commitment to comprehensive community revitalization and a proven track record of successfully applying the Main Street Approach™. We also congratulate the ten downtowns who have achieved the Affiliate status indicating that these programs are on the pathway to achieving meaningful economic, social, physical, and organizational improvements in their downtowns and commercial districts.

“We are thrilled to acknowledge this year’s Accredited and Affiliate programs and their dedication to advancing economic opportunity and quality of life in their downtowns,” said Patrice Frey, President & CEO of Main Street America. “During an incredibly challenging year, these programs have demonstrated the power of the Main Street movement to champion small businesses, drive recovery efforts, and lift up their communities. I am inspired by their efforts and know that these Main Street programs will continue to help their districts flourish in the next stages of recovery.

In 2020, Main Street America programs in Pennsylvania generated over $ 41.1 million in local reinvestment, helped open 167 net new businesses, generated 243 net new full time and 152 net part time jobs, catalyzed the rehabilitation of 118 historic buildings, and clocked over 18,000 volunteer hours.  

“During a year of continuous change, our Pennsylvania Main Street programs have been a constant reminder of dedicated and committed service to maintaining thriving local businesses and vibrant communities. These programs have been part of the recovery efforts from the very beginning of the pandemic, and they continue to be the boots on the ground resource that their business districts have come to rely on,” says Julie Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Downtown Center. “As we are emerging from the effects of the pandemic, many of our communities are looking at ways to reinvent themselves with a creative, resourceful, and inventive approach, and Main Street gives them the tools to do so.”

Pennsylvania Main Street programs are the lifeblood of our local communities and both state and national reinvestment statistics continue to indicate their critical importance. Since the early 1980’s, Pennsylvania’s Main Street program participants have provided crucial on-the-ground support for local businesses, particularly those in smaller and more rural communities—attracting more than $1.75 billion in public and private investment, creating over 24,000 net new jobs and over 7,300 net new businesses.

Accredited Main Street programs are evaluated annually by their coordinating program. PDC, the coordinating program of Main Street America™ programs in Pennsylvania, is proud to see these downtowns acknowledged for their determination to meet Main Street principles. Evaluation criteria determines the communities that are building comprehensive and sustainable revitalization efforts and include standards such as fostering strong public-private partnerships, documenting programmatic progress, and actively rehabilitating historic buildings. Learn more.

Pennsylvania Programs

Main Street America Accredited™

PA DCED South East Region

• Ardmore Initiative
• Lansdowne Economic Development Corp.
• Main Street Mount Joy
• Quakertown Alive!
• Venture Lititz

PA DCED North East Region

• Danville Business Alliance
• Diamond City Partnership (Wilkes-Barre)
• Downtown Hazleton Alliance for Progress
• Downtown Shenandoah Inc.

PA DCED Lehigh Valley Region

• Building A Better Boyertown
• Easton Main Street Initiative
• Our Town Foundation (Hamburg)

PA DCED Central Region

• Downtown Bellefonte Inc.
• Downtown Lewistown Inc.
• Lewisburg Downtown Partnership
• Lewisburg Neighborhoods Corp.
• Main Street Gettysburg
• Main Street Hanover

PA DCED South West Region

• Castle Shannon Revitalization Corp
• Downtown Bedford Inc.
• Downtown Washington BDA
• Ebensburg Main Street Partnership
• Mount Lebanon Partnership
• Waynesburg Prosperous & Beautiful

PA DCED North West Region

• City of Bradford
• Clearfield Revitalization Corp.
• Erie Downtown Partnership
• Oil City Main Street Program

Pennsylvania Programs

Main Street America Affiliates™

• City of Pittston
• Downtown Carlisle Association
• Downtown Chambersburg Inc.
• Downtown Lebanon
• Downtown State College
• Mainstreet Waynesboro
• Somerset Inc.
• Scranton Tomorrow
• West Chester BID
• West Reading Community Revitalization Foundation

About Pennsylvania Downtown Center

Founded in 1987, the mission of Pennsylvania Downtown Center is to build and support the capacity of local nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and individuals to enhance the overall well-being and sustainability of Pennsylvania’s communities. PDC accomplishes this mission by engaging local community leaders and volunteers, and educating them, to advance the sense of place, quality of life and economic vitality of the Commonwealth’s downtowns, traditional neighborhood business districts and nearby residential areas.

From Modern Healthcare

The steep rise in rural hospital closures over the past decade is hurting many emergency medical service providers, worrying public experts tracking response times.

The average length of ambulance trips increased by 22% among municipally-run, EMS agencies and 10% among privately-owned providers between 2012 and 2018 in locations where a recent rural hospital closure took place, according to a new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

The actual number of trips those providers made did not change during the study period. But the analysis found rural EMS providers decreased their number of non-emergency and inter-facility transfer trips by 31%. Lead study author Sayeh Nikpay, associate professor in the division of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said the drop in planned trips made it harder for EMS providers to dispatch ambulances in a way that ensured communities had adequate coverage.

“Taking someone from the community to a hospital-based clinic is more predictable and has the benefit of bringing people in the community access to their primary care,” Nikpay said.

Nikpay said the burden of hospital closures is particularly acute among municipal EMS providers. While private firms have the option to discontinue providing ambulance services when it no longer is financially viable, municipal agencies are forced to adjust, which Nikpay said often leads to limited resources and personnel that can affect the quality of those services.

“It’s difficult for EMS agencies to retain people, to recruit new people, and the people that are there feel a lot of strain,” Nikpay said.

Researchers said the problems facing rural public EMS agencies is a growing public health concern. It’s putting more wear and tear on their equipment and increasing the “dead time” being spent traveling back to ambulance bases. EMS providers also have less time to restock and maintain vehicles.

Nikpay said the strain on rural EMS providers has only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Last year, 19 rural hospitals closed, according to figures from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the highest number for a single year since the center began tracking. Overall, 180 rural hospitals have closed since 2005, with more than three-fourths occurring since 2010.

Nikpay said the study’s findings suggest policymakers need to also look at ways of supporting EMS providers when addressing issues related to bolstering the country’s rural healthcare system.

“We shouldn’t just be thinking about the hospitals when we talk about rural healthcare, we should also think about the EMS agencies as well,” Nikpay said.

In 2009, the last time federal agencies gave away billions of dollars for broadband, there were two agencies tasked with dispensing roughly $3.5 billion each. They had a year and a half to do what was then considered miracle work pushing that that much money out the door that quickly. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty, but they got it done.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for dispersing more than three times as much money through E-rate and the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) programs. The money comes with a mandate to act as quickly as possible.

So things are predictably frantic, the rules are not particularly clear, and there’s a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about incumbents (the local telecommunications companies that were in place before deregulation in 1996) lining up at the “socialist trough.”

Read more.

Although the U.S. saw its lowest birth rate in 50 years in 2020, that may not necessarily mean a dramatic decline in rural populations.

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 3.6 million babies were born last year in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas, the study said, a decline of four percent over 2019. It’s the sixth year in a row that birth rates have declined.

That puts the U.S. total fertility rate, an estimate of how many babies a group of 1,000 women would have during their lifetime, at “below replacement” levels.