Hershey, PA- Home to the Famous Chocolate Company and now a Sattelite Suburb of Harrisburg

I only included the walkable core of Hershey in this evaluation which is generally bound by Hockersville Rd to the west, Homestead to the east, Governor Rd to the south and the railroad tracks to the north. in the center and eastern parts of Derry Township

The town was founded by Hershey in 1903 for the company’s workers, and their homes had modern amenities. The town, however, has remained unincorporated and has always technically been part of Derry Township. The purpose of Hershey was to create a utopian worker town in a bucolic setting. This utopia however was shattered in 1937 with a strike and occupation at the chocolate factory, which ended violently when some strikers were severely beaten by a rally loyal to the company. Hershey did recover from this traumatic event and continued to grow and open up the amusement park to general visitors (as opposed to only Hershey Employees).

The core of Hershey is a decent urban environment with a small main street along Chocolate Ave, with the recent construction of Hershey Towne Square as a decent walkable shopping area. Lots of idyllic early 20th century single family American homes that have been well kept and retain their values. Hershey also has good suburb amenities including great parks, a rec center, quality schools, and safety. With the urbanization of its Downtown area, Hershey now has good retail and cultural amenities. For Hershey to become a better urban and walkable environment it needs better public transit and bike amenities, more apartment buildings, much more density and more urban infill and the conversion of 422 into a functional urban corridor.

Click here to view my Hershey album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

• Access to Dwtn Harrisburg isn’t great from Hershey but a good number of jobs in Hershey isn’t albeit not with great public transit access.
• Pretty good ADA and sidewalk infrastructure. Sidewalks are consistent. ADA curb cuts are consistent along the biz district but exist on about 1/2 of all residential intersections.
• Excellent schools in Hershey, which isn’t a surprise as this was a major priority of Milton Hershey and his legacy. All schools are located just southeast of the Hershey core, so walkable to many residents. The Milton Hershey Boarding school is also here, which provides free education to around 2K orphans.
• Hershey is a very safe community with limited blight.
• For sale housing is on the high side but decent diversity with a fair # of 2-bed condos/townhouses selling btwn 150K-500K, 3 & 4 beds sell btwn 300K and 800K with some mansions selling the low to made 1Ms.
• Good but not great tree cover in Hershey.
• Attractive historic homes in Hershey but not spectacular. Several historic institutions with grand architecture but few historic commercial building. Recently decent urban downtown in-fill has been constructed but still a decent amount of auto centric uses.
• Great parks in Hershey including a large rec center, which is surrounded by extensive parks amenities (playground, tennis courts, ballfields), and a nice dwtn plaza (Chocolate town Park). Also extensive recreational spaces just outside of the Hershey core (Hershey Zoo, Hershey Gardens, Founders Park, Hershey Country Club, and Hershey Theme Park).
• Much of Hershey’s cultural amenities are located on the edge of town requiring a car but a good array of restaurants, bars, cafes, the Hershey Story Museum, the Historic Hershey Theater, and a couple brew pubs).
• Also decent retail amenities including a supermarket, Fresh Market (includes many local shops and farmer’s market vendors), a couple drug stores, several boutiques & gift shops, several banks, a couple florists, several dessert spots & a couple gyms, plenty of churches, a central post office and public library just on the edge of town, a couple doctor’s office and a major hospital sits on the south eastern edge of town.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• Public transit is pretty limited in Hershey.
• Not great density for an urban area.
• Some dedicated bike lanes in Hershey but they don’t connect to Dwtn Hershey nor Harrisburg.
• Rental product is moderately priced but just not a lot of it as few apartments exist in the center city.
• Historically Hershey’s urban form and streetscaping has been pretty autocentric along 422 (the main thoroughfare going through Dwtn) but there has been some recent improvements to the Downtown core with new streetscaping and decent in-fill buildings along Chocolate Ave. Quality urban form does start to drop off along 422 outside of this core.”