Scranton’s South Side- Center of the City’s growing Hispanic Community and one of Scranton’s most Urban Communities

Scranton’s South Side community is a classic working classic neighborhood that grew when  German, Irish, Polish, Italian communities moved to the neighborhood to fill the mines and factories. The neighborhood hosts Scranton’s longest and most intact historic business along Pittston, which is complemented by a small business district (Cedar) a couple blocks away. Scranton’s withering economy at the turn of the 21th century hit the South Side neighborhood particularly hard and the neighborhood started to fall into decay with major drug and prostitutes issues. Thankfully the influx of Hispanics has turned the trajectory of the neighborhood around since the 2010s and new businesses are opening and the neighborhood has avoided large scale abandonment. This is no doubt still a very gritty neighborhood with lots of poorly constructed housing (as much of Scranton is), but there is energy and hope here.

Scranton’s South Side also hosts some of the best urbanity in the City thanks to its large business districts, accessibility to Dwtn, density and walkability, good walkable schools, and affordable housing. For the South side to really take off and be a premiere neighborhood  it needs to clear up and invest in its business districts improving the streetscaping and making more storefronts available. There is also the need for more park amenities, bike infrastructure, better transit access, and a much better tree canopy.

Click here to view my South Side Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

• Good Density
• Convenient access to Dwtn and Scranton University.
• Excellent street grid and small block connectivity.
• Good economic diversity although South Side skews pretty low-moderate income.
• Very racially diverse community with large Hispanic populations in the northside half and more White populations in the southern half. Also good number of Asians and Blacks here.
• Good age diversity thanks to the large Hispanic community with larger families.
• Several walkable schools including two public grade schools, a Catholic grade school and public middle school. Decent ratings.
• Few 1-beds but good # of 2 & 3 bed rentals. 2-beds lease in the low-mid 1Ks and 3-beds lease generally in the mid 1Ks. Even some 4-bed rentals.
• Better retail amenities including a supermarket, many ethnic grocerias, a couple drug stores & family dollars, some boutiques, gift shops, and clothing stores, a hardware store, a couple banks, several dessert joints, a couple floral shops, a bike shop, tons of salons, several churches, and decent access to a Hospital in the next neighborhood.
• Generally a pretty safe community just lots of grid and some blight.
• Some nice homes and interest historic architecture on the main streets (Pittston & Cedar) but neighborhood overall is very gritty.
• Pretty good urban form along Cedar and Pittston, a very long biz district.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* So so public transit access and no bike infrastructure.
* For-sale housing is very affordable but not much diversity. The high end of the market is around 300K.
* Connell Park on the southern edge of the neighborhood is the premier South Side park. Good size and lots of amenities including trails, a public pool, playground, and ball fields. Only a handful of other smaller parks in the neighborhood and a couple of cemeteries.
* Tree canopy is so so.
* Decent cultural amenities including several restaurants (often ethnic) and  several bars. But not much else. Convenient access to all the Dwtn Cultural amenities less than a 5  drive and 20 minute bus ride.
* Limited in-fill. A couple good urban buildings but some strip mall and autocentric development along Washington Ave.
* Sidewalks existing on 85% of streets in the South Side but most residential streets don’t have ADA standard curb cuts although the main streets do. Also some sidewalks on the business districts (Pittson & cedar) are in terrible shape.