Dunmore, PA- An Inner Ring Scranton Suburb with an Irish History

Dunmore has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1835. It gets its name from the large number of Ireland immigrants who were attracted by the area’s coal mining opportunities. Dunmore is a village in County Galway.  The borough was officially incorporated in 1862. Thanks to a coal mining boom in the area Dunmore quickly grew to 4,300 residents by 1870. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dunmore continued to experience significant industrial growth and added new immigrants, particularly from Italy and Eastern Europe. Dunmore reached 12,500 residents in 1900 and peaked at 23K in 1930. The decline of the coal industry in the mid-20th century led to economic challenges and Dunmore dipped to 14K. Both thanks to its diversifying economy and convenient location on the edge of Scranton Dunmore’s population has stabilized recently.

Along with its strong sense of community Dunmore’s strength lies in typically suburban amenities of good parks, quality schools, and safety. Dunmore hosts a great array of economic diversity with an array of housing options and lots of affordable rentals. Dunmore’s economy has also been bolstered by Marywood University, a college of 3,500 students. While Dunmore has decent retail and cultural amenities the urban form of its two business districts (Blakely and Drinker) is fragmented with too many chunks being devoted to autocentric uses. I would particularly like more attention paid to building up the place making where these road meet as it is the heart of Dunmore. Dunmore also needs better tree cover, bike infrastructure, a central supermarket, and mixed-use infill along its main streets.

Click here to view my Dunmore album on Flickr

URBAN STREGNTHS:

• Excellent access to dwtn as with a 7 min drive and 10-15 minute bus ride.
• Generally pretty good sidewalks and ADA infrastructure but several streets without sidewalks on the northeast corner in the 1960s & 1970s development.
• Excellent economic diversity.
• Overall a very safe community.
• Some attractive historic homes on Green Ridge and surrounding streets but genially Dunmore has very working housing type aesthetics. Dwtn just doesn’t have enough historic fabric left.
• Lots of walkable schools and well rated. Several Catholics schools as well.
• Decent array of small and medium parks spread throughout Dunmore. Also a modest recreation center and a YMCA.
• Rentals are pretty affordable but also plentiful.
• Good for sale diversity with a handful of for sale 1-bed. 2-beds sell anywhere from 85K-275K. 3 & 4 beds sell between 90K-500K. Decent amount of dedicated affordable hsg as well.
• Decent cultural amenities including a good # of restaurants & bars, several cafes and the performing arts at Marywood University a college of 3500 students.
• Decent retail amenities include a couple ethnic groceries, a couple drug stores, several boutiques & consignment stores, a large religious store, a couple florists, a couple banks, a handful of dessert joints & a YMCA, and several churches. Also a walkable post office and public library.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• Public transit is so so. Should be better as an inner ring suburb.
• So so density
• Literally no bike infrastructure here.
• In fill consist of a fair amount of auto centric commercial uses in the biz districts and 1960/1970s suburban homes on the outskirts of Dunmore.
• Okay tree cover overall.
• Supermarket is located outside of the Dunmore core in a shopping mall across the highway with limited pedestrian access.
• The urban form and streetscaping of Dunmore business districts (Blakely and Drinker) leaves much to be desired. Some assemblance of an urban sense of place where these streets cross but it both streets quickly become semi-autocentric corridors.
• Streetscaping is uninspiring.”