Will the welcoming committee don white hoods and burn crosses?

August 22, 2011 5:43 PM

How's life in Lancaster, PA for a non-white person?

I'm looking at few companies in the Harrisburg area that I may send my resume to (I have an interview for one so far.) Thing is, it'll require a move on my part. City life is not for me, so I don't want to live in the city proper (I'd also imagine the cost of living is sky-high.) Lancaster would be a tolerable commute for me at 30-35 minutes.

However, I'm concerned that there may be a lack of diversity in the area. I've visited it once when I was a kid, and there weren't too many people of my family's skin color around back then. As a single woman who will be living alone, should I take a chance or look for work elsewhere? Are there other areas I should look?

posted by Anima Mundi to Home & Garden (19 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh, forgot to mention - I'm talking about commuting by train from Lancaster to Harrisburg.
posted by Anima Mundi at 5:48 PM on August 22, 2011

FWIW, "Census: More Hispanics than Amish in Lancaster County" includes this information:

"In the city of Lancaster, nearly two out of every five city residents identify their ethnicity to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and other Latin American countries.

"About half of the county's Latinos live in the city. The city's Latino population grew to 23,329 in the last census, an increase of 35 percent."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:48 PM on August 22, 2011

Where exactly where you in Lancaster? Or, well, how old are you?

As of the 2010 census, the city was 55.2% White, 16.3% Black or African American, 0.7% Native American, 3.0% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian, and 5.8% were two or more races. 39.3% of the population were of Hispanic or Latino ancestry.

posted by SMPA at 6:06 PM on August 22, 2011

Although I myself am not black, I've spent a fair amount of time visiting Lancaster in recent months and I do recall seeing black people, as well as other races, there.
posted by wondermouse at 6:20 PM on August 22, 2011

Please check your MeFi mail. Also, the presence of Franklin & Marshall College guarantees at least a small number of international students and professors.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:35 PM on August 22, 2011

Oooh, and just now reading your full title: NO. Lancaster doesn't work like that. I believe that there is also a small Asian population, enough for a few good restaurants and a big Asian grocery. My hazy recollection is that the Asian community in Lancaster took root because of resettled Hmong; among them were many excellent seamstresses who got along just fine with the ladies of quilt country, resulting in new friendships and a new strain of beautiful quilted textiles.

P.S. Things to do. And even more things to do.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:42 PM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gah, don't move to Lancaster. Not because of any potential racism or whatever, but because there is literally nothing to do!

I grew up in the western suburbs of Philly and have made many trips to the Lancaster area, as well as going to college (briefly) in Gettysburg. Lancaster is a great place to visit on a day-trip, but if you a) desire any kind of social life and b) don't want to get bored out of your mind, seriously do NOT move there! (Well, unless you like going hunting or something...)

As far as the Amish community, they are peaceful and accepting, but don't socialize with others outside of their community.

Harrisburg itself is honestly not much of a city. It's actually only the 9th largest city in Pennsylvania. It is physically condensed, but very small. It's practically like living in a suburb. Actually, I think more happened in the suburb I grew up in than happens in Harrisburg. And the city goes practically from city to countryside with no suburbia.

I also have to ask what city you're used to? Just so you get an idea where I'm coming from, I'm used to Philly being the "big city," Philly being the 5th/6th (depending on your source) largest city in the country. If you're used to... something smaller... my comparison might not be valid for you.

But here's a comparison:
Philadelphia:
6 million people
135 square miles of land

Harrisburg:
50 thousand people
8 square miles of land
posted by DoubleLune at 6:43 PM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just to clarify, I'm not bashing Lancaster... it's a great place to visit. Horses and buggies on the road. Shoo fly pie. Paradise.
posted by DoubleLune at 6:47 PM on August 22, 2011

Also, try something like this site to calculate the cost of living there. For example, it tells me the cost of living is 23% less in Harrisburg than in Philadelphia. In fact, checking Apartments.com (not a good site, but it gives an idea), a 1-bedroom apartment in Harrisburg costs less than a studio in Philly. About 1/3 the cost.
posted by DoubleLune at 6:55 PM on August 22, 2011

Sorry, got no dog in the present-day race.
But now Lancaster & race & white people ... 150 years ago ...
Lancaster was the home of Thaddeus Stevens, a radical Republican who chaired the Joint Committee on Reconstruction after the Civil War. Malcolm X said John Brown was a white man worth trusting -- I agree, and I'd add T Stevens. Lookim up.
Lancaster is also near Gettysburg -- a not inconsequential milestone in America's long and tortured race journey.
posted by LonnieK at 6:55 PM on August 22, 2011

I spent some time in Carlisle years ago, it's very pretty, I don't know what it's like now. Dickinson College is there so there are probably good cultural events.
posted by mareli at 7:12 PM on August 22, 2011

I grew up as a brown person about 3 miles from Harrisburg. 20+ years ago, it was unpleasant, but I'm sure today that's much less the case.

Thing is, Lancaster isn't much smaller than Harrisburg, and is (by local standards) pretty far away with no proportionate reduction in cost of living. If you simply want to save some dollars and be outside what little downtown area there is in Harrisburg, there are lots of bedroom communities around Harrisburg and across the Susquehanna river that would be less than half the transit time as Lancaster, with the same or cheaper cost of living.

The west shore of the Susquehanna is still suboptimal for persons of color who aren't Asian, but the east shore communities should have plenty of mixed and non-white people. The area is still conservative, though; if you're used to big-city levels of inclusiveness, you're not gonna find that anywhere in Central PA.
posted by anildash at 7:21 PM on August 22, 2011

n.b. I'm being fairly positive, but the first black family that moved into our Harrisburg suburb (in the late 80s) actually did get a cross burned in their yard. I'm being optimistic by not being harshly critical of the area.
posted by anildash at 7:23 PM on August 22, 2011

Best answer: First off, I went to college in Lancaster and loved the city, the college, and the whole experience. Second, my fiance is from the area and I consequently visit the area fairly often.

Lancaster is by far and away a diverse city, as long as you stay in the city. I remember my college apartment even had its own Crystal Meth dealer on the porch. The downtown "city" part of Lancaster, PA is a great place and you can find people with any type of background. The Chameleon club gets all sorts of great groups in from Philly and New York rappers to local Lancasterian bands trying to make it big.

You do have to be careful when you go out at night, especially since the train station is by some of the worst neighborhoods. If I were you, I would look into getting a car and staying outside of Harrisburg to keep the commute short. It is a short drive to the good Lancasterian night life on the weekends.

That said, most people are genuinely nice and open, but there are several people who still believe the Civil War is not over, even though they are north of the Mason-Dixon line. Feel free to me-mail me with specific questions.

Overall, I would say it would be a great move. It really is an awesome area that does not get that much credit.
posted by Nackt at 7:38 PM on August 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I live in Paradise, Pennsylvania, deep in the heart of Lancaster County. I am white.

I have lived in Philadelphia, New York, and spent most of live living in the suburbs or close to large cities. Lancaster County is, in my experience, no more or less racist than any other place I've lived (New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York).

If you are troubled by the idea of being one of the few non-whites in a very non-white area, then living here can be troubling. A friend of mine was fairly candid with me regarding his experience as an African-American living in Lancaster County. He told me that the hardest part was the infrequency with which he encountered other African-Americans in his daily comings and goings. Your mileage, obviously, would vary.

I have lived here for six years and I am never leaving. My experience has been that the people of Lancaster County are (generally, broad-brush), kind, friendly, neighborly, easygoing, charitable, helpful and wonderful.

I am a former city mouse who is now a country mouse and I love it here.
posted by DWRoelands at 6:22 AM on August 23, 2011

Best answer: I grew up in Hershey, which is about twenty minutes from Harrisburg and thirty from Lancaster. This is my old stomping grounds. A couple of things.

First, this isn't New York, DC, or even Philadelphia. Cost of living downtown is only marginally higher than it is in the 'burbs. Potentially on par or even slightly cheaper if you consider the fact that your commute will be either smaller or non-existent. Really, you can rent a townhouse on 2nd Street in downtown Harrisburg, the part with the bars and restaurants, for well under $1,000. You can do better than that further out, particularly on a $/sq. ft. basis, but not that much better. So if you're making your choice purely on cost, that isn't actually going to help you make your decision.

Second, and again, this isn't New York, DC, or even Philadelphia. You will need a car. Even if you don't drive to work, if you want to do any kind of shopping at all, even for groceries, a car is pretty much required. Neither city is particularly pedestrian or bike friendly. And the mere fact that there's a train station in both Lancaster and Harrisburg does not automatically mean that either'd be convenient. Your office could easily be five or ten blocks from the station in Harrisburg, and there's no telling how far you'd live from the station in Lancaster.

Third, there are also class issues to be concerned about. Lancaster's population is actually more ethnically diverse than the national average, about 16% black and 40% Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican). Harrisburg is actually over 50% black and only 30% white. But those areas also boast poverty levels around 20% of the population. By comparison, the nearby bedroom communities of Hershey, Elizabethtown, and Lititz are well over 90% white and have poverty levels well under 5%. So if you want to spend a lot of time hanging out with other college-educated professionals, or just people who aren't impoverished, you're going spend a lot of time hanging out with white people.

Fourth, and related to the above, if you live anywhere outside the city limits, you'll find the population to be overwhelmingly white. Like, more than 90%. So, sure, 50% of Harrisburg is black, but Harrisburg only has like 50,000 people living inside the city limits, while its metro area is over half a million and only 9.5% black. Lancaster City may be 15% black and 40% Hispanic, but Lancaster County is under 3% black and under 6% Hispanic. I think you'll find that most people don't tend to spend too much time thinking or talking about race or race-related issues, but that may be because they don't really have to. If what you want is to be able to walk down your street and see other people of your non-white racial background... I hate to say it, but that's just not going to happen in that part of the state.

All of that being said, the area is marked by remarkably little in the way of racial tensions. This may have something to do with the fact that the area is so overwhelmingly white, but being racist is still something people are embarrassed to admit. A few years back the KKK wanted to have a rally, and they wound up getting bounced by three or so venues before they finally were able to find someone to take them, grudgingly.* The area may vote like Alabama, but culturally it really isn't. People may notice that you aren't white, but most of them won't really care very much, particularly if you aren't also poor.

Oh, and despite others' suggestions, there is stuff to do here. They've got three craft breweries which sport some pretty awesome beers: Troegs, the Appalachian Brewing Company, and the Lancaster Brewing Company. And that's without taking a road trip. There are at least three more within an hour's drive. As mentioned, 2nd Street in Harrisburg is basically a ten block section of mostly bars and restaurants of a variety of sorts. Place is mobbed most Fridays and Saturdays. The Chameleon Club in Lancaster frequently gets bands out of Philly and New York. They're getting both the Psychedelic Furs and, umm, Hanson in the next little bit, but for example, both Mike Doughty and DJ Shadow have played there fairly regularly. In addition to F&M, there's Elizabethtown College and a Penn State satellite, so there are professors etc. living in the area and a decent amount of the kinds of cultural opportunities afforded by such institutions. Granted, this ain't the University of Pennsylvania or Notre Dame, but it's something. Both Lancaster and Harrisburg have annual Shakespeare in the park festivals, etc.

*I think they finally settled on a government-run fire station which couldn't turn them away because of the First Amendment. I seem to remember that a number of volunteer and/or private stations had done so, as had the VFW.
posted by valkyryn at 6:57 AM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

All of that being said, the area is marked by remarkably little in the way of racial tensions.

I'm gonna assume you're white, by that statement? I certainly got a lot of hard looks as a person of color, especially if i was hand-in-hand with a white girl. Though they'd be more discreet about it today, there's no way that's completely gone away. I concur that explicit racism is out of favor, but the grinding, stressful everyday unaware racism that is much more of a burden is still a non-trivial concern.
posted by anildash at 4:08 PM on August 23, 2011

I concur that explicit racism is out of favor, but the grinding, stressful everyday unaware racism that is much more of a burden is still a non-trivial concern.

A fair point, but I'm given to believe that this true pretty much everywhere. However, I'd be really surprised if Central PA were as bad as many other places in the country, particularly the South but also the Midwest. I also think things have improved a bit over the two decades since you seem to have lived there.
posted by valkyryn at 4:51 PM on August 23, 2011

anildash, things are getting a little better here. I used to drive by the local high school as classes let out for the day, and was gratified to see so many Latino/white couples holding hands and *not caring* who saw them. A high percentage of "Local Births" announcements list parents of differing ethnicities. Another high school has its first Chinese teacher. The Asia Mall in Harrisburg is still pretty small...but it's there. Likewise, Steelton's loss is Harrisburg's gain with the recent move of Tres Hermanos (and yes, we were the only white family in the restaurant). Change here comes slowly when it comes, something my area friends ascribe to their Dutchy stubbornness (their words, not mine), but it is coming. The anti-Obama sentiment at election-time was intense in very uncomfortable ways where I live, but I'll tell you what--when candidate Obama visited Lancaster, the rally was PACKED. And I'm old enough to remember when Bush senior worked the crowd in York, with nowhere near the same enthusiastic attendance and cheering. Many, many people in this area take their religion very seriously, and there is a growing number of Spanish-speaking congregations, and I can think of at least one church with signage in Korean, our near Harrisburg (a little further on up the highway, there's an official sign proclaiming [I paraphrase] that "this stretch of road is sponsored by the Harrisburg Pagan/Wiccan Association" and that tickles me). I think you're absolutely right about the non-trivial burden of everyday quiet racism, but things are getting better slowly, slowly.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:59 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]