Tipping point
May 15, 2008Tuesday morning, many area gas stations raised their prices to just a few cents shy of $4.00 a gallon.
It’s a nearly twenty cent jump from Monday’s prices, and many customers say this is forcing them to change their lifestyle.
We’ve gotten used to gas prices taking 10-, 15- or even 20-cent jumps, but there is still something about that $4-a-gallon figure, isn’t there? One of my co-workers said that for the first time when she pulled into a gas station, she actually felt like crying. She’s a part-timer and lives some distance away. She says that at some point, she’ll have to quit, because driving to and from work will cost her more than she gets paid.
May 15, 2008 at 9:03 am
Kinda makes me yearn for those days when Henry Disston (yeah, the saw guy) had his factory along the Delaware river in what is now NE Philly.
When the saw business bottomed out during the Civil War, he turned to making metal fasteners and hardware for the military, and then went back to making saws after the conflict.
He actually built HOMES (entire neighborhoods) and a school for his employees (as well as provided amenities like grocery stores and clothiers) JUST SO the people wouldn’t have to trek so far and not be able to show up for work.
And this type of activity happened across the USA during the industrial age.
Well, his factory has LONG since vanished (I remember climbing all over the huge grinding stones left behind), the stores have vanished, and the former employee housing is mostly ALL section 8, as people moved about 30 minutes OUTSIDE of Philly (where all the jobs seemed to move). Thankfully, the school is still going strong.
But even now…people HAVE to travel (on average 20-40 minutes) to get to work.
Gone nearly all the “neighborhood” places to work for the most part.
Gee…you think America did this to herself?
Maybe we should ask CHINA.
B.G.
May 15, 2008 at 10:07 am
He actually built HOMES (entire neighborhoods) and a school for his employees (as well as provided amenities like grocery stores and clothiers) JUST SO the people wouldn’t have to trek so far and not be able to show up for work.
They didn’t do it to reduce travel time. They did it because there simply wasn’t any available housing. Many companies decided to do that.
And I’m not talking just about “Sixteen Tons”, either. Harvester Park was built by IHC as employee housing for the truck plant. When I was going to the University of Dayton, I lived in off-campus housing that was originally built by NCR as employee housing.
Churches have traditionally provided a parsonage near the church, and farm owners have provided a farmhouse on the farm because they knew it was important to have someone keeping an eye on things - but factories generally hire watchmen to provide that function.
People didn’t move away from Philadelphia to the suburbs because there was no work in Philadelphia. The workers went to the suburbs first, and the jobs followed. Once the jobs moved to Bucks and Montgomery county, the workers moved another county out. There’s a housing boom right now in northern Lancaster County, and most of the new growth consists of people driving to Montgomery or Bucks county.
Of course, not every employer hasn’t moved away from Philadelphia. Lincoln moved to Philadelphia, because there wasn’t sufficient corruption and grime in Fort Wayne to make life interesting.
May 15, 2008 at 10:52 am
Hey Harl..”Lincoln moved to Philadelphia, because there wasn’t sufficient corruption and grime in Fort Wayne to make life interesting.”
I would respectfully submit, maybe they just didn’t look hard enough in Ft Wayne to find it! Heh Heh Heh…