Are These The 10 Best Philly Suburbs?

Editor’s note:  No surprise that the future tourism mecca of Western Montgomery County is missing from the list.  I guess mini-golf, carousels and train rides aren’t enough to propel a crime infested borough to the top of any great places to live list.  Not sure why the cart is always put before the horse.

Real estate website Movoto.com has compiled a list of the 10 best Philly suburbs.

With nine towns in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey, the site ranked these towns based on many factors such as amenities per capita, standard of living, crime rate, and average commute time to Philly.

Coming in at number one is Devon, which the site says has the highest graduation rate, a median income of more than $142,000 per year, and is the “safest place for miles near Philadelphia.”

Six towns in Montgomery County made the list, while the rest were in Chester, Delaware and Camden counties.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/philadelphia-real-estate/Are-these-the-10-best-Philly-suburbs.html#6shZWa03k79QQEqc.99

Home Values In Philadelphia Region Tumble, Analysis Shows

Full recovery continued to elude the Philadelphia region’s residential real estate market in the first quarter of this year, as the value of a typical home fell 4.9 percent from the last three months of 2013.

University of Pennsylvania economist Kevin Gillen, who analyzed data from 11 area counties for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach, said Tuesday that with the latest decline, average house prices in the region are “barely above the post-bubble bottom they hit two years ago.”

While sales of 11,000 houses regionally was 10 percent above the same quarter of 2013, the numbers are 41 percent below what Gillen considers the “normal historic average.”

Suburban price declines were greater than the city’s during the quarter – 5.3 percent versus 4 percent, Gillen said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/real_estate/20140528_Home_values_in_region_tumble__analysis_shows.html#xlQrIJ1HYPRfOJyx.99

Suburban Renewal: Who Needs Center City?

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Chester County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Teleflex Corp. responded to American industrial decline by selling or closing down its old car, boat and factory controls plants. It shrank its workforce by half (and by two-thirds in the U.S.)., and switched to the medical-devices business. It worked, if the stock market is the measure: The company has been trading at record levels.

Next step was to do something about its old Limerick Township headquarters. “We were in a large campus, off the main thoroughfares, where we had manufacturing facilities for the now-divested operations, reflective of our previous era,” says Cam Hicks, Teleflex’s vice president for global HR.

“We wanted a place where we could get access to new talent, and position ourselves for growth, while increasing our visibility, without a net increase in commute time” for headquarters workers scattered through Philadelphia’s western suburbs.

Last week the company moved into its new digs at CrossPoint, a Tredyffrin office park near US 202, which has itself been recycled out of foreclosure. To build the center, 1970s-era buildings at the former Valley Forge Office Center have been connected by a glass atrium packed with amenities that office workers used to have to drive off to find, and updated from an earlier, Monopoly-board vision of suburban business, which set office parks here, restaurants up there, recreation over that way.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/teleflexx.html#B7PsK8G3yq2ss74E.99

How Heroin Abuse Has Become Epidemic

Editor’s note:  And the last two paragraphs are about a heroin death in Pottstown!  Wake up borough officials!!!!! Stop denying this problem exists! The man who robbed National Penn Bank on High Street was a heroin addict and high at the time.  It’s not a “bump in the road” or a “perception problem” as your soon-to-be ex-mayor likes to tell people.

Heroin-related overdoses jumped nearly 250 percent between 2010 and 2012 in Philadelphia and, depending on how they are measured, slightly more in Montgomery County. In Kentucky, they quadrupled in just one year.

Experts say the culprit is actually prescription painkillers. Abuse of the expensive narcotics leads to tolerance – and cravings for more and more. Heroin is the cheap and more powerful alternative.

Experts point to a series of events that began when the Food and Drug Administration in 1997 proposed easing the way for advertising of prescription medications on broadcast television, which almost no other country does as freely. Industry spending on direct-to-consumer advertising rose tenfold in five years. Prescriptions written for opioid painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin soon rose more than 500 percent.

“As a culture, we are just very used to, ‘You have a problem, get a prescription,’ ” said Jay Unick, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Social work, who studies how public policies affect behavioral health outcomes.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20131107__We_lost_an_entire_generation__to_heroin.html#oec76sPDSpAZbJT2.99

Giant Food Stores To Acquire 16 Genuardi’s Family Markets In Philadelphia Area

Image via Wikipedia

Giant Food Stores, LLC, is making a competitive push into the suburban Philadelphia market.

The Carlisle-based chain announced Thursday it has entered into an agreement to acquire 16 Genuardi’s Family Markets in the Philadelphia area for $106 million.

The transaction is expected to close over the next six months at which point the ownership will be transferred from Safeway Inc. and the stores converted into Giant Food Stores.

Read more: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/01/giant_food_stores_to_acquire_1.html

RELATED STORY

Royersford, Norristown and Exton Genuardi’s closing!

http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120105/NEWS01/120109752

SEPTA Replacing Aging Passenger Rail Cars

Image via Wikipedia

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is spending $274 million to replace 120 passenger cars in their commuter rail system.

73 of these new cars will replace ones built in the 1960’s!!!  The first three new cars went on their maiden voyage this morning.

The new Silverliner V rail cars are being partially built in South Korea and finished in Philly.  The new cars have better air-conditioning and heating systems, wider doors, wider aisles, larger windows and wheelchair areas.  All 120 cars should be in service by mid 2011.