This evening finds us winding up our college tour at Bucknell in Lewisburg, PA, the county seat of Union County, which has voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1856 save one, when it plumped for Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party in 1912. It is a very cute town, with 5700 residents and maybe 5 pizzerias right on the main street.
To get here we drove up the Susquehanna River, which really should be beautiful but was marred by pervasive economic decline, manifested in the wide range of porn stores ("lowest prices!") and gentlemen's clubs along the road. Not a happy place. Presumably internet service here is poor.
The contrast between the town and the surrounding area is pretty stark, not dissimilar to the radical break between Johns Hopkins and poor predominantly Black neighborhoods that surround it. Each is both an island in pretty hostile feeling territory and, presumably, an economic engine for the community around it. A heady brew.
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