1. Pennsylvania Municipalities _ Need to Balance Housing Supply WIth Demand

Many Pennsylvania municipalities have had a population decline. From Blight to Delight. Sharon PA had a 29,000 person census in 1950. The 2016 census estimate by the Census Bureau was 14,040. The principle contribution to the population loss was the end of major employer Westinghouse in the early 1980's. Then Sharon Steel collapsed in 1991 only to be reborn as a shadow of itself as only a rolling mill. The jobs in the melt shop were gone. Along the way there were major changes at the tube mills. The point is that the need for the housing stock for 29,000 people ended. Consequently, Sharon Pennsylvania has a total of 7559 housing units. 6055 are occupied.  There are 1504 vacant housing units.  55.6 % of the housing units were built before 1949. 40% were built earlier than 1939. (Census Bureau data as of 2016). That's the data and reason for blight and abandoned housing structures. The challenge is for the City of Sharon to adjust the supply of housing to better match the supply. How to go from blight to delight is the challenge. Forward Sharon.