Last year, I posted a question on the discussion board for the Facebook group of about 8,700 Penn State alumni and was shocked by the response.
I asked “What would it take for someone you know to move back to State College?”
I followed the question with a link to a survey that I, my colleagues and the State College Redevelopment Authority were using to learn if people were interested in moving back to town.
Their answers were clear. In order, respondents loved…
- Our walkable downtown
- It was the home of Penn State
- It was a great place to raise a family
- The quality schools
- The outdoor recreation
Since you’re reading this on StateCollege.com, these answers probably don’t shock you. But the ranking might?
It surprised me that a walkable downtown was the No. 1 reason people saw our town as special. It even beat Penn State!
I totally take our walkable downtown for granted after living here for almost seven years. But when I thought back to when I first moved back, the walkable downtown really was a huge selling point.
The next question we asked was what was stopping people from moving here?
- Restaurants targeting the 25+ crowd
- Community events (that are professionally produced)
- A downtown designed for kids
- A startup incubator
- More outdoor programming
I mostly see this as a perception problem.
I believe our restaurant scene is going through a renaissance that would surprise many of the survey respondents. I also know we have many wonderful community events and a great startup scene.
Could downtown be more kid-friendly and would more outdoor programming be great? Absolutely. I hope we build in that direction.
There are also at least three important problems missing on this list:
- Not enough jobs
- Not much affordable housing
- A lack of diversity
The reason these are missing is because we are aware those are big issues in our community. We wanted to learn what else people saw as barriers in addition to jobs, housing and diversity.
That said, jobs, affordable housing and diversity were mentioned in many of the comments.These are real problems we need to address in order to grow and require our entire community to solve.
My initial Facebook post received 119 comments and—in addition to many other sources—helped garner more than 400 survey responses in just under two weeks.
We worked with Trevor Calabro, a local user experience expert, who calculated that we needed about 100 responses to draw data-driven conclusions. From a statistical standpoint, we were solid. But from an emotional standpoint, the survey showed a passion for this town that would surprise even the most fervent resident.
Any doubt I had that State College was still carried in the hearts of former residents, was erased that day.
Our target audience for the survey were Penn State and State College Area High School graduates between the ages of 25 and 45 who do not currently live in Centre County.
The reason for targeting this audience is threefold. One, our strategy is to take one audience at a time. Two, professionals early in their careers still have decades ahead of them to impact economic development. And three, our town is lacking in young professionals and we wanted to understand why.
So do people want to move back?
Yes.
About one in five said they would consider moving back to State College in the next five years. If you do the math of all the PSU and State High grads between the years of 1995 and 2015, that represents about 17,000 people, not including their families.
If 5% of that audience moved here, that’s 850 people. Assuming an average of three people per family, that’s an additional 2,550 residents and would boost our population by about 6%.
Those additional residents would contribute to the tax base, support local businesses and add diversity to our community in important ways.
Will more people also mean more problems? That’s a possibility. But only if we allow that to happen as a community by not talking and preparing for it.
If we strive to welcome these new residents, involve them into our community and continue to support them, I see a tremendous upside.
What do you see? Let me know in the comments.
Brad Groznik is an assistant teaching professor in Penn State’s Engineering Entrepreneurship program. He is also part of a team launching RediscoverStateCollege.com. All opinions are his own.
