Pennsylvania
Erie
Fig. 1. Lake Erie, from Presque Isle State Park. Photograph by author, April 3, 2021.
At one point, I tentatively decided I would like to move to Erie. The winter of 2022-2023, however, in which Erie was subject to significant snowfall—this can be daunting to deal with, from shoveling to driving—while Pittsburgh had hardly any, suggested to me that for at least as long as I am stuck driving for Uber or Lyft, this would be a bad idea.
Erie is back on the agenda. Pittsburgh driving is, in some ways, getting worse,[1] I think as drivers return to the road following the pandemic, and I worry about my car on these unbelievably crappy roads. Even after a couple brutal winters, the roads in Erie are far better overall; I am not continuously wondering if the navigation app is taking me down something horrible.
And there is a certain haunting quality to Lake Erie that I find enormously attractive and that piques my interest in the Great Lakes region generally.
Gene Ware, “From settlement to city: A history of early Erie and how it and the county grew,” Erie Times-News, March 17, 2023, https://www.goerie.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2023/03/17/erie-pa-history-presque-isle-erie-triangle-waterford-turnpike/70009079007/
Jamison Hixenbaugh, “Erie County Awaiting Results of FCC Broadband Access Map Challenge,” Erie News Now, June 16, 2023, https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/49089808/erie-county-awaiting-results-of-fcc-broadband-access-map-challenge
Valerie Myers, “The truth about slavery in Erie County in the 19th century,” Erie Times-News, February 12, 2024, https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2024/02/12/erie-pa-black-history-month-slavery-enslavement-abolition-history-census-fugitive-hamot-grubb/72393483007/
A. J. Rao, “Erie County Executive Brenton Davis uses police-like badge to ID himself. Is it appropriate?” Erie Times-News, April 11, 2024, https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2024/04/11/erie-pa-county-executive-brenton-davis-uses-police-like-badge-to-id-himself/73272067007/
- [1]David Benfell, “Reckless driving as routine,” Not Housebroken, January 28, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/01/25/reckless-driving-as-routine/↩