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Community Adjustment to a Major Plant Closure: A Case Study of Berwick, Pennsylvania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Roger Beck  and
J. Dean Jansma
Roger Beck
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University
J. Dean Jansma
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University
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Extract

In recent years, rural development has become an increasingly important domestic issue. External diseconomies such as congestion, water and air pollution, transportation problems have underscored the gravity of this issue. One proposed strategy of coping with this issue is that of promoting growth in existing small cities and towns in nonmetropolitan areas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1974 , pp. 135 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

1/

This paper is based on a study conducted by William A. Lipovsky. For additional information on this study see Lipovsky's master's thesis entitled, “A Nonmetropolitan Community's Adjustment to Economic Change: A Case Study of Berwick, Pennsylvania: 1960-1970” (M.S. Thesis, The Pennsylvania State University, 1973).

References

2/ The study area was defined to include not only the central area of Berwick but its surrounding environs, including the Boroughs of Briar Creek and Nescopeck and the Townships of Briar Creek, Mifflin, South Centre, Salem, and Nescopeck. The 1970 population of the study area was 24,089–or approximately 8,030 households.Google Scholar

3/ These average wage and salary figures were developed employing a statistical technique of weighted averages, by D. K. Smith, N. B. Gingrich, and J. D. Jansma in Pennsylvania Manufacturing Statistics for 1965 by Four-Digit Standard Industrial Classification Code and by County, (A.E. & R.S. No. 71, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 1968), pp. 1-15.Google Scholar

4/ The money wages needed in 1970 to attain real wage rate levels of 1960 was computed as 6,374 dollars.Google Scholar

5/ Since the major emphasis of the study was the workers in the study area since 1960, these 31 respondents were asked one additional question and then the interview was terminated. This question was designed to determine what factors motivated the worker to enter the Berwick labor force. In general, the major reasons and percentages were: new entrants to labor force, six percent; better employment possibilities, 14 percent; transferred to area by company, five percent; social and recreation atmosphere, five percent; and other, one percent. For a more detailed evaluation, see Lipovsky thesis cited earlier.Google Scholar