The only problem was, they were conducting them right out of the cities and into newly-created suburbs. And with the mass exodus of people came the exodus of jobs and economic development. Perhaps no city in America suffered as great a loss of population and manufacturing jobs than Philadelphia. Many scholars point to the Interstate Highway System as a major contributor to the devastation felt in the City of Brotherly Love. Obviously, areas like ours are quite different than Philadelphia, but there are parallels that must be addressed.
Highways run in two directions, and very often they seem to be running out of town.
At a time when it is becoming next to impossible to revitalize our sagging business districts in small towns all over rural Pennsylvania, the continued construction of bypasses and highways could be a death blow to our efforts. In the past, crowds of people would flock to small towns to buy everything from work clothes, to pharmaceuticals, to hardware and furniture. In my hometown of Houtzdale, there were literally dozens of retail stores, selling soup to nails. And in addition to these stores, physicians and dentists found it convenient to locate in downtown areas, since it guaranteed access to many potential patients. But as the trend toward strip malls and super-stores grew, our local businesses took a terrible beating.