Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a four-part series about actions needed to address challenges pertaining to the future of

The city of Warren is the principal municipality driving the success, or failure, of the entire Warren County-wide community. Serious challenges lay ahead. The outcomes will determine the future for all who live, work, and do business here.

Many people do not appreciate the importance and specialness that Warren held in the early 20th Century. The Warren community, once one of the most significant and prosperous places in the nation, is today staring directly at continuing and accelerating decline. We must not permit this.

The population of the city of Warren peaked in the year 1940 at 14,891. Today the population is just 9,404, a 37% decline, and it is continuing to fall. At the same time, the population of Pennsylvania increased 31%, and the population of the US increased a whopping 151%.

Population losses in Warren coupled with other demographic trends are very disturbing. As the local population ages, the birth rate and death rates are going in opposite directions, and there is little in-migration. Furthermore, far too many young people and retirees are leaving the city and county altogether to seek new opportunities elsewhere. They have taken along with themselves vast amounts of wealth and productive capacity. The losses are not being replaced, and all the municipalities are increasingly stressed.

Declining population and wealth are not the only reasons for distress in the city of Warren and beyond. Other factors compound it. Central among these is that Warren finds itself providing significant services to the larger community. These services directly benefit those who reside outside of Warren largely at the expense of city taxpayers. The services include police, fire, and emergency medical response by the city outside its boundaries when called upon to do so. Also, since Warren is the core municipality of the county-wide community there is substantial consumption of services by nonresidents when they are within the city limits for employment, business, health care, library usage, higher education, visiting, and other purposes.

The city also houses and supports many key tax-exempt properties and organizations that serve the entire Warren County-wide community. These include the hospital, library, churches, and others, that consume services directly and that attract large numbers of nonresidents who also consume services.

To be clear, this writing is not a call for the surrounding boroughs and townships to directly pick up the tab for the costs of city services through their present taxbases. Like the city, the boroughs and townships do not have the resources. This is a call for new arrangements achieved through innovative intergovernmental approaches. The collaborations would improve services, produce efficiencies, generate new revenues, and advance community and economic growth.

Some of these changes are already emerging, but much more remains to be done.

We must act now to better place everyone ‘on the same team’ and produce greater equity in distributing the costs of public services. This can only be accomplished through large-scale, goal directed intergovernmental cooperation and community partnerships.

Two significant recommendations we should immediately advocate to our Pennsylvania legislators to address at the state level are to:

¯ Implement creative new enabling legislation for broader and more effective use of the areawide government mechanism in the PA Constitution (Article IX, Section 7); and

¯ Make legislative and policy changes and provide better incentives to enable county and municipal governments to act together, cooperate in the provision of public services, and make functional and structural changes for improving services. Toward this end there should be systematic review of all laws, policies, and practices that empower, impact or in any way influence our local governments, with an eye toward addressing the central question of “What changes are needed to better permit and encourage local governments to coordinate and cooperate in the provision of services and to better position our communities for future growth and enhanced quality of life?”

If we do these things, we can transform ourselves and our communities. Otherwise, Warren, and many others across Pennsylvania, will continue to flounder.

The next installment of this series will address additional actions that can be undertaken to bolster the City of Warren and support the entire Warren County-wide community.

Alan Kugler helps citizens, public officials, and civic leaders to improve community vitality and quality of life through collaboration backed by sound information for policy decision-making.