I have no idea about these hellish suburbs people who live in metros love to condemn, but where I live everyone knows everyone because they introduce themselves when they move in. My 84 year old neighbor and I share a beer when we've both done a bit of yard work and need a break, and he tells me stories of what is was like here in the 60s when the houses were built. Another neighbor snowblows driveways around him just to be nice and refuses money for gas, so we sneak gas cans in his garage when he isn't looking.
[WS:] I do not think that central PA is a typical example - it has a lot of old tightly knit and stable small town communities. But these are small towns that attract wealthy professionals from Philly or New York precisely because of their quaint character. They are not the suburbs that surround Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Washington, or even Harrisburg.
I sort of lived (on weekends) in a Harrisburg suburb for five years, and the place is absolutely dreadful. My major complaint was transportation - one had to drive even to buy a pack of cigarettes (metaphorically speaking, I do not smoke) and traffic was pretty bad. My wife doubled as a cab driver to schlep her kids around, because there was no public transit and most of their friends lived miles away.
There was no sense of community whatsoever - nobody knew anyone, nobody spoke to anyone, even their next door neighbors. The only signs of life in the neighboring houses you could observe were people dragging their fat asses on law mowers every weekend.
The architecture was butt-ugly - cinder block big box stores and cookie cutter residences whose the most salient feature was a garage door, as if the car was the king and humans were the mere appendages who, like the servants, would enter through the back door. This sense of ugliness was heightened by a stark contrast with the Victorian era architecture still found in PA towns.
The staunch conservatism and jingoism of the locals made this place even worse - the ubiquitous flags, right wing bumper stickers and support our troops ribbons, churches veteran lodges, retired military, hunters, yuck. The whole experience was absolutely dreadful. Of course, people live there and like it, but this is definitely not my cup of tea.
Wojtek