A DISTRESSING REPORT

THE NAME Glen Lyon, a community south of Wilkes-Barre, won't ring any bells. And that surely is true of tiny Crucible, located in Greene County in the southwest corner of the state.

These two communities have the distinction - if that's the right word - of being the most distressed in Pennsylvania, according to a recent report from the Economic Interest Group, a Washington think tank.

Where's Philadelphia on this list? It's there - right near the top. Of the city's 46 ZIP codes, 16 have distress scores of 80 or above.

The DCI (Distressed Communities Index) draws on recent census data and defines "distressed" based upon seven factors, among them: the percentage of people 25 and older without high school degrees, the housing vacancy rate, the percentage of those 16 and older who are not working, the poverty rate and average income. It also looks at the growth (or lack thereof) of jobs and businesses in an area.

The group used the census data on each of the factors and came up with a single score on a 1 to 100 scale for each ZIP code and county in America. The lower the score, the better.

Glen Lyon and Crucible have a score of 99.4. That's a lot of distress.

We all know Philadelphia is no stranger to the witch's brew of poverty, joblessness, vacant housing, and other factors that contribute to distress. But the DCI report reminds us we are not alone.

While 400,000 people live in poverty in the city, are an additional 1.2 million poor people are in the rest of the state.

And while Philadelphia County has a distress score of 79.2, two counties - tiny Forest County and Fayette County, both in western Pennsylvania, had higher scores.

Looking at communities across the state with distress scores over 80 is a journey through small towns with unfamiliar names: North Braddock, Bobtown, Cokeburg, Black Lick, Markeysburg, Smicksburg, Star Junction and Roulette.

Look at a map of Pennsylvania and you will see that a lot of counties with high distress scores are clustered in the western part of the state. These are counties whose prosperity was built on coal, steel and lumber. Most of these industries are long gone and the communities that relied on them haven't found replacements. So, the population ages, young people leave and the local economy remains stagnant.

In Philadelphia, we have a perverse sort of civic pride when it comes to state government. Our pitch is that our problems are the worst (so give us a bigger share of money). As this latest report proves, that is not the case.

It also highlights the neglect of the state to help these areas lower their distress. They need jobs, they need support for their schools - and their burdened local taxpayers - as much as we do.

What the numbers tell us is that communities across the state are sinking into the morass of poverty, joblessness and the ills they breed.

In Harrisburg, though, the Republicans who rule the Legislature are fixated on lower taxes and the shrinking of state government, placing greater burden on local government to pay more for education and social services.

These legislators aren't ignoring Philadelphia and its problems. They are ignoring the problems of hundreds of counties, towns and villages, often within in their districts.