The book comes from 120 newspaper columns they took a year to write. It was clear paul intended this, it would work as a book. He was a columnist for the harrisburg patriot in harrisburg evening news for 25 years and wrote 3 million words, said when he retired, he read voraciously. And that is a natural book, they wanted to show off pauls work. It is controversial, harrisburg, it grew from something noticeable. It was controversial, theres a wonderful State Capitol building here. Teddy roosevelt came and said the greatest public building in america, the greatest state capital. And and that was good for harrisburg. Since you listen to the news in philadelphia, in pittsburgh, they will say harrisburg did such and such, they dont mean the city but the state government, that is what it stands for in pennsylvania. This is the state government, doing enough for us who dont live in harrisburg. A fellow said, james carville, political consultant, pennsylvania is pittsburgh on one end, philadelphia on the other end and alabama in the middle. Harrisburg has that controversy that in the middle, the agricultural and conservative and republican and on both ends is thoroughly democratic. That makes harrisburg a controversy too, the major industry in harrisburg has always been government. If it werent for the state capital being here, who knows what harrisburg will be. The river is not deep enough to use for transportation. It is a transportation nexus for railroads and highways. A lot of people have to go through harrisburg one way or another. And half of the property is nontax is about able. And the state capital, it cuts both ways. Railroads and highways and government, there were factories around the turnofthecentury, those of gone away. There was a Steel Company a few miles away, that is just a shadow of its former self nowadays. There were other factories here that made cotton, made nails, made steel, that made iron, those are gone nowadays. That was harrisburg when it was a thriving industrial city, since the 1860s and 70s until the 1940s and 50s. It was painful for the city to be a beneficiary of the progress and yet a victim of the progress too when they built an interstate highway system around the city, highway 76, 81, 83, made it possible to get to the city but made it possible not to live in the city, to live in the suburbs. That cuts both ways for harrisburg, harrisburg has been flooded a number of times, it never flooded the State Capitol building, but it cost money to clean up after those floods especially 19361972. But before 1972, there were 40 some floods in harrisburg, 1972 was the worst of all. The water was 10 feet deep, in the neighborhood alongside the river, that was a disaster for harrisburg but at the same time, a lookup to the neighborhood, they redeveloped, remodeled and improved the older housing and build some new housing, that was a demonstration project to show what the city could do after the floods. There was always the cleanup, the anxiety of another flood, you cant tell the history of the city without the history of the flood. Other problems in harrisburg area, you have to say 3 mile island. They dont call it the harrisburg act, they were careful to make it as precise as possible, follow 3 mile island, not middletown, dont call it harrisburg. That was a challenge. One could argue, it was important politically and important in terms of Public Relations but it didnt hurt the city per se, middletown may have been more prosperous after the accident then before because so many people came into the town and to study the accident, and prescription drugs were more often prescribed, people were nervous. That area will be famous for americas most Famous Nuclear event but it didnt take down the city, didnt take down 3 mile island. One of the reactors was shutdown. The other one is going to be shut down eventually because its license will expire. Theres a lot of publicity associated with 3 mile island. When talking about the actual effects it had an effect on the nuclear industry. America hasnt built any Nuclear Plants in a long time and no doubt that is related to the publicity around tmi and the sense of danger about tmi but if you are looking for the wasteland that followed the axis there is no wasteland. As a matter of fact some people said it may be the safest Nuclear Power plant in America Today because they watch it so closely. I remember hearing about the accident as i was driving to school from philadelphia. Do i keep driving now . Do i go in there . I might as well go, my students were still there and expect me to show up. The school set down temporarily very soon and people were evacuated from the harrisburg area. Governor thornburg was an attorney and engineer, he offered leadership to central pennsylvania at that time and was quite effective. There were others who wound up with a good reputation after the event, because they governed wisely. I dont think there were any obvious villains after the event unless it was the island itself and the producers of power. They had to live with that. You cant talk about harrisburg without talking about the accident, the incident or talking about the funds. In a sense, harrisburg has always been the object of certain historical trends as much as it is the shaper of those historical trends was one of the complaint about harrisburgs selfimages it is not what it could be. As a matter of fact after that pronouncement by donald trump that the city looks like a war zone, one of the citys developers at the present time said this city has too low an opinion of itself. It needs to have an upbeat progressive attitudes about itself because the city will try or not depending on what selfimage is not just the image of other people who live outside the city. Anytime people Say Something about the city, the city listens closely, both as politicians and residentss because it is controversial. It has changed a good deal since the 1950s and 60s. There has always been the possibility for optimism and ambition. And i think now it is pretty good. It was during the reagan administration, steve reed was a proponent of the city and knew the city very well. Current mayor has a sense of reform it is an eager developer. We will see what comes of that. I think a lot of the future of the city will depend on how it handles Race Relations within the city, what all the races do to Work Together to improve the school system, improve the residential base of the city and improve the economy of the city, some people when the city was in dire straits, it should declare bankruptcy but it didnt do that. Got some state help and other help, it is in trouble because there is the problem with the incinerator paul bierce talks about very entertainingly in his book. There are challenges that have to do with harrisburg simply being harrisburg but there has always been a sense of history about harrisburg. The newspaper had historical columnists years before paul beards, the city has been eager to read about itself. Being a historian of harrisburg is not a waste of ones time because there are people who want to read more about the city. There are some websites about harrisburg history that are outstanding websites. On a journalist of the sort, a journal keeper who kept a diary here from 1830 to 1860, that is a terrific document on every day life in the city in the 19th century. A new archaeologist who worked with gis findings and so forth. Outstanding for harrisburg history