The Pennsylvania We’re Becoming

Pennsylvania is in trouble. Not dramatic, breaking-news trouble. Slow, structural, hard-to-reverse trouble.

We’re getting older. We’re getting smaller. We’re losing working-age families faster than we’re attracting them. And too many of our leaders are still pretending we can cut our way to growth, delay the hard choices, or wait for someone else to fix it.

That’s not a strategy. It’s surrender masked in pragmatism.

I’ve seen the consequences up close. I’ve carried them. As an EMT and firefighter, I’ve been inside homes where older Pennsylvanians are aging alone in places that weren’t built for them. I’ve watched local governments fight to keep the basics going—roads, schools, public safety—with tighter budgets and fewer people to serve. And I’ve sat at the table in regional meetings where everyone knows the facts but no one wants to move first.

This is what decline looks like. Quiet. Uneven. Easy to ignore—until it’s not.

But we don’t have to accept it.

We can still build something better. But we need to stop spinning our wheels and start being honest about what it will take.

What’s Really Happening

Pennsylvania’s population is flatlining. More people are dying than being born. Fewer people are moving here than leaving. And the people we’re losing most are the ones in their prime working and child-raising years.

This isn’t just about numbers. It’s about what those numbers mean.

When a town shrinks, it doesn’t just lose tax revenue. It loses teachers. EMTs. Small businesses. Civic energy. And it becomes harder to keep the lights on both literally and figuratively.

Meanwhile, the population that remains is getting older and more expensive to serve. That means more strain on hospitals, emergency services, transit, and long-term care. And we haven’t designed our communities to handle that. Most of our homes weren’t built for aging in place. Most of our systems weren’t built for population loss.

And still, we act like we have time.

We don’t. Not if we want to grow again.

What We Can’t Afford to Do Anymore

We cannot tax-cut our way out of this.

Some states will try. They’ll slash income taxes, gut services, and call it freedom. But what kind of freedom is that—for the parent who can’t find childcare, for the town that can’t fill its police shifts, for the elderly woman waiting 40 minutes for an ambulance?

The race to the bottom has short-term winners, usually the wealthy who can afford to opt out, but it weakens everything the rest of us rely on. Over time, even the winners lose as other states and other nations move forward.

We also can’t keep betting on federal funding that’s inconsistent, politically fragile, and often misses the real needs of local communities. If we’re serious about building a better future, we need to plan for it ourselves.

And we can’t keep turning regional challenges into zero-sum fights. Rural vs. urban. Suburbs vs. cities. Young vs. old. It’s lazy politics, and it gets us nowhere.

What Building the Future Actually Looks Like

We need more housing. We need homes that older adults can downsize into, that young families can afford, and that match the real needs of the people already here. We need zoning reform, smarter development, and public investment in the infrastructure that makes new housing viable in the areas that are already built out and near the jobs and amenities people need and want.

We need to modernize our transit systems, not just for convenience, but to connect people to work, healthcare, and opportunity. That includes our mid-sized towns and rural counties, not just the big-city hubs.

We need to fund education like we’re trying to win the next generation. Because we are. Great schools are economic development. Period.

And we need to staff our public safety systems, not with rhetoric, but with real investment. EMS, fire, police, mental health response, they all need people, equipment, and coordination. You can’t “do more with less” forever.

Rebuilding Is Harder but Why We Still Have to Do It

We also need to stop comparing ourselves to states still in “new growth” mode. Pennsylvania is already built. We’re not laying roads through empty farmland or building schools on open lots.

We’re rebuilding what’s already here and that’s harder.

We’re working around aging infrastructure, out-of-date zoning, fragmented jurisdictions, and tight fiscal margins. We’re not designing from scratch, we’re adapting what was built 70 or 100 years ago to meet today’s needs.

The energy is different. The costs are higher. The complexity is greater.

But this is what mature states must do. We don’t need to envy places that are still expanding outward. We need to invest in making what we have work again and work better. That’s what resilience and innovation looks like.

Regional Collaboration Has to Be Part of the Answer

We also need to stop thinking every municipality can, or should, do everything on its own.

When populations shrink and costs rise, the only way to maintain strong public services is by working together. That means sharing services, pooling talent, and aligning our infrastructure investments across boundaries. Whether it’s public safety, stormwater, solid waste, or transportation, we can’t keep duplicating systems just to say we did it ourselves.

This isn’t about consolidation. It’s about coordination. It’s about delivering better, more reliable services to the people who need them, without bankrupting local budgets.

In many places, local governments that once competed now co-invest in equipment, training, and infrastructure. They’re building stronger systems with fewer resources because they’re smart enough to act like a region instead of acting alone.

That’s not just efficient. It’s the only way forward.

A New Political Standard

This isn’t about ideology. It’s about function. It’s about whether our institutions still work, and whether we have the courage to fix them when they don’t.

That means budgeting with long-term responsibility, not short-term wins. It means being honest about what it takes to deliver public services. It means forming regional partnerships that get results instead of waiting on Harrisburg or Washington to solve everything.

We don’t need silver bullets. We need people willing to do the boring, persistent, necessary work of governing. And we need to stop electing people who are more interested in slogans than solutions.

The Call

This is the moment to choose: manage the decline, or build the future.

We still have the assets. Strong towns. Smart people. Deep roots. A culture of public service and civic pride. But we need to move, and we need to move together.

Because decline doesn’t announce itself. It happens quietly, over years, and by the time it’s obvious, it’s usually too late.

We’re not there yet. But we will be unless we act.

Let’s stop pretending things will fix themselves. Let’s start rebuilding what’s already slipping away. Let’s be the place that chose to grow, to adapt, and to lead when other places chose to shrink.

That’s the Pennsylvania I believe in.

---

About Andrew Flynn

Andrew is a Mt. Lebanon commissioner, public finance and policy expert, volunteer firefighter, and community advocate committed to building safer, more resilient, and better-connected neighborhoods. Through public service and hands-on experience, Andrew works every day to make a positive impact in our community.

Keep Exploring

Stay informed with the latest updates and news on Andrew’s work and campaign by visiting the News section. Want to learn more about Andrew’s background and values? Head over to Meet Andrew. Ready to make a difference? Find out how you can take action and get involved on the Get Involved page.