LANCASTER PA – A federal official on Thursday (Oct. 27, 2011) indicated that one set of lamentable numbers in Pottstown and other municipalities – a declining supply of jobs, a similarly declining tax base, a rise in federally subsidized housing, and a perhaps corresponding increase in the flight of middle class families – could be blamed on another set of digits: their zip codes.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan decried what he called the “tyranny of the zip code,” in which economic, blight and infrastructure problems are concentrated in specific areas, usually small towns and cities identified by only one or two Postal Service codes.

Donovan was the featured speaker during Thursday’s Building One Pennsylvania meeting in downtown Lancaster, organized by several southeastern Pennsylvania leaders including government officials, clergy, and community activists and attended by several hundred people. Among them was a contingent of six Pottstown officials and residents, the Roots of Revitalization blog reported Friday (Oct. 28).

Small municipalities like Pottstown cannot revitalize without working families and a middle-class tax base, Donovan acknowledged to the crowd. Roots of Revitalization said the secretary discussed the Obama administration’s efforts to more evenly “redistribute lower socio-economic clients, who receive welfare monies, to more towns” within Montgomery County and elsewhere.

• Read an article by author Teri Jensen-Sellers, titled “Blighter Fighters!” and published Friday by the Roots of Revitalization blog, here.

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